Chaitanya is a professor of biology at IISER Pune and works on quantifying biology at the cellular scale. His lab focuses on cytoskeleton and cell shape research and explores synthetic biological roots to address a variety of questions at the cellular scale.
In this freewheeling conversation, we talked about quantitative biology in his lab, reading, the German language, his recent comic-themed book, and a bit on philosophy of biology as we explored his intellectual journey. Also, don’t miss the 3D model he shows to explain his research.
References with links:
‘Chaitanya Athale – IISER Pune’. Accessed 3 January 2026. https://www.iiserpune.ac.in/research/department/biology/people/faculty/regular-faculty/chaitanya-athale/6.
‘Dr. Chaitanya Athale – Lab – Cytoskeleton and Cell Shape Research – Synthetic Biology’. Accessed 3 January 2026. https://sites.iiserpune.ac.in/~cathale/.
‘Chaitanya Athale – Google Scholar’. Accessed 3 January 2026. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Volq2gEAAAAJ&hl=en.
Chaitanya Athale | LinkedIn’. Accessed 3 January 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chaitanyaa/?originalSubdomain=in.
Arias, Alfonso Martinez. The Master Builder: How the New Science of the Cell Is Rewriting the Story of Life. Basic Books, 2023.
‘Athale Lab: CyCelS 💉💉💉💉🚲🤿⛵ (@AthaleLab) / X’. 9 January 2025. https://x.com/athalelab.
VISMAYA - History & Philosophy of Physics 