Our International Advisory Panel
Dr. Brian Kobilka
Dr Kobilka received a BS in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Minnesota, Duluth and an MD from Yale University School of Medicine. He completed residency training in Internal Medicine at the Barnes Hospital, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri and then was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Robert Lefkowitz at Duke University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Steffen Leonhardt
Dr. Leonhardt established the Unobtrusive Sensing Lab, which focuses on patient monitoring, wearable technologies for healthcare, and telemedicine. He has made significant contributions to the development of unobtrusive patient monitoring. For example, he and his PhD students were the first to show that infrared thermography can be used to monitor respiration in infants, next to temperature. Furthermore, he has been instrumental to shape the field of unobtrusive monitoring of vital signs for automotive applications. In 2014, Dr. Leonhardt was elected fellow of the Northrhine-Westfalian Academy of Science and the Arts in Düsseldorf, Germany, and in 2018, he received the Doctor Honoris Causa from CTU Prague, Czech Republic. In 2023, he became a fellow of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), Munich. Dr. Leonhardt is an active member of professional societies like the German Society for Biomedical Engineering (DGBMT) and the Control and Automation section (GMA) of VDI – The German Association of Engineers. He a senior member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.
Dr. Raj Murali
Dr. Murali’s research areas include the clinical outcomes following hand surgery, rehabilitation of the injured hand, surgical management of ligament injuries of the wrist, design of new instrumentation and control of complex trauma to the wrist.
In June 2022, he was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the National Health Services of the United Kingdom.
Dr. James Musick
Dr Musick holds a B.S. in Genetics and a PhD in Neuroscience, which ignited his passion and path into Personalised Healthcare.
To complement his academic, data and technology experience, Dr Musick then worked for several years in Silicon Valley to master approaches for combining technical features with user-centred design, creating useful, desirable, and commercially successful products.
Dr Musick is well known for helping biotech, pharma and health sciences companies innovate with new approaches ranging from translational medicine and clinical trials to marketing, communications, and digital health. These efforts included driving the creation of the Digital Medicines unit at Novartis with a focus on deploying in-market solutions globally across all therapeutic areas.
Dr. Venkatraman Sadanand
Driven by his deep-seated desire to serve others in a direct capacity, Dr. Sadanand threw himself fully into medical studies and completed the M.D. program at the University of Toronto, chose the field of Neurosurgery, and then went on to subspecialize in the discipline of Pediatric Neurosurgery and epilepsy. He continues to teach and perform surgeries at hospitals in Canada, India and USA, while grooming the next generation of neurosurgeons. Currently, his research focus is in the areas of Brain-Computer Interface, Biology of Brain Tumors, Brain Plasticity, Signal Processing to develop a 3-D map of the brain, and Health Economics. He has also been an innovator in the development of new surgical techniques, especially in the surgical and post-surgical treatment of epilepsy. As an entrepreneur, Professor Sadanand is also the Founding Chairman of the Board and CEO of HouseCallsNow Inc.
Dr. Vikas Sukhatme
Dr. Vikas Sukhatme is Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Medicine and Dean, Emory University School of Medicine. He is also Chief Academic Officer of Emory Healthcare and previously Chief Academic Officer of Harvard Medical School.
Dr Sukhatme has an extensive background in collaborative research and is a strong proponent of translational medicine. His focus is on removing barriers to medical innovation and finding new and meaningful ways to integrate research into education and patient care with the ultimate goal of improving health outcomes worldwide.
Dr Sukhatme completed a Bachelor’s and doctorate (ScD) in theoretical physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by an MD in the Harvard-MIT program at Harvard Medical School in 1979. He completed his residency in medicine, a clinical
fellowship in nephrology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Fellowship in immunology from Stanford University.
Dr. Albert Van Der Zwan
Dr Albert Van Der Zwan is the Director of Neurosurgery at UMC University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands and a Professor at the Utrecht Medical School, Netherlands. A physician-scientist with a PhD in physics, Dr Zwan is an expert in intracranial aneurysms, Spine Research and
Surgery, Brain tumours, Neuroanatomy and Neuro-Oncology. His meticulous experimental work brought out the variability of major cerebral arterial territories.
Combining technology with medicine he is a co-developer of ELANA (Excimer laser- assisted non-occlusive anastomosis), a novel anastomosis tool. He combines surgical skills and clinical research with aplomb and is the author of more than 100 research publications in top-notch neurosurgical journals. He has been a collaborator with IIT Madras.
His background as a physician-scientist will be valuable for the Department of Medical Sciences & Technology.