Dr. Prashantha Hebbar
Dr. Prashantha Hebbar is the Director of Meta Biosciences Pvt. Ltd. (LinkedIn), based in Manipal, India, and serves as an Adjunct Faculty at the Manipal Center for Biotherapeutics Research, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE). He holds a Ph.D. in Population Health with a specialization in Genetic Epidemiology from the University of Helsinki, Finland. His doctoral research, conducted at the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait under the mentorship of Prof. Jaakko Tuomilehto, Prof. Janne Pitkäniemi, and Dr. Alphonse Thangavel, focused on mapping genetic risk loci for metabolic traits in Arab populations.
Before embarking on his entrepreneurial journey, Dr. Hebbar spent over a decade as a Senior Bioinformatician at the Dasman Diabetes Institute. There, he was deeply involved in genetics and genomic research, particularly in genetic epidemiology of complex metabolic disorders in Middle Eastern populations. His work addressed the unique challenges posed by the genetic and lifestyle context of the Arab population—such as high consanguinity, recessiveness, and rapid shifts in diet and lifestyle—contributing to a broader understanding of non-communicable diseases in underrepresented populations.
He has also held academic and research roles as a Lecturer at MAHE and as a Research Scientist at the Institute of Bioinformatics, Bangalore. His contributions have been published in impactful scientific journals and have strengthened international research efforts aimed at improving community health through precision medicine and genomics.
Our laboratory collaborates with Dr. Hebbar on OXYGUT, a longitudinal study investigating the role of gut microbial communities in patients following bariatric surgery, employing metagenomic and metatranscriptomic methodologies to assess microbial dynamics and functional changes over time.