BSE 102 Bioscience

Spring 2024
Introduction to Bioscience
Instructor: Dr. Sunil Kumar Boda
Assistant Professor
Department of Biosciences & Biomedical Engineering
IIT Indore
E-mail: [email protected]
 Course Objectives and Structure
• To provide an overview of various topics in Biosciences
• To enthuse students to develop an appreciation of life processes, interdisciplinary research and technology
development at the intersection of Biology and Engineering disciplines
Modules
1. Perspectives of Biology
2. Life and its origin
3. Evolutionary History of Biological Diversity
4. Micro-and Macromolecules in the living systems
5. Enzymes
6. Cells and their Division
7. Chromosome, Gene, and Genetics
8. Organization of Human body
9. Bioinstrumentation
10. Ecology and Environment

References:
1. Campbell; Biology, 9th edition. Pearson Higher Education 2011 (MAIN TEXTBOOK)
2. Colleen Belk, Virginia Borden Maier; Biology: Science for Life with Physiology, Pearson New International
Edition, 2013
3. Lehninger & Cox. Principles of Biochemistry (5th edition), W.H. Freeman & Company, USA
 BSE 102 Bioscience
Spring 2023
Bioinspired Engineering Design/ Biomimicry
Instructor: Dr. Sunil Kumar Boda
Assistant Professor
Department of Biosciences & Biomedical Engineering
IIT Indore
E-mail: [email protected]
Kingfisher inspired bullet train design
High speed bullet trains exited tunnels with a sonic
boom due to the exit of compressed air/ atmosphere
through the tunnel. The loud noise from the micro-
pressure wave was discomforting to train passengers
and residents of tunnel adjacent areas.

Japanese bullet train,

Technical department
manager and bird watcher

Different components of the redesigned bullet train

were inspired from birds.
• Pantograph – rig that connects the train to electric
wires above, was inspired from owl feathers.
• Pantograph supporting shaft – redesigned from
penguin’s smooth body for lower wind resistance.
• Train nose design – from kingfisher beak that
minimally propagates sound waves when it dives to
catch prey in water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMtXqTmfta0
 Whale Power - Tubercle Technology
Marine biologist, Frank Fish from Pennsylvania observed:
• Tubercles are serrations on the fins/ flippers of humpback whales,
which help them swim efficiently and maneuver tight turns, a
compelling task for hunting their prey.
• Tubercles on the flippers help maintain lift, prevent stalling and
reduce the drag coefficient while executing such tight turns.
• Tubercles are passive structural controls on the humpback whale.
Entrepreneur Stephen Dewar, Frank and Philip founded the
company ‘Whale Power’
Mechanical and aerospace engineer, Philip Watts from California performed
computational fluid dynamics simulations and discovered that a tubercle serrated
wing edge design increased lift and reduced drag forces consequently elevating lift
to drag force ratio compared to the non-serrated counterpart
Whale inspired turbine blades

Watts, P & Fish, Frank. (2022). The influence of passive, leading edge tubercles on wing performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55K9j4om4DU Tubercle inspired aircraft wings
 Termites inspired building that cools itself
95-105 °F
Termite mounds are meter-sized structures built by milli-meter sized insects.
Surface These structures provide climate-controlled microhabitats that buffer the
temperature
organisms from strong environmental fluctuations and allow them to exchange
energy, information and matter with the outside world.

Fluctuations in outside temperature over the course of the day create

convection currents within the mounds that ventilate the termites' living space.

East gate center, a retail and office building in Harare, Zimbabwe was designed
77-87 °F by the architect, Mike Pierce based on the model of termite mound.
Below ground
temperature • Building is made from concrete slabs and bricks with high thermal mass i.e.,
they can absorb a lot of heat without changing temperatures.
• Pointy surfaces with greater surface area than a typical flat glass, brick or
stone exterior. So, they absorb less heat and instead bleed off more heat to
keep the building cooler.
• At the bottom of each tower of the building is a small arsenal of fans that
push cool, ground-level air upward through a series of ducts. That also
moves hot air from each floor upward through the building’s chimneys.
• Consumes 35% less energy for cooling than other buildings.
King H, Ocko S and Mahadevan L. Termite mounds harness diurnal temperature
oscillations for ventilation, PNAS (2015)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=620omdSZzBs
Velcro and Gecko-inspired Adhesives
Velcro (Velvet + Crochet) was invented by George de Mestral. He observed
that tiny burrs stick onto his clothes and fur of his dog. Under a microscope,
he observed the tiny design of hooks in the burrs that enabled them to cling
onto anything with a loop like a fur or fabric.
He took 10 years to mechanize the design of the hooks for the Velcro strips.
He applied for a patent in Switzerland in 1951 and it was granted in 1955.

