When you use our reagent kits or Q cycler, you may not think about the many Quantabio team members who worked so hard to develop, validate, and manufacture those products. That’s why we’ve launched a new blog series to show off the best part of Quantabio: our people!
We’re kicking off the series with Subrata Panja, Associate Director of Field Applications, who joined Quantabio in 2020. He holds a PhD in biophysics from the University of Kalyani and completed a postdoc at Johns Hopkins University studying gene regulation and RNA folding.
Q: What do you do at Quantabio?
A: I manage the field applications team. Our main goal is to work with different labs — including diagnostics companies, academic research labs, and new technology platforms — to adopt Quantabio products into their workflow. We help customers optimize the workflow in their labs and troubleshoot any problems. We also share the knowledge we gather from customer interactions with the product development team to develop new products and protocols.
Q: What brought you to the company?
A: Before joining Quantabio, I worked at a genetic diagnostic company where we used a lot of Quantabio products for PCR, qPCR, cDNA synthesis, and next-generation sequencing. We had been struggling with long-range PCR when Quantabio launched two innovative kits for that application, and I was really impressed with how they improved our overall performance. I also had good interactions with Quantabio team members. Knowing that the people were friendly and the products were outstanding got me to move to the company.
Q: What’s the best thing about your job?
A: The complexity and the versatility I have in my role. I get to work with multiple departments, from R&D to product management to marketing and sales. And the thing that’s really special about Quantabio is the relationships we have as a team. We work together really well and we help each other. We’re more like a family than a commercial team.
Q: What do you wish more people knew about Quantabio?
A: I really wish people were more aware of our brand and how good our products are.
Q: Fill in the blank: Better reagents lead to ______
A: Robust and reliable performance. They make such a difference. For a sequencing project, if the library prep is not done properly it doesn’t matter how good your sequencing instrument is. You are not going to get good results without good libraries.
Q: What’s your favorite thing to do in your spare time?
A: I love cooking and plating food. My cooking is predominantly influenced by Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine, but whenever I get a new recipe I like to try it.
Q: What’s your ideal vacation?
A: A trip to a less-explored village in the Himalayan range, far from the crowd with no internet. I want to meditate and enjoy the views of the snowcapped mountains with a warm cup of Darjeeling tea.