Episode 19 of the Modern Chemistry podcast features Prof. Debabrata Maiti. Prof. Maiti is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, where he works on the catalysis of functionalizing carbon-hydrogen bonds. You can find out more about his work at his group’s website - https://www.dmaiti.com/ Prior to his time at the IIT, Prof. Maiti conducted research at Johns Hopkins University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), both in the USA.
If you’re not familiar with some of the terms used in this discussion – some key ones are described here for your reference:
Prof Maiti is contactable on social media, and you can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/debabrata-maiti-54ab622a/
Our theme music is "Wholesome" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Music from https://filmmusic.io
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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Paul Orange: Hello and welcome to the Modern Chemistry Podcast with your host, Paul Orange. Hello and welcome to the Modern Chemistry Podcast. Thank you for joining us for the first episode in our Autumn Winter 2022 season and thanks for finding us. If you are listening to [00:00:30] the Modern Chemistry Podcast for the first time, would recommend you go and check out our archive, which is in all the places that you get podcasts. Also available on the H.E.L Group website, helgroup.com. If you're a subscriber, thanks for subscribing and thanks for tuning back in.
We start off this run of shows with an interview with Professor Debabrata Maiti. And Professor Maiti is based [00:01:00] at the India Institute of Technology Bombay. Although it's in Mumbai, it retains the Bombay name and Professor Maiti works on functionalizing carbon-hydrogen bonds, especially through catalytic methods, which you'll hear in a conversation. He's had stints working at some very prestigious institutes in the US before his current role and I hope the other thing that comes through is just the sheer enthusiasm that Professor Maiti [00:01:30] had for his work, the community of scientists he works with, and in particular, the students that he has working with him on a day-to-day basis. We'll admit we had a couple of audio gremlins, so you might hear some clicks and pops and an occasional dropout of Professor Maiti's end of the conversation, but that does seem to stabilize after a little while. I don't think it influences what he's trying to say or the medium of his message. And [00:02:00] hopefully my edits to try and fix things aren't too clumsy. So I'll be back at the end to say goodbye. But with no further ado, let's jump straight into the interview.
So I'm delighted to welcome to the show today Professor Deb Maiti and Professor Maiti is talking to me too from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay today. So Professor Maiti, welcome to the show.
Debabrata Maiti: Hi Paul. It's a pleasure seeing you and meeting you here and I'm looking really forward to discuss with you today. Thank you for having [00:02:30] me here.
Paul Orange: Oh, more than welcome. And look, there's some really interesting research that you work on, which I would like to get into. Also, lots of notes about the things you do that aren't directly I guess your research, but maybe if we could start just talking a bit about the IIT itself. I've come to understand a little bit that it's an entity that has multiple sites across India, but maybe you could just talk about the institute and the [00:03:00] kind of things that it's focused on.
Debabrata Maiti: Sure. So yeah, our institute or My Institute, it's Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, IIT Bombay we call it. It is at Mumbai, so the city's name is Mumbai, but the institute name stays as IIT Bombay. It is indeed, I would say perhaps the most prestigious institute in our country as of today. It has evolved since it's [00:03:30] beginning. Now we have I think many departments in particular, engineering departments I've known for bachelor student, Bachelor's of Technology students. And also, institute has done significantly well in the field of research and technology over the decades now.
Now, my department is the Department of Chemistry. It's been a wonderful feeling for me to be part of this excellent institute as well as this great department. [00:04:00] My department is having approximately 40 faculties and about let's say 350 PhD student at it. Of course there are 150 and maybe another postdoc and the project students also are working with us. And this is one of the place I'm very happy to be part of. I'm very happy to be dealing with the regular activities of the institute, including teaching and [00:04:30] main focus undoubtedly, is to lead the research group in my department, which I'm very proud of. And mainly, we are having a number of PhD students and postdocs, some project student as well as master's and bachelor students are working with us. And this is a really a wonderful place to be and I wish you could visit sometime soon, we can discuss more in person.
Paul Orange: I would love to and I actually should have been with you in person today, but circumstances were acting against me. And I have to say, [00:05:00] just looking at some of the photos on your group website that seems to be sort of nice lakes and trees in the background. So it does look like a wonderful environment to work.
Debabrata Maiti: It is, right?