Geckskin™ is a new super-adhesive based on the mechanics of gecko

feet.
A gecko lizard toe contains hundreds of thousands of setae (ST) and
each seta contains hundreds of spatulae (SP). Vander Waals forces
between the contacting fibers (spatulae) and a smooth surface confer
great adhesive strength.
Geckskin is an integrated adhesive of a soft pad woven into a stiff
fabric. The reversible adhesive possess contrasting attributes –
maximum compliance normal to the substrate and minimum
compliance in the direction of loading. With this design, the adhesive
was able to withstand up to 700 lbs. of weight.
https://geckskin.umass.edu/
Bartlett, M.D., Croll, A.B., King, D.R., Paret, B.M., Irschick, D.J. and Crosby, A.J. (2012),
Looking Beyond Fibrillar Features to Scale Gecko-Like Adhesion. Adv. Mater., 24: 1078-1083.
 Self Cleaning Surfaces Inspired from Lotus Leaf Hydrophobicity

Self cleaning properties of lotus leaves (Nelumbo sp) arise from their
superhydrophobicity. Micro and nanoarchitecture of the leaf surface
minimizes water droplet adhesion to the surface and instead dirt
particles are picked up as the water rolls of the surface.

For a superhydrophobic surface, the contact angle () should be

as high as possible and the roll off or inclination angle (α) should
be very low.
Lotus leaf effect in textiles
Ultra-Ever Dry® is superhydrophobic (water) and oleophobic
(hydrocarbons) coating that will completely repel almost any liquid
 Sharklet Technologies – Antifouling surfaces
Sharklet draws inspiration from the shape and pattern of the dermal
denticles of sharkskin. Unlike soft fish scales, sharkskin denticles are rough
(in the head to tailfin direction and smooth in the reverse direction) and
mere contact can injure other marine organisms. Denticle patterns repel
water away from the sharkskin and thus sharks are resistant to fouling
organisms in the water including algae and barnacles.

Sharklet is the world’s first technology to inhibit bacterial growth through

patterns alone. The Sharklet surface is comprised of millions of microscopic
features (3 µm tall x 2 µm wide) arranged in a distinct diamond pattern. The
structure of the pattern alone inhibits bacteria from attaching, colonizing and
forming biofilms. Sharklet contains no toxic additives or chemicals.

Water repelling nature of the sharklet surface causes water droplets to roll
off, thus preventing microbial adhesion. Even if microbes do adhere,
extensive biofilm formation is prevented by the patterns.

Reduction in touch transmission by >95% Sharklet Smooth

of bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus, E.coli)
and fungi (Candida albicans). Also, 80-85%
reduction in virus transmission on https://www.sharklet.com/
commercial films of sharkskin patterns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hou6bAvp1pM
 Bioinspired computing
Traditional computer = desktop interfacing with a mouse, keyboard (inputs), monitor (displays output) and a black box (CPU)
Central Processing Unit (CPU) – contains 3 core components – control, memory and processing modules
Arithmetic
Basic function of CPU is its core cycle of revolving around 3 actions: Control
/ Logic
unit
• Fetch – retrieves data from main memory and places it in control unit unit
Main (External)
• Decode – interprets data fetched from main memory and figure out what it CPU Memory
wants the CPU to do
• Execute – CPU performs actions based on memory fetched and decoded data
Each cycle of fetch, decode and execute comprises an operation. Processing speed is number of operations/ second.
Moore’s law – Scaling – Transistor count doubles every 2 years (approx.). Processing speed and memory capacity have been
increasing. But, this has reached a fundamental limit based on how small transistors can be placed on chips/ processors.
Why Bioinspired Computing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLpkxZDX0ig; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeK8Mm1J484
Computers are great at numbers; perform basic Math with proper instruction, but poor with pattern recognition.
Living organisms easily evaluate and react to complex situations (like identifying an object coming towards them, etc.)
Mcculloh and Pitts – introduced artificial neural networks in 1943 Perceptron Simple neural network
Hebbian learning by Donald Hebb – ‘Neurons that wire together fire together’
Pavlov’s classical conditioning (Dog experiment of ringing bell and giving it a treat)
A Perceptron – artificial neuron; sums up inputs to determine strength of output
Definition of artificial neural network
Neurons will fire when provided sufficient input
Neurons connected via synapse can vary in strength
Input/ hidden layers – used to encode information as its seen
Output – can have multiple outputs; lesser neurons than input layer