3 IIT Profs Explain Their Research: Lab-Made Plants, AI-Led Material Discovery & Consumer Behaviour

When three professors - working in bioprocess engineering, AI-led materials discovery & consumer research - are asked to explain their latest research to one another, what we get is a fascinating “Tech Talk”. -- 00:00 Introduction to the Tech Talk 01:13 Prof. Smita Srivastava: The role of bioprocess engineering in medicinal plants 01:56 Challenges in natural phytochemical extraction and inconsistency 03:11 Lab-grown plant biomass and bioreactor scaling 04:43 Case study: Standardizing 'Banovsha' (Viola odorata) for medicinal use 06:33 Introduction to Prof. Rohit Batra and material discovery 07:22 Addressing the massive design space of peptides 08:23 Combining machine learning with empirical and physical models 09:57 Discovering non-intuitive beta-sheet-forming peptides 11:08 Prof. Richa Agrawal: Decoding consumer behavior in e-commerce 12:21 Experimenting with incentives: Reminders, discounts, curiosity, and enjoyment 13:38 Findings: Why 'enjoyment' cues outperform standard discounts 15:33 The 'uncertainty effect' and gamification in shopping 17:05 Categorizing the six consumer benefit types 19:15 The impact of user engagement and time investment on conversion 21:09 Personalization, data privacy, and the 'privacy paradox' 23:26 Synergistic vs. single-molecule approaches in pharmaceuticals 25:49 Scaling up bioactive components: The Alpha Tocopherol example 26:33 Ensuring experimental validation for AI-predicted material discovery 28:20 When machine learning challenges empirical rules 31:13 Managing the 'black box' nature of AI models 34:49 Improving predictions with mixed variable inputs 36:16 Understanding individual variation in consumer choices 38:32 Borrowing across disciplines: Sociology, psychology, and neuroscience 40:56 The shift toward personalized medicine and holistic wellness 43:51 GDC and the journey from lab-based research to entrepreneurship 44:43 Learning the business mindset: Feasibility vs. desirability and viability 46:46 The design thinking lenses: Feasibility, desirability, and viability 48:53 Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) and researcher involvement in business