Paul Orange: In terms of how you got to where you are. So I'll put a link to your group website in the show notes so people can look as well. But just looking back at your career history, you actually started off with the IIT doing an MSc and then went to some very prestigious institutions to do further [00:05:30] postdoctoral studies. Maybe you could just talk us a little bit about what it was that caused you to make the choices you did in terms of those institutions and what really interested you is you went through those different career options.
Debabrata Maiti: After completing my Bachelor from Belur Ramakrishna Mission at Kolkata or near Kolkata. I did my master's' from IIT Bombay as I said, I mean of course the same institute where I'm back as faculty. And it's [00:06:00] really a wonderful feeling to be a master student at IIT Bombay. And then it was of course, a general tendency at that point and I would say even now to try to do a PhD from a premier institute like IIT Bombay or it's required or if somebody wants, usually some of us would go abroad. In particular, for my case I went to John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
There [00:06:30] I was mainly working on bio inorganic chemistry where we were trying to mimic the enzyme active site by taking a metal center and designing a ligand around it and trying to see if those metal-ligand complexes can carry out synthetic transformation, similar to what is known in the enzyme. Completing my PhD in 2008, I then joined Buchwald's [00:07:00] group at MIT Boston where I was working on Organometallics Chemistry and Catalysis in particular the cross-coupling reactions which has made Buchwald's group famous... Happy to be part of that. Subsequent my training at his lab, I came back to IIT Bombay and I could not be happy to be joining one of the most prestigious institute in India. And ever since I'm here and really happy and proud [00:07:30] to be part of this great institute IIT Bombay.
Paul Orange: So one of the things that I think is very common with most of the guests, if not all of the guests on the show is that like you, they've had that international experience during their career and I think in science that's very common. What do you think that you got or people generally get out of that experience of working overseas and working in different labs and I guess experiencing different cultures [00:08:00] to a certain extent?
Debabrata Maiti: Absolutely, Paul. I mean think for me it was particularly, I felt at that point it would be important to see the world outside our country. Although I was very sure that I was at the best institute in India and it is really one of the best place to be, which is IIT Bombay, I was doing my master's. But I thought it was pretty important to know the world, to see the culture, to see how research is done outside and [00:08:30] knowing the contributions made in different institute in particular, let say John Hopkins University, where it is known that the institute is perhaps the best in the world, in terms of its biological studies, medicine and any bio related field, like it could be Bio-organic, Bio inorganic, Biochemistry, Biophysical, Biomedical, anything related to biological studies. I would say the number one institute to go, I mean [00:09:00] it's kind of number one or one of the most prestigious institute to go.
So yeah, it was I think a conscious choice to go and join there. That experience and the exposure... Make a difference when particularly I wanted from the very beginning to... Career to see or to study in a place where you are able to discuss, learn... The best in the world, that makes [00:09:30] certainly a different... It gives you confidence that you are learning perhaps the right thing. Perhaps in future, you can do the right thing and you can perhaps, try to contribute to the best of your ability knowing that how things are done. And same way for institute like MIT, it's more sacred that again, in terms of engineering aspects, in terms of the application, specifically in the, let's say automation, chemistry, that's really one of the premier [00:10:00] place I would say. Again, I mean there are many institutes which are known to be really significantly contributing in the dominance, worlds dominant in technology and MIT is definitely one of those.
So all those exposures, it gives you not only the confidence, it gives you a motivation to figure out how you want to pan your career out, how you want to contribute for, let's say greater cause, that could [00:10:30] be for the future of, let's say my country, future of my present institute. So it's overall it was a, I would say really important choice, looking back at it that I have made those decisions, I could have very well do study or let's say my PhD and for postdoctoral studies in India, that would've been also fantastic. But at that point of time I thought that I would like to see outside world before settling down in India [00:11:00] as an academic.
Paul Orange: And it's interesting hearing you talk about MIT and its engineering and mechanical heritage or prestige because one of the things that struck me looking through your research interests and please correct me if any of this information is wrong or out of date, you focus a lot on functionalization and activation of carbon-hydrogen bonds, but across a range of different technology types or [00:11:30] protocols, I guess. Do you think your time at MIT informed some sort of interest in, "Look, my end goal is working on functionalizing these bonds, I'm kind of agnostic about the best way to do it, so I'm going to explore them all." Or did that just evolve as you were setting your lab up and as your research interests got broader?
