Sumona Sarkar (Fed)

Research Interests  

• Cell therapy and regenerative medicine
• Analytical method development
• Cell counting and cell viability measurements
• Cell characterization and critical quality attributes
• Bioprocessing
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning for cell characterization
• Bio-mineralization and osteogenic differentiation measurements
• Bone marrow stromal cell characterization
• Cell-material interactions

Additional Information:

• Cell Counting for Cell Therapies
• Cell Viability for Advanced Therapies
• Regenerative medicine
• Measurement Assurance Strategies: 
• Building Measurement Confidence for Cell Characterization
• NIST Biomaterials Group

POSTDOCTORAL OPPORTUNITIES

NIST-NRC Postdoctoral Fellowship program

NIST is looking for postdoctoral applicants interested in developing and applying novel tools to support the characterization of cells. Two-year fellowships are available through the NIST-NRC Postdoctoral Fellowship program. The program is open to US Citizens only, offers competitive salary and benefits, with research proposal and application deadlines annually on February 1 and August 1. Contact NIST staff and see the NIST-NRC webpage for more information.

Current Project Opportunities

• Evaluating Cell Health for Cell Therapy Products:  https://nrc58.nas.edu/RAPLab10/Opportunity/Opportunity.aspx?LabCode=50&ROPCD=506441&RONum=C067

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Standards Activities

• U.S. Expert to ISO TC/276 Biotechnology:  Project leader for cell counting, cell characterization and cell viability standards (Working Group 3, Analytical methods)
• Member of USP Biological Monographs 5 – Advanced Therapies Expert Committee
• Member of ASTM F04 Committee on Medical and Surgical Materials and Devices

Honors and Activities

• Department of Commerce Gold Award 2022
• NIST Bronze Award 2017
• Mentor, NIST-University of Maryland PREP program
• Mentor, NIST-Montgomery College Internship program
• Mentor, NIST SURF student program
• NIST Sigma XI Most outstanding biology and biotechnology poster presentation, 2013
• NIST-NRC Postdoctoral Fellow, January 2012 – January 2014 
• Best Student Paper, International Symposium on Surface and Interface of Biomaterials
• Physical Cell Biology Fellow, 2008-2009
• Graduate Student Award for Inspired Teaching, 2008
• Engineering Design Education Fellow, 2007 - 2008
• Duke University Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow, 2002    

Selected Publications  

• Mary Clare McCorry, KF. Reardon, M Black, C Williams, G Babakhanova, JM Halpern, S Sarkar, N Swami, K Mirica, S Boermeester, A Underhill., (2022) “Sensor Technologies for Quality Control in Engineered Tissue Manufacturing”, Biofabrication 15(1).
• Babakhanova, G., Zimmerman, S. M., Pierce, L. T., Sarkar, S., Schaub, N. J., & Simon Jr, C. G. (2022). Quantitative, traceable determination of cell viability using absorbance microscopy. PloS one, 17(1), e0262119.
• Chen, D., Dunkers, J. P., Losert, W., & Sarkar, S. (2021). Early time-point cell morphology classifiers successfully predict human bone marrow stromal cell differentiation modulated by fiber density in nanofiber scaffolds. Biomaterials, 274, 120812.
• Sarkar, S., & Lin-Gibson, S. (2021). Advancing measurement infrastructure for cell and gene therapy product development. Current Opinion in Biomedical Engineering, 100329.
• Pierce, L., Sarkar, S., Chan, L., Lin, B., Qiu, J. (2021).  Outcomes from a cell viability workshop:  fit for purpose considerations for cell viability measurements for cellular therapeutic products. Cell and Gene Therapy Insights, 7(4), 551-569.
• Peskin, A., Lund, S. P., Pierce, L., Kurbanov, F., Chan, L. L. Y., Halter, M., Elliott J.T., Sarkar S., & Chalfoun, J. (2021). Establishing a reference focal plane using beads for trypan‐blue‐based viability measurements. Journal of Microscopy 283(3), 243-258.
• Y Huang, J Bell, D Kuksin, S Sarkar, LT Pierce, D Newton, J Qiu & LLY Chan. (2021). Practical application of cell counting method performance evaluation and comparison derived from the ISO Cell Counting Standards Part 1 and 2.  Cell & Gene Therapy Insights, 7(9), 937–960 (DOI: 10.18609/cgti.2021.126)
• Plant, A.L., Camp, C., Elliott, J.T., Eskandari, T., Halter, M., Kwee, E., Maragh, S., Peterson, A., Pierce, L., Sarkar, S. and Simon, C., 2022. The Role of the National Institute of Standards in Measurement Assurance for Cell Therapies. Cell Therapy: cGMP Facilities and Manufacturing, pp.609-625. Sumona Sarkar, Sheng Lin-Gibson, Clare M. Allocca, Dawn Henke, Allison Getz;”The Critical Role of Standards in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine”,Editor(s): Rui L. Reis, Encyclopedia of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, Academic Press, 2019, Pages 49-62.
• Arcidiacono, J. A., Bauer, S. R., Kaplan, D. S., Allocca, C. M., Sarkar, S., & Lin-Gibson, S. (2018). FDA and NIST collaboration on standards development activities supporting innovation and translation of regenerative medicine products. Cytotherapy, 20(6), 779-784.
• Simon Jr, C. G., Lin-Gibson, S., Elliott, J. T., Sarkar, S., & Plant, A. L. (2016). Strategies for achieving measurement assurance for cell therapy products.
• Tutak W, Sarkar S, Lin-Gibson S, Farooque TM, Jyotsnendu G, Wang D, Kohn J, Bolikal D, Simon Jr CG (2013) The Support of Bone Marrow Stromal Cell Differentiation by Airbrushed Nanofiber Scaffolds. Biomaterials 34, 2389-2398.
• Sarkar, S., Lightfoot-Vidal, S. E., Schauer, C. L., Vresilovic, E., and Marcolongo, M.. "Terminal-end functionalization of chondroitin sulfate for the synthesis of biomimetic proteoglycans." Carbohydrate Polymers 90, no. 1 (2012): 431-440.
• Marcolongo M, Sarkar S, Ganesh N. Comprehensive Biomaterials: Trends in Materials for Spine Surgery. Ducheyne P, editor (2011). (Book Chapter) 
• Thomas JD, Fussell G, Sarkar S, Lowman AM, Marcolongo M. Synthesis and recovery characteristics of branched and grafted PNIPAAm-PEG hydrogels for the development of an injectable load-bearing nucleus pulposus replacement. Acta Biomaterialia. 2010;6(4):1319-28.
• Sarkar, S., Isenberg, B.C., Hodis, E., Leach, J.B., Desai, T.A., Wong, J.Y., (2008). Fabrication of a Layered Microstructured Polycaprolactone Construct for 3-D Tissue Engineering. J Biomat Sci: Polym Ed 19(10).
• Sarkar, S., G.Y. Lee, J.Y. Wong, T.A. Desai (2006). Vascular Tissue Engineering: Development and Characterization of a Porous Micro-Patterned Scaffold for Vascular Tissue Engineering Applications. Biomaterials 27(27): 4775-4782.
• Sarkar, S., M. Dadhania, J.Y. Wong, T.A. Desai. (2005). Vascular tissue engineering: Microtextured scaffold templates to control organization of vascular smooth muscle cells and extracellular matrix. Acta Biomaterialia 1(1): 93-100.  

 Patents  

• Compositions and Methods for Treating a Disorder or Defect in Soft Tissue. Michele Marcolongo, Edward Vresilovic, Benjamin Jackson, Sumona Sarkar, Caroline Schauer.