Biography:

Hari M. Varma is an Associate professor in the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), India. He did his B-Tech in Instrumentation from Department of Instrumentation, Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), Kerala in 2004. He started his research career in theoretical and computational aspects of optical tomography while doing Masters and PhD at Indian Institute of Science (IISC), Bangalore. This was continued during a one-year post-doctoral study with inverse problem group in Department of Mathematics and Systems Analysis at Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland. The research focus was shifted to experimental aspects of medical optics during postdoctoral studies with Medical Optics group at Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), Barcelona, Spain. Currently, his group at IITB work on system development for both in vivo and in vitro optical imaging. One of the focus areas is the development of optical imaging systems based on near infrared spectroscopy for human brain imaging with applications pertaining to monitoring stroke, other neurological diseases and functional studies of brain.

Lecture: "Deep tissue blood flow imaging"

With the advent of affordable high-resolution and fast scientific cameras, there has been a growing interest in laser speckle-based non-invasive, and tracer-free deep tissue in vivo blood flow imaging. We have recently demonstrated high-density cerebral blood flow measurements and tomography in healthy humans using sensitive cameras. In addition to the system development, a theoretical framework to rigorously view these problems was also presented. We will be presenting this work along with a few offshoot results all towards translation of developed systems and methods for clinical trials.