Sudipta Maiti
BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad
Sudipta Maiti is a Senior Professor with joint appointment in the Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Physics in the Hyderabad campus of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, India. His current research interest spans several areas of biophysics, namely, protein aggregation, neurotransmission, membrane interactions, and the development of new techniques and instruments for studying biological phenomena. In addition to being a co-founder of the Fluorescence Society (India), he is currently the President of the International Society of Optics Within Life Sciences (Germany) and the Chair-Elect of the Fluorescence Subgroup, Biophysical Society (USA). He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (since 2018) and an Executive Editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry of the American Chemical Society.
Session 2B: Inaugural Lectures by Fellow
B. Gopal
Probing molecular biophysics by building novel scientific instruments
How neurotransmission takes place in the healthy brain, and how it goes wrong in a diseased brain (such as in Alzheimer’s patients), are fascinating scientific problems of our era. A molecular-level understanding of these phenomena $in vitro$ and in living cells requires the most sophisticated spectroscopy and imaging tools. We have taken the approach that building one’s own tools gives a scientist an unparalleled advantage, and have developed several new tools over the years for probing biological systems. Also, one key marker of the advancement of science in a country is commercial production of unique scientific stools. I will discuss both our efforts to understand the scientific problems of serotonergic neurotransmission and neurodegenerative diseases, as well as our nascent efforts to make commercially viable scientific instruments in India.