Dr. Nimmi Ramanujam is an associate professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. Dr. Ramanujam earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas, Austin in 1995 and then trained as an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania from 1996-2000. Prior to her tenure at Duke, she was an assistant professor in the Dept. Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison from 2000-2005.

Dr. Ramanujam’s interests in the field of biophotonics are centered on research and technology development for applications to cancer. She is developing novel quantitative optical sensing and imaging tools for translational applications in cancer research. She has been leading a multi-disciplinary effort to translate these technologies into pre-clinical models and cancer patients. in the areas of breast, head and neck and cervical cancers. Another important aspect of her work in this area is the design and development of cost-effective and portable illumination and detection strategies with applications to global health. In addition to her academic efforts, she has spun out a company, Endls Optics to commercialize several of the technologies developed in her lab.

Dr. Ramanujam has received several awards for her work in cancer research and technology development. She received the TR100 Young Innovator Award from MIT in 2003, a $2.5M DOD Era of Hope Scholar award in 2004, the Global Indus Technovator award from MIT in 2005 and a $3M Era of Hope Research Scholar award in 2009. Dr. Ramanujam was recently elected as fellow of OSA and she has been invited to be a member of the DOD’s breast cancer research program (BCRP) integration panel (IP) that sets the vision of the BCRP program and plans the dissemination of over $100 M of funds for breast cancer research annually. She is a co-editor for the latest edition of the Handbook of Biomedical Optics (publisher Taylor and Francis).

Contact Info:

Office Location:	2575 FCIEMAS
Office Phone:	(919) 660-5307
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://nimmi.bme.duke.edu/

Education:

PhD, University of Texas, Austin, 1995

Specialties:

Medical Imaging
Photonics
Cancer diagnostics and therapy
Medical Instrumentation
Medical Diagnostics

Research Interests:

Ramanujam's research interests include optical spectroscopy, optical sectioning microscopy and photon migration techniques. Her research group is developing and applying these optically based tools for the non-invasive characterization of the biochemical and structural properties of human tissues.

Awards, Honors, and Distinctions

Consultant, Obstetrics and Gynecology Panel, Medical Devices Advisory Comimttee, Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Food and Drug Administration, 2004
Fellow, Optical Society of America, 2009
Fellow, American Society of Laser Medicine and Surgery, 2001
Invited Speaker, Gordon Conference on Lasers in Medicine and Biology, 2008
Plenary Speaker, DOE Era of Hope Breast Cancer Conference, 2008
Standing Member, DOD Breast Cancer Research Program Integration Panel, 2009
Fellow, American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery, January, 2007
Era of Hope Scholar Award, DOD Breast Cancer Research Program, 2005
Global Indus Technovators Awards, Indian Business Club at MIT, 2005
Technology achievement award, MIT Alumni Association of Wisconsin, 2005
Vilas Associate award, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2005
Invited speaker, Gordon Conference on Lasers in Medicine and Biology, 2004
TR100 Young Innovator Award, Selected as one of the top 100 young innovators in technology in the world by MIT's Technology Review Magazine, 2003
Whitaker travel award to participate in the ASEE Conference, 2002
Whitaker Foundation investigator, 2001
Invited participant in NSF’s “Engineering Education Scholars Workshop”, 1996
National Research Service Award, National Institutes of Health, 1996
One of three finalists in the American Association for Medical Instrumentation Young Investigator Competition, 1996
Scholarship, Association for Women in Science Educational Foundation, November, 1995
Award for Best Scientific Paper, American Association of Cancer Research, 1995
Scholarship, American Society for Laser Medicine & Surgery, 1995
Scholarship, International Society for Optical Engineering, November, 1994
Award for Best Scientific Paper, American Society for Laser Medicine & Surgery, 1994-95
Professional Development Award, University of Texas, Austin, 1994-95
Competitive Academic Fellowship, University of Texas, Austin, 1991

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

1. G. M. Palmer and R. J. Viola and T. Schroeder and P. S. Yarmolenko and M. W. Dewhirst and N. Ramanujam, Quantitative diffuse reflectance and fluorescence spectroscopy: tool to monitor tumor physiology in vivo, Journal Of Biomedical Optics, vol. 14 no. 2 (March, 2009)  [abs].
2. L. G. Wilke and J. Q. Brown and T. M. Bydlon and S. A. Kennedy and L. M. Richards and M. K. Junker and J. Gallagher and W. T. Barry and J. Geradts and N. Ramanujam, Rapid noninvasive optical imaging of tissue composition in breast tumor margins, American Journal Of Surgery, vol. 198 no. 4 (October, 2009), pp. 566 -- 574  [abs].
3. K. Vishwanath and H. Yuan and W. T. Barry and M. W. Dewhirst and N. Ramanujam, Using Optical Spectroscopy to Longitudinally Monitor Physiological Changes within Solid Tumors, Neoplasia, vol. 11 no. 9 (September, 2009), pp. 889 -- 900  [abs].
4. K. Vishwanath and D. Klein and K. Chang and T. Schroeder and M. W. Dewhirst and N. Ramanujam, Quantitative optical spectroscopy can identify long-term local tumor control in irradiated murine head and neck xenografts, Journal Of Biomedical Optics, vol. 14 no. 5 (September, 2009)  [abs].
5. J. E. Bender, A. B. Shang, E. W. Moretti, B. Yu, L. M. Richards, N. Ramanujam, Noninvasive Monitoring of Tissue Hemoglobin Using UV-VIS Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy: A Pilot Study, Optics Express, vol. 17 no. 26 (December, 2009), pp. 23396-23409 .