Yusuf Mulla discovers the beauty of science

If you had to explain your research topic to your grandmother or your little sister, how would you do it?
I am working on creating biosensors, like a wrist band that can tell blood sugar levels. I am working on something that can tell how good food quality is. For example, I have an apple that is rotten, but I want to know this without touching or looking at it.

How do you do this?
That's easy: how do we tell that a fruit is rotten? Either by looking at it or by smelling it.
We are working on developing sensors that detect the smell of fresh or rotten food. The more it’s rotten, the worse it smells. So we are sensing electronically how bad the food really is.

In your research motivation you referred to a sentence of Marie Curie on the great beauty of science. What is the beauty of science for you?
Everything is beautiful in science, actually. I used to do scanning microscopy and by chance I saw a human hair and it was very beautiful. That is one things, although it is accidental. But if we see a diamond or crystals or artificial jewellery, this is also science – scientifically developed –  and it has beauty. Its beauty is everywhere.

Which is the one thing you would like to discover before the end of your scientific career?
Probably it could be some medicine against AIDS or cancer.

What is science in your mother language?