Saif A. KHAN is a Professor and Head of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE). He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006, where he was an R. T. Haslam Presidential Fellow, and his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) Mumbai in 2001, where he was a University gold medallist.
His research at NUS is focused on (re)imagining the next generation of sustainable, efficient and intelligent molecular manufacturing processes. His group has pioneered the development of novel microfluidics-based ‘factories’ for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and advanced materials in collaboration with several industrial partners worldwide. A thought leader in advanced manufacturing, Prof Khan currently leads two key verticals within the Pharmaceutical Innovation Programme Singapore (PIPS) – a country-wide industry-academia consortium with major industrial partners in the pharmaceutical (Pfizer, GSK, Merck) and agrochemical (Syngenta) sectors. He has also co-founded two start-up companies focused on advanced materials manufacture and ophthalmic drug delivery respectively.
Education
- PhD (Chem. Engg): MIT 2006
- B.Chem.Engg UICT (Mumbai) 2001
Awards and Honours
- Annual Teaching Excellence Award, NUS (2012)
- Faculty of Engineering Teaching Honors List, NUS (2008-2011)
- Innovative Teaching Award (Gold), NUS (2007)
- R. T. Haslam Presidential Fellowship, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2001)
- G. P. Kane Gold Medal in Chemical Engineering, University of Mumbai (2001)
Research Interests
- Microfluidics and microreactor technology
- Multiphase fluid dynamics
- Chemical reaction engineering
- Nanomaterials synthesis
Selected Publications
Leon, R. A. L., Wan, W. Y., Badruddoza, A. Z. M., Hatton, T. A. and Khan, S. A.*, ‘Simultaneous spherical crystallization and co-formulation of drug(s) and excipient from microfluidic double emulsions’, Crystal Growth and Design, 14, 140-146 (2014).
Rahman, M .T., Barikbin, Z., Badruddoza, A. Z. M., Doyle, P. S. and Khan, S.A.*, ‘Monodisperse polymeric ionic liquid microgel beads with multiple chemically switchable functionalities’, Langmuir, 29, 9535–9543 (2013).
Barikbin, Z., Rahman, M .T. and Khan, S.A.*, ‘Fireflies-on-a-chip: ionic liquid-aqueous microdroplets for biphasic chemical analysis’, Small, 8(14), 2152-2157 (2012).
Toldy, A. I., Badruddoza, A. Z. M., Zheng, L., Hatton, T. A., Gunawan, R., Rajagopalan, R. and Khan, S. A.*, ‘Spherical crystallization of glycine from monodisperse microfluidic emulsions’, Crystal Growth and Design, 12, 3977-3982 (2012).
Duraiswamy, S. and Khan, S. A.*, ‘Plasmonic nanoshell synthesis in microfluidic composite foams’, Nano Letters, 10(9), 3757-3763 (2010).