Author: Academia Plus

A platform for STEM students who want to grow beyond Academia.
Career Stories

Career Stories: Chapter 18

Academia Plus

In this chapter of Career Stories, we bring you the story of  Radhika Vaishnav, who has donned various hats in her stellar career so far- as an R&D consultant, a SciComm enthusiast (teaching and mentoring), a college faculty, and an executive editor for the International Journal of Molecular and Immuno Oncology. In this candid discussion, she talks about how she pursued teaching and mentoring during her academic journey, and shares her opinions about the relevance of science communication for a researcher at any level.

What directed you to pursue science communication after professorship tenures at different institutes, mentoring young scientists, and academic editing?

I followed the traditional path during my initial career days. I did my BSc in Zoology and MSc in Biochemistry from MSU, Vadodara in the 90s. Then, I went to the US, because at that time you required 4 years of UG in order to pursue your PhD. I began my PhD at Loyola University Chicago, took a break for personal reasons (marriage and moving around different US cities) and subsequently rejoined my PhD program at the University of Kentucky at Lexington, Kentucky. The first PhD stint ended in a Masters degree on Molecular biology in cancer. It also led to my very first publication in the same field.

Despite my initial traditional track, my career meandered a bit from the usual. I settled in Lexington for my doctorate and postdoctorate. After that, I moved to Louisville, Kentucky for a full-time faculty position at the University of Louisville. Then, I decided to move back to India. Although I did not continue my track as a full-time faculty, I realized I was missing scientific interaction and communication that was integral to an academic scientist’s role. So a year or two after moving back to Vadodara, India, I took to mentoring clinicians locally and nationally in data analysis, presentation and writing of research articles for publication in  journals.   

I started actively carrying out academic editing in the capacity of a freelancer. I had always enjoyed writing and communicating. In fact, after high school, in the early 90s, one of the options I had considered for a career was journalism. I loved Biology, though, and in those days, doing the sciences alongside humanities was not even given as an option in school or college in India. My father was a strong orator, writer and was a Hemato-oncologist who opened up my mind to the possibility of Molecular Biology and its’ immense future.

Two decades later, I have merged my love of language with my depth in life sciences as a scientific writer, editor and educator.

What influenced you to choose a specialized subject like molecular biology for your second master’s degree in the US; after obtaining your UG and PG degrees from India in interdisciplinary subjects?

Once I finished my UG and PG degrees from MSU, Vadodara, India; I decided I wanted to get into molecular biology. I got influenced by 3 dynamic teachers. The first one was in my UG, Prof. Nene who taught me Biochemistry. She was a dedicated teacher who spent her weekends teaching us biochemical pathways out in the college corridors in an unconventional manner.

I was also blessed to have inspiring teachers in my PG; who were limitless in their teaching capabilities. For example, there was Prof. Acharya who had a science book club where we read many books authored by great scientists such as Feynman, Richard Dawkins, etc. We also put together a library in our Biochemistry department on the basis of student contribution of buying a book every month. Over the course of my masters, me and my fellow classmates had built a science library together; which was an inspiring activity for all.

Prof. Harish Padh had formed a small group of people from Vadodara called the “Biotechnology Interest Group.” He would invite all of us college students to come and attend their seminars. Additionally, a few of us would have a “Business in Biotechnology” session where we would indulge in student-driven round table discussions about various topics in the business of biotechnology.

I had excellent teachers and professors who would think outside the box and help me dream about what I could achieve. This, along with my own parents being in the field of life sciences, directed me to consider a career in biotechnology or molecular biology.

Molecular biology in cancer was in its baby stages with knowledge being more theoretical than practical since the protocols were still being established. That was why I chose molecular biology and I was fortunate to get into a PhD program at the Loyola University of Chicago Cancer Center in 1998. I began my work under Dr L Miele wherein I was studying the role of NOTCH-1 in transformation of normal cells into malignant ones. Around that time, telomerase, RAS, and other oncogenes/tumor suppressors were just being understood. It was an exciting time, as it paved the way for future targeted therapies that we all see today. I put my Ph.D. on hold when I married and moved for a couple years to Portland where I worked as a research scientist at the Department of Molecular Medicine, Oregon Health and Sciences University. My husband and I took turns in supporting each other in our career ambitions.

How did these foundational degrees contribute to your teaching/mentorship experience?

