Seminar of Physics of the Living State

(The Applied Physics Scientific Section)


2010 Academic Year

Friday, 19 November 2010

Time: 15.30

Oppenheimer Meeting Room, Second Floor, Leonardo Building



Functional nanomaterials for healthcare applications (*)

Sangeeta Kale (**)
Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT), India

(*) Summary. Functional Nanomaterials have been under exhaustive research for past few years, since they have exhibited encouraging promises in almost every industrial sector, especially in the zone of healthcare. In this context, metal and metal-oxide nanoparticles are at the forefront due to our ability to manipulate their functionalities by changing their compositions, synthesis procedures, dopants/co-dopants and particle-size-distributions. Indeed, using these materials, scientific studies have imparted large number of applications to industry and promises to give much more in coming decade.

In this presentation, the main focus would be on biomolecule-functionalized nanomaterials typically zinc oxide, iron oxides and stannic dioxide. We have synthesized these materials either using soft-chemistry approach and have studied them for different applications. Typical applications include antimicrobial strategies, disease diagnostics and therapies, drug delivery and sustained release. The results concentrate on issues like size-property relationships, band-gap engineering, domain wall scattering/tunneling, interface-driven transport and spin-polarized transport mechanisms in these systems, which drive a particular application.


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(**) Biodata: Dr. Sangeeta N. Kale is an Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Physics, Defence Institute of Advanced Technology(DU),Girinagar, Pune-411025, India. Her academic qualifications are Ph.D. in Physics: University of Pune, Pune, India and a Post Doctoral Research at the University of Maryland, College Park, U.S.A.

Her field of expertise is metal oxide nanoparticles in sensing and biomedical applications, thin films, perovskite based transition metal oxide materials and wide-band gap semiconductors.

Dr. Kale has  over 80 international research publications and presentations in International Conferences. She is involved in 11 national and international research projects for which she has been granting funding from University Grants Commission, Department of Science and Technology Nanomission, Department of Atomic Energy and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) and ELETTRA (Italy). Dr. Kale has been guiding 10 Ph.D students and written 4 books for undergraduate students