Dr. Jogin Desai
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Desai brings more than 20 years of experience in growing and nurturing businesses to his newest venture. Prior to Eyestem, he was part of the global leadership team at Quintiles and headed up their cardiac safety business from 2001 to 2007. More recently, he was the CEO of Cenduit, the world’s largest standalone randomization company with offices in Bangalore, Basel, Philadelphia and North Carolina and a joint venture of and ThermoFisher Scientific. In 2024, Dr. Desai was named Entrepreneur of the Year for Asia at the Biospectrum Asia awards ceremony, Singapore.
Dr. Rajani Battu
Co-founder & Chief Medical Officer
Dr Rajani Battu is a senior consultant in the department of Ophthalmology at Aster CMI Hospital, Bangalore. Following her MBBS from Bangalore Medical College, she did her Master’s at St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore. She obtained her fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. She underwent fellowship training in vitreo-retinal surgery at Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai. Rajani was awarded an International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO) fellowship with Prof Anthony Moore of Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, UK in ‘Inherited Retinal Dystrophies’. She was recently awarded a PhD from Maastricht University, the Netherlands for her work on “Inherited Retinal Diseases”.
Dr. Rajarshi Pal
Co-founder & Chief Scientist
Rajarshi Pal, PhD brings a unique blend of 20+ years’ experience in the industry and academia on stem cells and regenerative medicine. Previously, he worked at the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi; Reliance Life Sciences, Navi Mumbai and Stempeutics Research, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Before Eyestem, he was an Assistant Professor, Manipal Institute of Regenerative Medicine (MIRM), MAHE, Bangalore. In 2014 he did a short-term fellowship with Dr. Kapil Bharti at the NEI-NIH, Bethesda and in 2013 he was the recipient of ICMR Young Biomedical Scientist award. He also serves as a Visiting Scientist & Adjunct Professor for The University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU), Bangalore. The fundamental principle of his research has been to use stem cells to improve perception of the biological processes controlling cell fate determination and to develop novel cell-based replacement therapies for incurable degenerative disorders.
Dr. Dhruv Sareen
Co-founder & Science Officer
Dhruv Sareen, PhD, is the founding director of the Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) Core at the Cedars-Sinai BOG-RMI. Dr. Sareen’s lab at Cedars-Sinai is currently developing personalized stem cell disease models for patients with neurodegenerative and metabolic diseases. Dr. Sareen received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he discovered novel pathways to eliminate cancer cells using the natural red wine product (resveratrol) and participated in its pre-clinical drug-development. He collaborates with many laboratories interested in applying stem cells that his lab generates to repair and regenerate the cornea and retina to treat many vision disorders.