IISER prof gets Bhatnagar Award for research, innovation
Times of India | 31 October 2025
Kolkata: Dibyendu Das, a professor who works on recreating life-like systems from simple chemical building blocks, was selected for the Vigyan Yuva Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for excellence in scientific research and innovation.
The associate professor in the department of chemical sciences at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata is internationally recognised for his contributions to systems chemistry.
His research addresses fundamental questions about the origin of life and the creation of living-matter-like systems in the laboratory, termed ‘Life 2.0'. "We are trying to create a simple form of life from simple chemicals and understand how life on Earth was created around 4 billion years ago.
Till now, we have been able to create components of life-like matter that show alive when they are given food and die when deprived of food.
They divide just like living cells, and they grow," Das said.
Das hopes the research will be useful in healthcare and disease mitigation. "If we are able to recreate living matter-like systems in a lab, we can develop a smart delivery platform for medicines. Imagine a gel-like capsule that will breathe and live, a capsule containing medicine that will be in our body and oscillate to release the right amount when needed.
One more application avenue could be the way the designed systems can sense chemicals from a long distance to move, just like human beings can smell food and move towards, say, a kitchen.
Our systems also show such chemoattractant-driven movement, which can revolutionise future drug delivery technologies," he said.
Reacting to the announcement of the award, Das said the recognition would strengthen his confidence in pursuing his goals.
Past recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award from IISER Kolkata include Soumitro Banerjee and Biswarup Mukhopadhyay in 2003 for physics, and Swadhin Kumar Mandal and Rahul Banerjee in 2018 for chemistry. In addition, Swadhin Mandal and Rahul Banerjee from the department of chemical sciences were awarded the JC Bose Grant this year in recognition of their research.