Dr Murali Sastry, chief scientist at the Tata Chemicals Innovation Centre, Pune, India, has an MSc in Physics and a PhD (in thin film technology) from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras (now Chennai, 1987). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics at Trieste, Italy (1988-1991); visiting faculty at CNRS in Orsay, France (2001-2003) and at the University of Maryland at College Park, USA (1998-99); as well as a federation fellow at RMIT, Melbourne (2006) and DAE professor at Central University, Hyderabad (2006).

Counted among the world's top 15 nanobiotechnologists, Dr Sastry has close to 25 years of research experience. A true interdisciplinary scientist, he joined Tata Chemicals in 2005, after creating a centre for nanotechnology at the renowned National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune. Having authored over 300 international publications, 10 chapters in books and 15 Indian and US patents, he has a number of national and international awards to his credit including India's most prestigious award in science, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Chemistry (2003).

Editor (Nanomaterials) for the Materials Research Bulletin (Elsevier), Dr Sastry serves on the international advisory boards of seven leading chemistry journals, having earlier served on advisory boards for the Department of Biotechnology, the Department of Science and Technology, the Presidential Nanotechnology Committee and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Government of India. Dr Sastry's current research interests include interfacing biologicals with inorganic nanomaterials, understanding biological process in their nanodimensions, developing new industrially relevant renewable materials and green processes, as well as ethical issues in application of nanomaterials.