<div style="page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;">
Nobel laureate Richard Roberts was in Pune recently. The molecular biologist, who won the Nobel prize in 1993 for physiology or medicine, told us that lack of respect for dogma and a keen sense of questioning everything that people tell, has been the central theme of his career.
As a researcher at a US institute between 1978 and 1992, Roberts realised that a type of restrictive enzyme they were making was in high demand among scientists. He went to the then director of the institute with an offer to commercialise it. The director turned it down. This led Roberts to take it to a small company. The company, New England Biolabs, where he still works, now is one of the global leaders in the discovery and production of enzymes for molecular biology applications.
For researchers who want to commercialise their product, he has some tips.
Start small: Find something in what you are doing that can be converted into a product and start a company with it. Don&rsquo;t start thinking it is going to be a billion-dollar company. You don&rsquo;t need to make a lot of money to be happy. If you are successful, you can grow, and if you are not, do something else. Try and find something you can bring to the market quickly, where you do not have to pay for marketing expenses. Contact potential buyers directly.
Learn programming: It is very important for researchers to learn some programming. &ldquo;I have two programmers working for me. Initially, I used to write programs. Now I tell these people how to do it. Details I leave to them.&rdquo;
Future of biology research: Predicting enzyme functions is going to be big. So AI has a great opportunity in biology. &ldquo;If I have an enzyme, then finding what its substrate is, what it is interacting with, what it binds to &ndash; I think those&nbsp;are the areas where bioinformatics could really do a wonderful job. And one of the things we are&nbsp;missing at the moment is what I call the gold standard gene set of proteins, where you know what proteins with a certain sequence will have what biological function. Such a database doesn&rsquo;t exist. And it should. Some clever Indian could do that.&rdquo;
Dejargonise science: Scientists should be taught how to speak to the general public. &ldquo;I have something that I call the grandmother test. If I have a student doing some experiments, I say go home, tell your grandmother exactly what you do, and get it to a point where she understands what you are doing well enough so that she can go and tell her friends how smart you are.&rdquo;
</div>

Programming & AI are starting to play big role in biology

English

Spanish(español)

Bengali(বাঙালি)

Gujarati(ગુજરાતી)

Hindi(हिन्दी)

Malayalam(മലയാളം)

Tamil(தமிழ்)

Telugu(తెలుగు)

Download your favorite titles and read them offline, anytime and anywhere

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines and newspapers from thousands of best-selling titles.

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines from thousands of best-selling titles.

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines from {{magCount}}+ best-selling international titles.

Name

Please fill out this form if you need any help regarding publishing your content on Magzter

Since we launched, Magzter has been committed to partnering with global organizations to provide the greatest possible newsstand technology & service to our customers. Whether you are looking to offer magazine subscriptions to your customer database or just want to learn more, Magzter is committed to helping your business grow. To find out more, please fill out the questionnaire below: