We are delighted to share that Ms. Geetanjali Singh, PhD student from the Department of Chemistry, has been awarded a certificate for her poster presentation under the “Highest Technology Readiness Level” at the N.I.C.E. Rendezvous Conference, Summer 2025.

She has been working with researchers at NUS Singapore to create virus-like particles (VLPs) which are harmless copies of the virus that look and behave like the real thing but contain no genetic material, so they can't cause infection. These VLPs allows them to study how the virus interacts with surfaces, receptors, and potential treatments in a regular lab setting using tools like quartz crystal microbalance, which helps track these interactions in real-time. Building on this, they are working on developing an inhaler-based therapy that would deliver these directly to the lungs aiming to deactivate the virus as soon as it enters the body, before it can spread and cause illness.

This interdisciplinary work is part of her Joint Degree PhD program, conducted under the joint supervision of Prof. Adam Mechler, La Trobe University, Melbourne and Prof. Sandeep Verma, IIT Kanpur.

Congratulations to Ms. Geetanjali Singh on this remarkable achievement!