Bala S. Manian is an Indian-born Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has started a string of medical technology companies such as ReaMetrix, Digital Optics and Quantum Dot Corporation. Some of the resulting technologies have also had applications in the film industry, earning Manian an Academy Award certificate for technical achievement.

Early life

Bala Manian was born in Chennai (formerly

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

) India in 1944. He lost an eye in a childhood accident at age three and has seven siblings. His elder brother N. Vaghul has been chairman of ICICI Bank. Manian earned a BSc in physics from

Loyola College, Madras Loyola College is a private Catholic higher education institution run by the Society of Jesus in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It was founded in 1925 by the French Jesuit priest, Francis Bertram, along with other European Jesuits. It is an auton ...

and a postgraduate level diploma in instrumentation from the Madras Institute of Technology at Madras before earning a Masters in optics at the University of Rochester. He then earned a PhD from

Purdue Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

in 1971, conducting research in the Applied Optics Laboratory of the College of Engineering. From 1971 until 1974, Manian held a position as a senior research associate and assistant professor at the University of Rochester's Institute of Optics.

Career

As a consultant for various companies, he helped develop the first compact "under the counter" barcode laser scanner for supermarkets, several laser scanner-based stereo mapping instruments at the Defense Mapping Agency and image quality control instrumentation for photo reconnaissance systems. He also consulted on

computer vision Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hum ...

for on-line

quality control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach places ...

at several companies including Ford, IBM, Corning, Kodak, and the Union Pacific Railroad. Manian then founded various other companies Digital Optics Corporation, an optical instrumentation and systems development company, which developed the first three-color laser, film reader/writer system. These techniques allowed filmmakers to insert or merge special effects into movies using computerized digital imaging. Working with

David DiFrancesco David DiFrancesco, (born Nutley, New Jersey, 1949), is a photoscientist, inventor, cinematographer, and photographer. He is a founding member of three organizations which pioneered computer graphics for digital special effects and film with Edwin ...

and Tom Noggle, he created a technology that was transferred in 1983 to Industrial Light and Magic,. It has been used in the production of numerous movies including "

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'' is a 1989 American action film, action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, from a story co-written by executive producer George Lucas. It is the third installment in the Indiana Jones, ''Indiana ...

" and " Return of the Jedi." In February 1999, Manian was awarded an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Technical Award for this advance in technology. The same technology was then further developed to write the

CAT scan A computed tomography scan (CT scan; formerly called computed axial tomography scan or CAT scan) is a medical imaging technique used to obtain detailed internal images of the body. The personnel that perform CT scans are called radiographers ...

and MRI images used in medical diagnosis directly onto film. This required a special film developed by Kodak for optimum results. Manian sold Digital Optics in 1984 for $7.5 million to the Matrix Corporation. Manian remained as Chief Technical Officer for Digital Optics through 1985 and thenacted as an investor and independent consultant to several venture capital firms before becoming the founder and Chief Technical Officer for two startups, Molecular Dynamics and Lumisys, a company dealing in laser-based x-ray film digitizers. He then founded Biometric Imaging and became the Chief Technical Officer. The company has developed technology that allows doctors to examine the blood cells of seriously ill patients and determine the nature and extent of their disease. It also gives pharmaceutical companies the ability to perform cell function analyses in the discovery and development of pharmaceutical drugs. Manian co-founded the company Surromed and Quantum Dot Corporation in 1998. Quantum Dot Corporation (QDC) developed and sold novel solutions to accelerate the discovery and development of functionally validated novel drug targets at the cellular level. QDC's products and services employ quantum dot (Qdot) particles. Bala Manian founded ReaMetrix in May 2003. and serves as a science and business advisor for a number of entrepreneurial companies (Galileo Labs, Biocon India, ICICI Knowledge Park and APIDC -VC). Currently, he is also an advisor to the startup TeliportMe.

Notes

References

*
Purdue 2000 Distinguished Almnus

Import the science, but implement it in the local context

External links

Reametrix

Biocon

Manian.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manian, Bala S. 1944 births University of Rochester alumni Purdue University College of Engineering alumni Indian emigrants to the United States Living people American people of Indian descent American businesspeople

Early life

Career

See also

Notes

References

External links