The name

Why BODHI?

বোধি·बोधि

bodhi: awakening, deep understanding

Bodhi grows from the Sanskrit root budh (बुध्): to wake up, to know. From the same root come bodh (বোধ, बोध), understanding, and bodhi, awakening or enlightenment. For us, it evokes the moment understanding arrives, which is what the lab wants from AI in biology: models that do not only predict, but help us understand why.

For BODHI Lab, the word carries three layers.

West Bengal

1 · Bengal

Where understanding is taught

In Bengali, বোধ (bodh) means understanding and perception. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's বোধোদয় (Bodhodoy), a Bengali primer published in 1851, introduced young readers to basic knowledge of the world around them. Its title means the dawn of understanding.

From Vidyasagar to Rabindranath Tagore, Jagadish Chandra Bose and Satyendra Nath Bose, Bengal's tradition of education, literature and scientific inquiry is the spirit the lab hopes to carry.

Bihar

2 · Bihar

Where the tree stands

The Bodhi tree grows at Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment. Elsewhere in Bihar, Nalanda Mahavihara, which UNESCO calls the most ancient university of the Indian subcontinent, drew scholars from across Asia to learn through study and debate.

The lab's founder completed his doctoral training in computer science at IIT Patna.

Sequence to insight

3 · Science

From prediction to understanding

BODHI Lab develops methods for interpretable and trustworthy AI, with biological systems as a central focus. Its goal is to connect predictions to evidence, make uncertainty explicit, and develop explanations that lead to testable scientific hypotheses.

Braiding Omics with Dependable, Human-interpretable Intelligence.

आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतः

Ā no bhadrāḥ kratavo yantu viśvataḥ

Let noble thoughts come to us from all directions.

Rigveda 1.89.1, the motto of today's Nalanda University

A lab that works between computer science and biology depends on ideas from both, and from the people and fields around them. The line from Nalanda is one the lab tries to live by.

The mark and the colors

Biology is the root; understanding is the canopy

Our mark is a bodhi tree whose trunk is a revolving DNA double helix.

Our colors follow the dawn of Bodhodoy: indigo for the opaque night of the black box, saffron for the first light of insight, bodhi green for living biology, and cream for the clarity that follows.

Indigo Saffron Bodhi green Cream

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