LABORATORY OF ARTIFICIAL LIFE THROUGH Chemistry 

Basics

Laboratory of Artificial Life Through Chemistry (LOALTC) strives to work on the creation and study of artificial living materials via non-living chemical processes

Research

Research in the lab will focus on preparation and characterization and properties and applications of living materials made from non-living chemicals ranging from nanomaterials to polymer materials leading to animate materilals that can be categorized as inorganic life

Publications

1) Busupalli, B., Kummara, S., Kumaraswamy, G., Prasad, B. L. V. Ultrathin sheets of metal or metal sulfide from molecularly thin sheets of metal thiolates in solution, Chem. Mater (ACS)., 2014, 26 (11), 3436-3442.

2) Busupalli, B., Date, K. S., Datar, S., Prasad, B. L. V. Preparation of Ni3S2 and Ni3S2-Ni nanosheets via solution based processes, Cryst. Growth  Des (ACS)., 2015, 15 (6), 2584–2588.

3) Busupalli, B.* Synthetic biological circuits: digital or analog? Current Science (IAS), 2015, 109(8), 1386-1387.

4) Busupalli, B., Battu, S., Haram, S. K., Prasad, B. L. V. In situ electrochemical transformation of Ni3S2 and Ni3S2-Ni from sheets to nanodisks: towards efficient electrocatalysis for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) Chemistry Select (Wiley), 2016, 1, 6708-6712.

5) Bera, A., Busupalli, B., Prasad, B. L. V. Solvent-less solid state synthesis of dispersible metal and semiconducting metal sulfide nanocrystals, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (ACS), 2018, 6 (9), 12006–12016.

6) Busupalli, B., Munuzuri, A. P., Perez-Mercader, J. Osmotically induced membrane fission in giant polymer vesicles: multilamellarity and effect of the amphiphilic block lengths, Langmuir (ACS), 2018, 34 (37), 10984–10992.

7) Bera, A., Busupalli, B., Prasad, B. L. V. Correction to solvent-less solid state synthesis of dispersible metal and semiconducting metal sulfide nanocrystals, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (ACS), 2020, 8 (45), 17000.

8) Busupalli, B.,* Patel, V. K. Dark-induced vertical growth of chemobrionic architectures in silver based precipitating chemical gardens, Chem. Commun. 2022, 58 (26), 4172-4175.

9) Busupalli, B.,* Patel, V. K. Back cover-dark-induced vertical growth of chemobrionic architectures in silver based precipitating chemical gardens, Chem. Commun. 2022, 58 (26), 4267-4268.

10) Busupalli, B.* Self-replicating autocatalytic peptides on 2D sheets for emergent properties, Current Science, 2022, 122(9), 1018. 

11) Patel, V. K., Busupalli, B.* Dissimilar chemobrionic growth in  copper silicate chemical gardens in absence or presence of light, Accepted manuscript-communication, Chem. Commun. 2023, 59 (1), 768-771.

12) Prajapati, H., Busupalli, B*, Jute-integrated copper nanoparticle-embedded PSf membrane as highly efficient dye removal material, ACS Omega (under review), 2023. 

13) Patel, V. K., Busupalli, B.* Light-modulated colour transformation in highly intertwined vertically growing silver tungstate tubes, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2023, 25, 30727-30734.

14) Patel, V. K., Patel, M., Busupalli, B.,* Solanki, A.* Interface Engineering enables Multilevel Resistive Switching in Ultralow-Power Chemobrionic Copper Silicate, Langmuir, 2024, 40, 4, 2311–2319.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

1) Busupalli, B.*, Novel nanoscopic molecular materials as precursors for metal and semiconductor nanoparticles, PhD thesis, CSIR–NCL, 2016.

2) Busupalli, B.*, Artificial life through artificial cell, Chemstreet (PDEU quarterly Magazine), 12–13, 12/2021.

3) Busupalli, B.*, Palladium thiolates: a revived class of soluble layered materials, Academia Letters, 2, 2021.