Debabrata Maiti: Yeah, of course Paul, I think I was always having an interest to build up my independent [00:12:00] career in the domain which is perhaps a little bit different. It could be inspired, but it is a little bit different from the exposure that I was receiving. Of course MIT has or my previous studies that includes at IIT Bombay, at John Hopkins University as well as MIT. It has certainly influenced the way I want to do or the topic that I want to choose. But certainly, my present lab topic is different than what I have [00:12:30] done before, but it has certainly given me the confidence to do well in my chosen field of independent research. And carbon-hydrogen bond functionalization is, I would say one of the most important topic of today's synthetic chemistry because we along... From the [inaudible 00:12:50] watching a community... Contributors from India and of course all... We are able to [00:13:00] take the simple molecule and try to or are able to convert it...
The complex one, these complex molecule could be your agrochemical, pharmaceuticals, it could be of high value. Yeah, I mean it has been impacted by my previous understanding as well as the knowledge that has been gained over the years. Yeah.
Paul Orange: Okay. So maybe this is a great time to dig a little bit more deeply into the work that you're doing. [00:13:30] So you spoke there about functionalization of carbon-hydrogen bonds and the really broad range of applications that is lent to. So maybe if you could start off by giving us an idea of the main areas of focus that you are working on in lab or maybe the main technologies if that's more appropriate that you are looking at. And if we could relate it back to some of the challenges that those synthetic pathways help address, that would be really helpful I think for the audience.
Debabrata Maiti: [00:14:00] Yeah, sure. As you know, Paul, so organic molecules are having many different carbon-hydrogen bond, any given molecule. Let's say, if you are looking at toluene or even hexane, simple organic molecule, the simplest possible organic molecules also are having many different carbon-hydrogen bond. So our community of carbon-hydrogen bond functionalization, we together trying to figure out [00:14:30] how can we selectively pick up one of those carbon-hydrogen bonds and functionalize them or convert that carbon-hydrogen bond into a different... Such as carbon-carbon by doing shows, we are essentially a very simple molecule to more valuable product and those valuable products, again, as I mentioned could be life saving drugs, could be an important materials of interest, would be an agrochemical, [00:15:00] pharmaceutical, perfume molecule. The application of this technology is direct... For the raw material that is required for these processes are the simplest one and readily available one and the cheapest possible one.
So we are essentially looking for a way to convert simple molecule into the complex one, okay? The challenge is sincerely is selectively... Cup only one... Within [00:15:30] bond where multiple carbon-hydrogen sites are available. Essentially that selective... How can you selectively promote the reaction at one center without touch... Other centers are also competitive, other centers are equally accessible, equally simple or equally complex. How can you differentiate among different sites, okay? So to speak, let's say I have five fingers in my hand. If [00:16:00] these are five different carbon-hydrogen bond and if I want to really react at this particular site, how can I react or how can I strategize to get this carbon-hydrogen bond reacted and living apart these other four carbon-hydrogen bonds? That's the major challenge and that's the challenge... Essentially what happens, if you do not have the right catalyst or right way to do it, then you will end up getting [00:16:30] reaction over here, here, in different quantities.
So that reaction is not selected. Essentially we are trying to strategize, we means, we as the community of carbon-hydrogen bond functionalization, there are many contributors. Again, this is not a job of one research group. Many research groups across the globe are working on this. We are trying to figure out how to do it selectively and efficiently. If you look at nature biological system, [00:17:00] in biological system, things can be done very selectively. Essentially, you take one organic molecule, you get one product in biological system. But doing the same for conversion or doing the same reaction in laboratory for a synthetic chemist like us, it's going to be difficult. It's not all that we cannot do the reaction, we can do the reaction perhaps, we can overdo the reaction. Most often what happens, we don't get the selectivity, that's the major challenge.
So [00:17:30] selectively doing the reaction as I was saying at one site of your simple organic molecule, that's the challenge, mostly we are trying to address, we mean again, not only just us part of the community trying to look at and solve these. Again, the benefit is universal and that is you take a simple molecule, you get a complex one. You convert one... To another one without going through many steps. Usually you would see that chemists talk about let's say 10 steps reaction, [00:18:00] 20 steps reaction or five steps reaction, the beauty of these carbon-hydrogen bond functionalization reactions are, or you are looking at maybe one step, sometimes two or three steps maximum, okay. That's the beauty of it, but it's very simply, very quickly you will be able to get the product. Yeah.
