Monday, October 6, 2003		Feature

TEN young innovators of Indian origin have been named in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Technology Review 100 (TR100) since their "technologies are poised to make a dramatic impact on our world".

In the latest issue of Technology Review, the century-old magazine of MIT, the innovators, 35 or younger, have been described as "lab dwellers, visionaries, and dealmakers whose work will utterly transform our world in the years to come". TR100 covers four fields—computing, biotech and medicine, Internet and nanotech.

Here are the fields of the 10 innovators:

Vipul Ved Prakash: Developed free and commercial software filters that fight spam.

Sangeeta Bhatia: Uses microchip-manufacturing tools to build artificial livers.

Nimmi Ramanujam: Uses light to help make diagnosing breast and cervical cancer faster, more accurate, and less invasive.

Shuvo Roy: Builds tiny machines that can warn of impending heart attack and monitor healing after surgery.

Ram Samudrala: Wrote algorithms that can predict the functions of proteins from the sequence of a genome.

Sanjay Parekh: Develops software that lets companies tailor services to their customers’ locations.

Reuben Singh: Provides support services and start-up money for entrepreneurs.

Krishna Kumar: Improves the stability and effectiveness of protein-based drugs.

Balaji Narasimhan: Devises time-release polymers to replace multiple vaccine injections.

Ravikanth Pappu: Fights credit-card forgery with glass-bead "keys". — IANS