In this next article in our series on interdisciplinarity, we explore how a physicist and biologist duo (Ambarish Ghosh, Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and Deepak Saini, Department of Molecular Reproduction, Development and Genetics, IISc, Bangalore) combined their expertise to create a nanomotor system that can be precisely and accurately manoeuvred inside biological cells.

Behind the now-popular story of cockroach milk are ten years' of efforts by researchers to decode the structure of heterogeneous protein micro-crystals taken from the roaches' guts—a technologically difficult exercise that has never been done before.

A biosensor is an analytical device, which combines a bioreceptor - a biological recognition element - and a transducer. The bioreceptor can be organisms, tissues, cells, enzymes, antibodies, nucleic acids, etc and detects the target analyte while the transducer can be electrochemical, optical, thermal or mechanical in nature and converts the recognition event into a measurable signal. This is where the interaction between disciplines, like materials, electrical engineering and physics, … More

Anton van Leeuwenhoek, celebrated as "the father of microbiology", was originally a trader of drapes and linens. He became fascinated with lenses, which were commonly used as magnifying glasses to count threads, and soon mastered the art of lens making.