Paul Orange: Yeah.
Debabrata Maiti: Thank you.
Paul Orange: Okay. And I mean you've mentioned and is again, it's on your website about Bio-inspired catalysis now is a topic you mentioned there. So biological enzymes have evolved over the millions [00:18:30] of years. The organisms have been alive. Enzyme engineering is more prevalent these days, but it's still, it's not a simple task and you probably need to start with something that to use your hand analogies at least attaching to the right finger in the first place. How do you take that inspiration from those complex catalytic molecules which are usually fairly big proteins and then turn them into a simpler and as you said, more efficient, more effective chemical [00:19:00] process or maybe a catalyst that you use in the process?
Debabrata Maiti: Sure. As you have rightly port... I mean, enzymes have evolved over time. I mean time in memorial, right?
Paul Orange: Yeah.
Debabrata Maiti: So it had got all its time to do the right thing at the right time and the right amount, right? There is no selectivity problem, as you were mentioning. The way usually enzymes are doing the chemistry [00:19:30] simply it has an active site where the chemistry will happen. It could be usually let's say a metal center, the active site where the reaction will happen, but the selectivity is really achieved by the fact that you place your organic substrate in front of this active site very perfectly. Let's say this is the orientation, it's not any other orientation, only one orientation you are able to bring your [00:20:00] organic substrate... With respect to your active site. And for placing your organic substrate in front of your active site, you have multiple effect, as you are mentioning, Paul.
You have a Hydrogen bonding, you have electrostatic interactions, CH−π interactions, all sorts of weak interaction you can bring in or the enzyme or the nature, mother nature has bring in, all sorts of interactions. Weak interaction, like hundreds of or thousands of weak interactions [00:20:30] made it possible that organic substrate comes in a particular orientation. So there is no movement of that orientation. It's something in the literature known as lock and key. You have one lock and one key, a perfect key for your lock, right? Our lock, our house lock doesn't open or the lock doesn't open with a different key. So that's been perfected in biological system [00:21:00] over centuries, zillions of years, we don't know how long it took. Now that's going to be very difficult for any chemist because what essentially we are trying to deal with is, we have an active site just like enzyme, but we don't have a control on the substrate.
Substrate can have degrees of freedom, substrate can rotate upside down, it can go any way it wants, it can basically wander around [00:21:30] the active site. How to really essentially fix this substrate orientation? That's essentially we are trying to design. Again, we means, we as a community. So what we are trying to do is most often, that we are trying to change the active site or the metal center in such a way so that this metal center somehow, or it could be again, hydrogen bonding, some sort of electrostatic interaction, [00:22:00] some sort of weak interaction or sometime even the covalent interaction. In some way we are trying to figure out that it is disorientation is fixed or locked, okay? It's locked. Orienting that or ensuring that locked configuration we are getting, lots of design that we need to do. So that's essentially we, again, along with the community member, we are trying to have.
There are different strategies, one is taking, [00:22:30] again, one strategy could be covalent approach where you are trying to link covalently with your active site and your organic substrate. Other way could be again, landing from nature that there is weak interaction. Now can we try to bring those weak interactions such as hydrogen bonding, electrostatic interactions and CH−π or π−π interactions, these sort of interaction. Now these are never going to be perfect just like enzyme. [00:23:00] Enzyme again, has put many weaker interaction put together just like hydrogen bonding, many hydrogen bonding makes it stronger just like in water. Water is liquid, thanks to the many hydrogen bonding that it can have. If it's one or two, it's not going to be in liquid form. Similarly, I mean enzyme is able to do it very effectively, but we as synthetic chemist, we are trying to take one of those tools and trying to see if we can have it as effective, perhaps [00:23:30] as effective as nature.
Unfortunately it's a long task, it's not easy, never easy. The efficiency and selectivity as we get from nature, it's not easy to achieve that very easily, but if we can take even baby steps at this point, I mean, over the time or when this overall activity has started, from there, we as a community now have made significant of this and it is going to be a tremendous job going [00:24:00] ahead for those of us who are active now or might will be for the future generation to take this forward and try to see if we can really mimic nature. The way nature is doing, can we do that? Yeah, so that's really exciting. I mean, you can never do it perfectly, but attempting to do it, trying to achieve what nature is able to do, I think that's exciting. I mean that's what the fun is and getting some exciting reason along the way [00:24:30] makes things really exciting for all of us, yeah.
