Susmita Bose


Susmita Bose is an Indian-American scientist. She is the Herman and Brita Lindholm Endowed Chair Professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University.

Early life and education

Bose was born and raised in India, and was inspired to pursue a career in chemistry by her high school teacher mother. By the time she was in middle school, Bose had decided that she would attend college. By 1990, she graduated with a degree in chemistry from the University of Kalyani and pursued a Master's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. She eventually moved to North America to attend Rutgers University for her PhD.

Career

Bose and her husband Amit Bandyopadhyay, a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers, moved from New Jersey to Washington when he was offered a position in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University. While there, Bose was hired as a research scientist and eventually promoted to assistant professor in 2001 and to full professor in 2010.
As a professor at Washington State University, Bose began conducting nanoscale bone implant research. Her goal was to develop nanoscale bone implants to better adapt with the body tissue. As a result of her “innovative and multidisciplinary research on bioactive bone implants," she was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The following year, she co-received a $750,000 grant to establish a biomedical materials research laboratory at WSU with her colleagues Professors Amit Bandyopadhyay and Howard Hosick. By 2009, Bose became the first person of Indian descent to receive the Karl Schwartzwalder-Professional Achievement in Ceramic Engineering Award from the American Ceramic Society’s National Institute of Ceramic Engineers. A few years later, Bose and her research team discovered they could strengthen calcium phosphate by adding silica, zinc oxide and other metal oxides. Based on this discovery, the team began using a 3D printer to allow the mixture to help new cells grow, and eventually replacement bone tissue. In 2013, she was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. The following year, Bose, her colleagues Professors Amit Bandyopadhyay and Howard Hosick received a $1.8 million National Institutes of Health grant for a period of five year to focus on bone implants inside the human body.
Following her passion for natural medicinal compounds, Bose and her students developed ways to deliver curcumin and other natural compounds to cease bone cancer cells without inhibiting growth of healthy bone cells. That same year, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Awards

Dr. Bose received the CAREER award in 2002, the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientist and Engineers award in 2004 from the National Science Foundation for her work on nanoscale calcium phosphates for bone implants, drug delivery. The following year, she co-received a $750,000 grant to establish a biomedical materials research laboratory at WSU with colleagues.
After 2009, Bose and her research team discovered they could strengthen calcium phosphate by adding silica and zinc oxide. Based on this discovery, the team began using a 3D printer to allow the mixture to help new cells grow, and eventually replacement bone tissue. In 2013, Bose, with her colleagues received a $1.8 million National Institutes of Health interdisciplinary grant for a period of five year to focus on bone implants inside the human body.