4) Busupalli, B.*, He is Helium, Chemstreet (PDEU quarterly Magazine), 17–18, 06/2022.

(* Corresponding Author)

PATENTS

1) Busupalli, B., and Prasad, L. V. B. Solution process for synthesis of single layer metal sheets, 2-3-2021, Patent No. 357638 (GRANTED) by IN patent office.

2) Busupalli, B. Face mask with detachable fragrance strip, Design patent filed, 2021.

3) Busupalli, B., and Prasad, L. V. B. A process for synthesis of single layer metal sheets, 2015, WO Patent WO2015132802A2 (Published). 

Conferences

1) Paper presented on 'Asymmetric membrane scission in polymer vesicles induced via osmotic pressure difference', at the virtual 5th Network conference, Network of Researchers on the Chemical Evolution of Life (NoRCEL), 29th–31st March 2021, hosted from the United Kingdom.

2) Selected and presented my work at the New England Complex Fluids Workgroup Meeting held at Brandeis University on 21st September 2018.

3) Selected and presented my work at the New England Complex Fluids Workgroup Meeting held at Stata Center MIT on 15th June 2018.

4) Attended Harvard Origins of Life Initiative's Tenth anniversary symposium: new concepts and breakthroughs in origins of life research held at Harvard University from Apiril 3-4, 2017.

5) Selected with a travel grant and attended and presented a poster in HHMI (Howard Hughes Medical Institute)–Janelia Research Campus conference on ‘Challenges in Crystallography’ held from October 11th – 14th, 2015 at Ashburn, Virginia, U.S.A.

6) Poster presented during the Indian National Science Day celebrations on February 28, 2015 at CSIR-NCL (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Chemical Laboratory), Pune, India and won the best poster award.

7) Selected to attend and presented a poster at the 7th Bangalore India Nano conference held at hotel Lalit Ashok in Bengaluru, India from 5th – 6th December 2014.

8) Selected to attend and presented a poster at the Indo-US Conference and Workshop on Synthetic and Systems Biology, JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University), New Delhi, India from 9th – 12th Nov 2014.

9) Poster presented in the Mumbai–Pune Soft Matter Meeting, June 28, 2014 held at CSIR-NCL, Pune, India.

10) Poster presented in the Mumbai–Pune Soft Matter Meeting, June 25, 2011 held at TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research)-Mumbai, India.

11) Poster presented during the National Science Day celebrations in February 28, 2011 at CSIR-NCL, Pune, India.

12) Selected to attend and gave an oral presentation at the DST (Department of Science and Technology) School on nanoscience and nanotechnology held at IISc, Bangalore-India from Jan 3rd – 10th, 2011.

About me

Name: Dr. Busupalli Balanagulu

🔴 Assistant professor, Department of Science, PDEU (formerly PDPU), Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

01 April 2019-Till date

Work done: just started, ongoing work on soft and smart materials for energy studies in life-like materials

🔴 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA, June 2018-November 2018

Work done: Thorough investigation of mechanical properties of the membranes of 

lipid vesicles and their behavior probed by vibrational spectroscopy

🔴 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, June 2016-May 2018

work done: Thorough investigation of mechanical properties of the membranes of the polymer vesicles and comprehensive study of osmotically induced membrane fission in such polymer vesicles 

🔴 PhD, National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), Pune, Maharashtra, India, July 2009-May 2016

work done: Synthesized soluble metal thiolate layered compounds and studied their solution state structural characteristics in organic solvents and then used them as precursors to prepare nanoparticles and studied their properties and applications for electrochemical hydrogen generation

🔴 Project Associate, Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), India, December 2008-June 2009

work done: Prepared, analyzed and studied fluorescence properties of platinum nanoclusters

🔴 M.Sc. in Chemistry, CGPA: 7.79 / 10, 2006 – 2008, 

Sri Venkateswara University Campus, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India                                

🔴 B.Sc. in Chemistry and Biology, CGPA: 8.0 / 10, 2003 – 2006, 

Sri Venkateswara Arts College, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India                                            

🔴 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, India, 1996 – 2003