Paul Orange: Yeah. And when you talk about that mechanism of trying to evolve the structure of that metal center and the interactions around it, I'm curious how much of that relies on lab work to actually design something new and see whether it works versus working on a computer or just sitting at a desk sketching things out? What's that mix look like for you?
Debabrata Maiti: Yeah, well it's never an easy task [00:25:00] to really design it perfectly. I would say lot of efforts goes into this is where the brilliance of our students come into picture. Their visualization and their way of thinking, way of doing things, how they try to approach the problem is critical. I must say that lot of our design, initial design I would say, is not going to be successful we know that, but no matter what, we try [00:25:30] to carry that out. Even if we know that things may not work out potentially and that's where the dedication and again, the brilliance and the focus of the students comes into picture. They are the one, they are trying to design, of course in consultation with me, of course they are trying to design how to go about the thing. Perhaps it would be great to have the computational studies along the way.
So you compute the structure beforehand, then predict what [00:26:00] would be perhaps the net outcome. But yes, certainly we do collaborate with, inside the department we have some great colleagues including Professor Soumendra group, Professor Rajaraman group. We do collaborate, we do have excellent results before and we are continuously collaborating, but it is not that always it is feasible. I think it has to be the combination of both. Sometime our collaborators are able to predict absolutely [00:26:30] brilliant things. Sometime it is also the idea of my student who after understanding how things works, they start predicting without taking the help of computational studies. They go on predicting by themselves and then try to figure out that things are indeed happening. I think it occurs both the way. Sometimes we take the help of the computational input first and then go about designing.
Sometime also, we [00:27:00] do the things first based on our intuition, based on our experiences and expectations and then we try to take the help of our computational colleague to understand it better, to make harder future predictions. So I mean sometime it's kind of the egg and chicken problem, right?
Paul Orange: Yeah.
Debabrata Maiti: We try to do both the ways and we are very happy that we have really great collaboration both inside the department as well as outside the department. Even [00:27:30] across the countries we are able to do the collaboration to make sure that the studies that we do are meaningful and important in the context of the present understanding. Thank you.
Paul Orange: So it is clear there's a lot of experimental chemistry involved in this, however it happens. So two other things that you mention on your website. Look at photocatalytic and electrochemical approaches and it kind of strikes me as interesting because they can [00:28:00] be in theory more targeted because you don't have the right light source or you don't apply the electrical charge correctly. How do those approaches complement some of the other stuff that you've been talking about?
Debabrata Maiti: Yeah, actually, I mean at the beginning or right now, what we are trying to do essentially is, if we can do some of the, let's say carbon-hydrogen bond functionalization reaction in presence of light. One of the drawback [00:28:30] of the reactions that we, and again the community are trying to do is, we need to reoxidize the catalyst at the end of the catalytic cycle, as you mentioned. There are multiple tape in the catalytic cycle. In the last step of the catalytic cycle we need to oxidize the metal center to get back the catalytically competent intermediate.
Now that tape usually we are using [00:29:00] very expensive as well as I would say hazardous oxidant such as silver salt, silver nitrate, silver acetate and we are using stoichiometric amount, like shoot up stoichiometric amount, often three p-valent and four q-valent. That is of course, not really industrially viable, that the process, which is definitely not something industries is looking for what to use if we are using really, I know a lot of silver salt... To just oxidize [00:29:30] the metal center and this is particularly where we initially thought that in our research activity we would like to bring the photochemistry part where photocatalyst in combination with let's say, Cr will oxidize palladium.
Let's say in our chemistry, we use a lot of palladium or any metal center from its lower oxidation state to an higher oxidation state to complete the catalytic cycle. So it was more of a mechanistic driven input, like we [00:30:00] wanted to make sure that we are interfering or we are improving one of the critical step by utilizing either photochemistry or electrochemistry. That's one of the key steps. Another key step, as I was trying to tell you also is the activation of the carbon-hydrogen bond. Because carbon-hydrogen bond... And such are very inert right? Let's say methane, methane to methanol is really one of the most difficult conversion, [00:30:30] right? If anyone has a very good catalyst which can convert methane into methanol, I think we are talking about again changing reactions. Of course people can do it, but doing it in industrial scale at an efficiency where neutrally methane is converted into methanol and industry start selling methanol from that process.
