Aditya Sanjay Gupta is a first-year Ph.D. student in Bioengineering at the University of California, Merced, working in the lab of Dr. Anand Bala Subramaniam. He completed his B.Tech. in Chemical Technology at Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University, India, and brings international research experience spanning institutions including the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IITH), the Mechanobiology Institute at the National University of Singapore, and Academia Sinica in Taiwan. He is a recipient of the Earle C. Anthony Fellowship at UC Merced.
His current research focuses on developing an all-aqueous, solvent-free method for assembling Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs) cell-sized lipid membrane compartments using small unilamellar vesicles (SUVs) as precursor material deposited onto nanocellulose paper substrates via the PAPYRUS and PCP-assisted hydration methods pioneered in his lab. By replacing traditional organic solvent-based lipid deposition with an entirely aqueous workflow, this approach preserves the structural integrity of sensitive biomolecules such as antibodies and membrane proteins, opening the door to functionalizing GUVs with biological recognition elements directly. The long-term translational goal of this platform is to enable multiplexed, point-of-care detection of clinically critical inflammatory biomarkers, including IL-6, CRP, and procalcitonin from human serum, with direct applications in early sepsis diagnosis and management.
