Ms. Rajalekshmy G.P. bagged the Asia’s outstanding researcher award 2023 in
Biomaterial Science. She is a full time researcher from Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute of Medical
Sciences, Trivandrum, Kerala, an institute of National importance with a status of the
University. She completed her doctoral studies in the Biomaterial Science under the guidance
of Dr. Rekha M.R. in the Division of Biosurface Technology. She had received CSIR Senior
Research Fellowship during her PhD career. The main area of interest is in the development of
advanced wound care material for diabetic wound management. Their team successfully
developed alginate based xerogels as advanced wound care material, which enables the spatio-
temporal delivery of bioactive molecules towards the wound site. They studied the effect of
topical delivery of hormones, anti-inflammatory drugs and enzymes in the wound healing
process. The award winning article entitled ‘Strontium ion cross-linked alginate-g-poly
(PEGMA) xerogels for wound healing applications: in vitro studies’ has been published in one
of the internationally peer reviewed high impact journals Carbohydrate polymers (IF 10.72) in
2021. During six years of her research career, she published four research papers in
international journals and four book chapters published by reputed publishers. She presented
her research work in various national and international conferences. She serves as a life time
member in the Society for Biomaterials & Artificial Organs India (SBAOI) since 2019. During
her early research career, she served as a project fellow in the homograft valve bank of
SCTIMST, Kerala. This project aimed to ensure the sterility of the homograft valves used in
the cardiac surgery. During her post-graduation, she mastered in Medical Laboratory
Technology, specialized in Biochemistry. She bagged the first rank in both graduate and post-
graduate levels. She also received ICMR junior research fellowship in 2016 and scholarship
from the Department of Biotechnology, India in 2009. She experienced different clinical
exposure from hospitals, medical collages and primary health centers, which helped her to
identify various unmet clinical needs. She continues her research and work towards the
biomaterial based tissue regeneration to develop tailor made solutions for different wound
pathologies. They would like to explore the effect of on-demand delivery of bioactive
molecules for tissue regeneration for improving the patient quality of life.