That would be revolutionary thing, right? Just like ammonia products and nitrogen plus hydrogen put together, you got the haber [00:31:00] process of ammonia production. That's a revolutionary reaction. When it was done categorically, it had changed almost all the synthetic field. Similarly, if we can do the carbon-hydrogen bond activation of methane to methanol, that's pretty fantastic, but the problem is that activation is very difficult. It requires a high energy and the polarity of course, doesn't help you in any way. So overall that step itself, the activation of the carbon-hydrogen bond is requiring high energy and this [00:31:30] is particularly where again, the electrochemistry or photochemistry can perhaps help. For example, photochemistry wise, if the molecule or the catalyst can be activated by using the light and then we are able to get the activated pieces into the reaction, that perhaps would require less thermal energy because part of the activation has been [00:32:00] done with the form of light.
So we may not... In this the reaction, let's say, which was taking let's say 120 degrees centigrade or 150 degrees centigrade. Perhaps we can do that at room temperature in combination with light. So this strategy was really important to have, in terms of what you are doing. Again, of course we are trying to bring that electrochemistry and photochemistry input into the carbon-hydrogen bond functionalization reaction. That's [00:32:30] where the first step as well as the last step, which is the most difficult steps of TOR catalytic cycle we are trying to influence. But otherwise also we are working on a number of problems which required photoenergy or photon and also strategically we are trying to also use the electro synthetic procedure to make sure that we are taking the advantage of each of those domain.
Paul Orange: You spoke there about, if we could do the methane to methanol conversion, that would be great. Are there [00:33:00] particular reactions or end products that you are focusing on trying to improve?
Debabrata Maiti: Well, yeah, I mean of course we have a number of target molecule, a number of drug, let's say pharmaceuticals, essentially, we want to synthesize if possible, for example, in one step. Yes, we have a number of targets that we are working on and we have achieved quite a few as well where essentially, let's say, [00:33:30] previously it was requiring five steps, we can do it in one step. There are a number of targets and we are in constant interaction with different industries who are dealing with this target molecular drug preparation or chemical preparation. It has in a way changed the retrosynthetic analysis that carbon-hydrogen functionalization essentially changed the way, we think about preparing the molecule. Previously, it used to be that we have to go [00:34:00] in a linear step wise manner. We have to have, let's say five steps, 10 steps, 20 steps.
Now you can cut down at least some of those steps. So a 20 steps reaction can be made maybe 15 steps, 17 steps. So that I would say that exciting part of this, yes... Again, coming back to your post, whether we are looking at any target molecule? There are plenty of target molecules. Again, not only one particular target we work on, we try to take a variety of targets. So we [00:34:30] try to have a motive that would be successful, let's say if there is a phenol motive. Now if a drug or pharmaceuticals as well as agrochemical is based on phenol, then we try to develop a method to work on phenol or toluene, let's say benzoic acid, some molecule which is simple [00:35:00] molecule regularly available and then we try to see if this method is connecting to some drug molecule preparation for agrochemical preparation. So in that sense we have numerous targets already achieved and we are also looking forward our many other target that we are working both with industry as well as the different funding agency. At this point we are really very excited to solve some of this...
Paul Orange: I know that you have a very busy [00:35:30] agenda, so if I could just ask you two final questions that would be great. So first one is, imagine that I've got the power to give you a magic wand and you can have a piece of equipment or some reagents that will make your research easier. What would your wish be for this magical piece of support for your lab?
Debabrata Maiti: Oh yeah, I would like to have, let's say, I mean, as you would know [00:36:00] this research is very intensive in terms of resources. If you can have some automated instrument which can help my students and help our research activity. So automation, I would say is something I would be very happy to adopt or happy to have in our lab. For example, if a robotics and a powerful robotics, which essentially gives me an opportunity [00:36:30] to carry out reactions which are not possible to do in a multiple numbers and can be done in multiple numbers in a day or two. Let's say I want to have n number of hypothesis, I want to test it by two days. Usually it'll take maybe let's say one year for a PhD student or a research scholar to work on, if I can get it done in two days or three days by taking the advantage of technology, [00:37:00] let's say automation, that would be fantastic.
