Dr. R. Satyanarayana is Professor at School of Health Sciences and the Program Coordinator of Biomedical Science and Genetics Molecular Biology programs at The Apollo University. He has more than 20 years of teaching and research experience at various levels. He has been serving as a Visiting Professor at Brigham Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston. Dr. Satyanarayana acquired M. Tech. in Biotechnology and PhD in Biotechnology from JNTU Hyderabad. He already completed Six PhD students under his guidance and Four PhD students are presently working under him. He competed more than 2.5 crores rupees worth projects funded through DST, ICMR, UGC and MoFPI.

Prof. R Satyanarayana has published more than 60 Indexed research and review publications (more than 25 SCOPUS indexed). Some of his publications are in “Nature Publishing Group” and Eleven “Elsevier Publications” Papers, One International Text Book in Cancer Biology, 4 Book Chapters in Immunology, Stem Cells Biology and Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Satyanarayana has published Seven patents. He worked as Coordinator Academic Affairs, The Apollo University, Chittoor.

Apollo University

You held key positions at various prestigious institutions throughout your career. What is that one thing that made you excited and walk with Apollo University in the journey?

The Apollo University is a dream project of our beloved Chairman Dr. Prathap C Reddy. Apollo University is a Private University instituted in the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, with its pillars as “Health”, “Well-being”, “Technology” and “Management”. Such convergence of different fields at one place is very rare and special. All these fields have social relevance and responsibility.

How do you balance the needs of faculty, students, and administration as Program Coordinator and academic coordinator both at the same time?

My first preference is always teaching and making the academic program outcomes to reach to the maximum number of students in the University. This outcome-based delivery helped me to attract the students into various programs offered at School of Health Sciences. As Professor of Health Sciences, I balance the teaching and research workload. In my view, working for Apollo at any administrative position is utmost important and being the part of the growth of organization.

What would you say is the USP or what are the differentiating factors that make Apollo University stand out from other colleges?

The Apollo University stands by the values such as International collaboration, academics on par with Global standards, communication and behavioral skills. Every student is given Industry exposure during the course work. Already The Apollo University is having collaborations with several healthcare research giants such as Brigham Women’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School, USA, University of Hyderabad and Aurobindo Pharma. This is helping the students to gain knowledge about the current trends and soling real-time problems of the industries.

How do you stay current with the latest trends and developments in the field of health sciences and incorporate them into the curriculum and programs offered by Apollo University?

At The Apollo University, we follow the choice-based credit system. The students have the option to choose electives such as Foreign languages (German, French or Spanish) and program electives. We also teach “Data Science” to our B.Sc. Biomedical Science and B.Sc. Genetics and Molecular Biology students. This helps the students to learn machine learning algorithms in healthcare. For M.Sc. Health Informatics and Analytics students, we teach “Cloud Computing”, “Big Data Analytics” and “Computational Genomics and Proteomics”. We have offered “Fundamentals of Cloud Computing” to all Allied Health Sciences students with the help of Microsoft, India.

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How well is Apollo focusing on maintaining industry relationships with companies in order to leverage them for live projects, training, and placements for the students?

The Apollo University is already having collaborations with Aurobindo Pharma, Microsoft and Dr. Reddy’s labs. Several students have been trained at Dr. Reddy’s Institute of Life Sciences and Hyderabad Central University. Very soon we will start our journey with Monash University, Australia and Dr. Reddy’s Institute of Life Sciences.

How would you promote experiential learning and practical application of knowledge within the College?

Our approach is to incorporate internships, co-curricular programs, or research opportunities. The students at The Apollo University especially Graduates of Biomedical Science, Genetics and Molecular Biology and Post-Graduate students of Health Informatics will be given opportunity to get trained at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, which is the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, USA for 6 to 12 months.

What kind of steps Apollo University is taking in order to bridge the gap between academia and the real industry world?

The students are the ignited minds of the nation. To train the students at Apollo University, we invite industry experts from Microsoft, Google, Apollo Hospitals, IBM and D. Reddy’s Labs as Guest Faculty. The industrial experts discuss the real-time problems of the industries with the students and get their opinions. To bridge the gap between Industry and Academia, Apollo University also promotes the institution of the “Apollo Incubation Centre”, which provides space for Health and IT startups inside the campus.