Ten scientists of South Asian origin figure in the list of the world’s leading 100 young researchers drawn up by the Technology Review (TR) magazine published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The ‘TR 100’ listing for 2004 comprises 69 men and 31 women below 35 years of age who are currently involved in cutting edge research in diverse areas of specialization such as biotechnology, medicine, nanotechnology and computing. The names were chosen by the editors of Technology Review and a panel of judges, including senior executives from Cambridge University, Cornell University, General Electric, Georgia Tech, Harvard Medical School, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, MIT, Northwestern University, Singapore Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Wharton and Xerox.

Those of South Asian origin in ‘TR 100,’ which was whittled down from 500 nominations, are Srinidhi Varadarajan of Virginia Polytech; Anuj Batra and Chaitali Sengupta of Texas Instruments; Ramesh Raskar of Mitsubishi Electric; Ravi Kane of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Aref Chowdhury of Lucent Technologies; Smruti Vidwans of the University of California; as well as researcher-entrepreneurs Vikram Sheel Kumar, Mayank Bulsara, and Ananth Natarajan. These researchers were scheduled to be honored on Sept. 29-30 at Technology Review’s Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT.

Srinidhi Varadarajan

* Srinidhi Varadarajan, 31, director of Terascale Computing Facility of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, is already well-known in the field of supercomputers. He had conceived and built the world’s third fastest supercomputer using a cluster of 1,100 Apple Macintosh computers at an expense of $5 million, much lower than the average $100 million or more that is normally spent by governments, universities or industry to build world-class supercomputers.

* Anuj Batra, 34, systems engineer at Texas Instruments, leads one of the industry’s top teams advancing ultrawideband wireless technology which provides the high transmission speeds needed for streaming-media applications while consuming little electricity. His specializes in research into areas such as wireless communications, in particular the design of high-speed wireless networks, multi-user detection theory and coexistence between unlicensed wireless devices. He holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Cornell University, a master of science in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Chaitali Sengupta

* Chaitali Sengupta, 34, another Texas Instrument researcher, is a systems architect. She obtained a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and an M.S. as well as Ph.D. from Rice University, and oversees the architecture of the communications chips used in advanced cellular systems. The chips let multimedia cell phones more easily handle Internet access, videoconference and mobile commerce.

Ramesh Raskar

* Ramesh Raskar, 34, is a visiting research scientist at diversified Japanese giant Mitsubishi Electric. A computer scientist, Raskar had built computer display systems that seamlessly combine images from multiple projectors. His research in the fields of image-processing and graphics has the potential to unearth new applications in entertainment, image guided surgery and user interfaces.

* Aref Chowdhury, 32, is a member of the technical staff at Lucent Technologies. While at Bell Labs, he invented techniques that enable higher-speed transmission of data over very long distances (up to 6,400 kilometers) within fiber-optic networks.

Mayank Bulsara

* Mayank Bulsara, 32, is in the process of carving out a niche for himself in the relatively little-known field of nanotechnology. Bulsara is co-founder and chief technology officer of the NH-based AmberWave Systems, which has developed strained silicon that is an advanced form of silicon that helps computer chips run faster and consume less power.

Ravi Kane

* Ravi Kane, 32, an assistant professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has created a potent anthrax treatment in which each drug molecule blocks multiple toxin molecules rather than just one. Kane is now working to extend this concept to therapies aimed at countering HIV/AIDS.

Smruti Vidwans

* Smruti Vidwans, 30, postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, finds a place among the ‘TR-100’ honorees in the fields of biotechnology and medicine. Having spent her early years in India, she is now engaged in research that could play an important role in battling tuberculosis. Addressing the problem of rising resistance to TB drugs, Vidwans is of the opinion that the solution may be new drugs that do not kill the bacteria but block the proteins that allow them to reproduce in human beings. To fulfil her objective, Vidwans has taken up the challenge of establishing a company that would develop such drugs.

Vikram Sheel Kumar

* Vikram Sheel Kumar, 28, is among the youngest ‘TR-100’ honorees in the medicine and biotechnology segment. He is the co-founder and CEO of Dimagi, a Boston-based firm that is developing interactive software that motivates patients to manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and AIDS. His PDA-based systems are already being used in rural India and South Africa.

Ananth Natarajan

* Ananth Natarajan, 33, is the CEO of Baltimore, MD-based firm, Infinite Biomedical Technologies, which is trying to bridge the gap between research and patient care. One of the technologies developed by the firm will enable implantable cardiac devices to detect incipient heart attacks.