Gautam R. Desiraju: Crystal Engineering — Designing Complexity

Lives in Chemistry—Lebenswerke in der Chemie

Today, Gautam Desiraju is one of the most well-known Indian scientists. In 2026 he received the Ewald Prize, the highest award of the International Union of Crystallography. Born in Madras in 1952, he fell in love with chemistry as a schoolboy through an entertaining experiment. Deeply influenced by his grandfather S. Radhakrishnan, India’s president and professor of philosophy in Oxford and Calcutta, Desiraju was exposed to Indian and Western culture. Complex systems then became the topic of his life.

After his PhD in the USA and during a brief stint there in chemical industry, Desiraju decided to return to India. He became a lecturer in Hyderabad — a new university with zero equipment and infrastructure. Data analysis of weak interactions in solids stimulated his intuitive thinking. It led him to shape the new discipline of crystal engineering, to understand weak hydrogen bonds, and to develop the concept of supramolecular synthons. He became a highly sought-after partner of the pharmaceutical, chemical, materials, and engineering industries — far beyond India, that is, Bharat, one of the most complex and fascinating countries.

(E-book available)
Hardcover 17 × 24 cm, 314 p., 230 fig., 39.80 €
ISBN 978-3-86225-152-0
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This series of autobiographies provides insights into the lives and thoughts of outstanding research scientists in the context of the times they lived in. What role does the continuous sequence of hypothesis, experiment, and interpretation play in top chemical research? What is the role of impulses from mentors, students, colleagues, and competitors? Successful scientists describe authentically and in a very personal way how innovation is created.