So we are looking forward to that magic wand which can empower us and solve some of the problems that we are facing. It could be also in that way like automation in the way, the speed by which we can do the things. Another thing could be also maybe the prediction, let's say. So nowadays, you must be seeing that lesson learning is coming into the pictures. So the prediction at a higher level where the [00:37:30] reaction outcome without doing it can be visualized beforehand and thereby I may not need to do hundred reaction, maybe one reaction only I do just to verify the missing predicted outcome, right?
Paul Orange: Yeah.
Debabrata Maiti: So that would be fantastic. So both, again, automation is one thing I would really love to have in our lab, more than ever before. And also, high level of prediction in terms of let's [00:38:00] say, lesson learning would be really useful for our research.
Paul Orange: Right. Well, if I get that magic wand sorted out, I'll send it over to you or at least the wish.
Debabrata Maiti: Thank you.
Paul Orange: And then final question I'd like to ask is, so again, I was just sort of looking through your website and some research, I've written down in my notes here, lots of adjunct and visiting positions, lots of editorial advisory roles, lots of honors and awards, and I didn't [00:38:30] even mention the collaboration. And the one thing that comes through from hearing you talk is, you are clearly super passionate about this. So what is it that sustains your passion and your enthusiasm for this work? Because it's clear, it's really clear.
Debabrata Maiti: Thank you, thank you Paul. Well, I think part of the thing is in this profession we get to stay and interact with the youngest possible minds and the smartest possible minds. And this is where [00:39:00] again, I would come back to my department and my institute. I'm really thankful for having such a interacting atmosphere, such a brilliant atmosphere where we are able to perhaps bring the best of the minds across the country at least. We are given an atmosphere, given a situation where we can always stay young, no matter how much we are aging, the students and their brilliance is mind blowing, breathtaking. So that [00:39:30] I think is the most exciting part of our journey. Dealing with the students who are motivated, they want to make a change and I got to just direct them, I got to organize them, I got to discuss with them, I got to share my experience essentially that's the part perhaps they're missing, but keeping up with them, learning from them and organizing things with them, I think that's the most exciting part of my journey.
[00:40:00] And in addition to that, of course, if you are a independent researcher, you need to have certain academic ambition that you want to solve something, you want to contribute for the mankind let's say, so to speak, if you can. I mean of course all of us want to contribute in some sense or the other. Each of us are contributing on this art in some positive way, constructive way. Science has its limitations as well. But within those limitations [00:40:30] of things, because everybody's lifetime is limited, everybody's research funding is limited, everything is limited. But within that limitation, if we can do something meaningful or positive, constructive, perhaps something to remember by, when we will be gone. And I think that's exciting. And try to do something positive for the society. Again, it's very difficult to say for a chemist or for a physicist, [00:41:00] for a biologist to say that they will be contributing in a great way for the mankind that's difficult, understandable, difficult.
It takes a lot of effort and the contribution at the end maybe very little, but that little means something, that little must be exciting. So that's again, as I was trying to discuss, if I can really make the molecules which are life saving drugs by simplest possible way, I would [00:41:30] say, "Yeah, I mean, that's exciting". At the end, we might not be able to save their life directly. We are not the real doctors who are dealing with the difficulties of humans or other living species, but we might be able to give some tools, some opportunity, perhaps to influence and make some people's life little bit better. I think that's the exciting part of it. And along with it, of course, you got to enjoy your life, you got [00:42:00] to take care of things around you and you got to do all the positive things in and around you. And I would say, if we are able to do that, we are really happy about that, yeah.
Paul Orange: I think that's very great sentiment. And Deb, Professor Maiti, thank you very much for joining us on the show today. It's been great having you on.
Debabrata Maiti: Thank you very much, Paul.
Paul Orange: Thanks very much for sticking with us all the way through to the end of that interview. I hope you enjoyed it, I know I did. And thanks for subscribing [00:42:30] to the Modern Chemistry Podcast. If this is the first show that you've listened to, please do go back and check out our archive that's available on all the Podcast apps as well as through the H.E.L Group website, which is helgroup.com. Our next show is already recorded and we focus on battery pack design, especially for electric vehicles. So if that's something that interest you, strongly recommend that you hit that subscribe button and it'll [00:43:00] drop into your podcast feed next time, as soon as it's ready. As always, we're on the lookout for guests, so if you feel there's anyone that we should have on the show or if you feel you'd be good on the show, drop us a line, details and contact information are in the show notes. Until the next show, I hope you all stay safe and well. I'll catch you next time on the Modern Chemistry Podcast.
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