Doctoral candidate 10 - Chinmay Hemant Khanolkar - University Of Gothenburg, Sweden

Meet our doctoral candidate at the University of Gothenburg, Chinmay Hemant Khanolkar!

Tell us about yourself, who are you? And how do you like to spend your time?

My name is Chinmay and I am originally from the very scenic and somewhat touristy Goa state on the southwestern coast of India. But I have been living in Copenhagen, Danmark for three years before joining the ImAgE-D Project.

In my free time I’m doing various sporting activities such as classic work-outs and bouldering, I love bouldering alone, but also photography! When I have time left over, I like to walk around the city as I am particularly enthusiastic about street photography.

What is your educational background and what have been up until now?

I got my bachelor’s degree from the Institute of Chemical Technology in India, mainly working with drug design, biology, drug manufacturing, drug discovery, pharmaceutical development and a bit of chemical engineering.

After graduating, I decided to work as a chemistry teacher two to three years where I was teaching high school kids. There are very competitive exams in India if you decide to become a doctor or if you want to get into a good medical or engineering school and I was teaching kids how to crack those exams, until I decided to do a masters.

The technical university of Danmark offered a master’s degree which was very in line with what I wanted to do as a researcher, Biomaterial Engineering for Medicine. Within the scope of the programme I studied a bit of microfluidics, organic technology, statistical thermodynamics and related disciplines.

I also worked on a number of projects during my time at the university. My supervisor had developed a so called Liver-on-a-Chip device, a microfluidic device where they were growing liver organoids. I started working on that device which was received very well and subsequently was offered a thesis with my supervisor. Within the scope of my thesis I wasworking on  Bronchial Epithelial Models Enabled by 3D Printed Perfusion Systems, building a microfluidic lung-on-a-chip device. The device was made by stereolithographically 3D printing a diffusion open hydrogel. Which unfortunately did not go as well as I hoped but I got a very good grade on my thesis!

 Why did you decide to join ImAge-D?
I always had the idea of doing a PhD sooner or later. As I always wanted to get into research and have some publications under my name. When I was in Denmark, I had the vision to turn my thesis into a PhD, which unfortunately did not work out as I hoped.

I could also see myself returning to India at some point in the future and resume teaching, for which I would also need a PhD.

Furthermore, I think that this project contains disciplines in which I am either already very experienced or have a suitable skillset like microfluidics and organ-on-a-chip.

And last but not least I was intrigued by the challenge such a prestigious grand proves and decided to take on that challenge!

 What are your expectations regarding your work in the ImAge-D project?

From a professional point of view, I first and foremost want to deliver something that works and is useful to the society and I hope to support my findings with publications.

Furthermore, I see this project as a chance to enhance my skillset and learn more in the field of advanced imaging techniques. In particular, through a strong collaboration with others who have more knowledge and experience in the field.

There is also a part of this project which revolves around machine learning and unsupervised imaging, which is very interesting and relevant for the future as I am under the belief that everyone should know some basic form of machine learning.

From a social and cultural perspective, ImAgE-D is an opportunity to collaborate with various universities in Europe through secondments and different people with interesting backgrounds. I am really looking forward to getting to know my future colleagues!

Last but not least, I get the chance to explore a few more countries.

Could you share a fun fact with us?

Did you know that Cleopatra lived closer in time to the invention of the iPhone, than the Great Pyramid of Giza?

Cleopatra lived over 2,500 years AFTER the (estimated) construction of the pyramids and 2,000 years BEFORE the invention of the iPhone.

Thank you Chinmay for the in-depth interview, welcome to our project and we look forward to working with you in the future!