Dr. Sovan Lal Das is a Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Palakkad. He graduated in B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Jadavpur University and his post-graduated in M.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, (IISc) Bangalore. His doctoral degree PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Cornell University, Ithaca, ‎New York‎, United States.

His research areas in Main focus of our group is developing and/or applying continuum theory (mechanics and thermodynamics) based models and perform experiments to elucidate the role of cell membrane and its mechanical properties in various cell-biological processes. Membranes in a cell are primarily made of lipid bilayer. Understanding the role of lipid bilayer in the functionality of animal cells is key towards the knowhow of fundamental cell biological processes. It is believed that the membrane actively controls its curvature and composition to influence cellular processes such as signaling between proteins, sorting of proteins and lipids, adhesion. One of the key questions in biology is how the complex shapes in organelle such as Golgi network and endoplasmic reticulum are generated and maintained, and how they relate to cell function? Several membrane bound proteins are known to actively participate in generating, regulating and sensing membrane curvature. We have developed mechanics-thermodynamics based models for such curvature sorting of proteins in a biophysical system consisting of a cylindrical membrane tube connected to a giant lipid bilayer vesicle.