I think having a foundational degree in life sciences helped me a lot because I have been able to identify with students at all levels and from all walks of life. Not having a specialized curriculum from the beginning gives you a lot of versatility to formulate a career in science communication or teaching. It helps to develop a very broad understanding because you are able to move into, communicate and understand any area in the biological sciences.  On this, you can steadily build and specialize if you choose to go into research.

You never know about the future, one door opens, another closes. It helps to have a variety of different experiences even if we do choose a research path. Hence, over the years please do keep a couple of other interests going on. Don’t just put all your apples in one basket because life is uncertain. Something interesting may come up and you may want to change your direction in the future. I have mentored many students and I am firm about being flexible and having a solid knowledge base. Knowledge is important but you also need a lot more than that to go through life.

Was it providence or an informed choice that brought you to pursue molecular neuroscience in neurodegeneration/injury for your PhD and Post-doctoral research?

After Portland, we moved to Lexington, Kentucky where my husband Dr. Anand Vaishnav and I both pursued our academic track. We stayed with a friend while interviewing there, and she introduced me to a scientist couple who eventually became my PhD guides i.e. Dr. Tom & Dr. Marilyn Getchell. Initially, I joined their lab as a research analyst and was responsible for overseeing all the students and managing all the research activities in the lab. Eventually, I decided to continue with my PhD which I had halted when I left Loyola. Since their work was in molecular degeneration and regeneration of the olfactory system, I chose a project in that field and finally started my PhD at Sanders Brown Center on Aging, University of Kentucky. It was an interesting environment where they were working on Alzheimer’s disease and aging to find early markers of the former. Autopsy or biopsy samples from humans and mouse models were utilized. Eventually, I got more interested in bioenergetics of neurons because of my keen interest in mitochondria associated with oxidative damage that can occur in the nervous system due to internal or external factors, causing degeneration of these cells.

My postdoctoral research was awarded an individual NIH fellowship on the topic of “Therapeutic Strategies for Neurodegeneration and Spinal Cord Injury” under Dr Edward Hall, Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center (SCOBIRC), University of Kentucky.

As per your previous interview from the Young Scientist Leader (YSL) program organized by Dr Felix Bast, you have participated in many certification programs and science outreach activities since your undergraduate years. How do you see such (perceived) extra-curricular activities being of help to aspiring researchers or PhD students?

I would not prefer to use the term ‘extracurricular activities’ here, because I believe once you are pursuing doctoral or postdoctoral research, you are no longer a traditional student. You are not attending classes only to take exams. You are actually more of an apprentice during this time. Any other skills that you wish to acquire, can also be pursued. It can be an individual or group activity. I have done numerous such activities throughout my education and career.

For example, while I was pursuing my postdoc, we (myself and Dr. Theresa Thomas) had built together a postdoctoral group called SCoBIRC Postdoc Group. This driving force for the formation of this group was a realization that there is teaching and mentoring all throughout one’s education, but by the time you are a postdoctoral fellow, sometimes you lose that structure of going to a PI and acquiring guidance. So here, in this group, we had regular meetings and we would take turns presenting, especially if someone had an upcoming job interview or any kind of conference presentation. We would be the peers/teammates/classmates who would listen to and critique each other. We made it a very collegial and constructive activity.

In the US, the doctoral and postdoctoral communities are very multicultural. We would also have occasional social activities like Potluck and multicultural programs. All these activities are not exactly ‘extracurricular’, but they enrich the already existing curriculum.

Science communication stems from being able to communicate what you do. It has to start with you being able to explain what you do. I had a professor at Loyola University, Dr. Katherine Knight who used to tell us that one should be able to explain their research in a limited time- 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or max. 30 minutes. Everything does not have to be a long-winding presentation or a 45-minute lecture. If someone asks you to explain your research in under 5 minutes to them, you should be able to pitch your research and grab the audience’s attention by making it interesting as well as wrapping it up within the time limit.

While I was a faculty at the University of Louisville, my department (Department of Physiology, with Joint appointment in Neurology and Neurosurgery) sponsored a certification program in entrepreneurship with Kauffman Foundation where we would meet experts and were encouraged to take an idea from its conception to visualization/startup. Here, we were told to sell our idea in either 11 mins or 1 min elevator pitches. Initially, we did the latter. We were critiqued and trained in the same manner all throughout the course.

Elevator pitches include meeting laymen/potential investors in an elevator and your response to their question of “Hey! What do you do?” Depending on what you say in the next minute, the other person will make a decision right there whether they want to listen to you or not. So, you can imagine putting together everything you want to say within this minute, is not a cakewalk. Starting up the Journal IJMIO, working with the team, expanding it and currently stewarding it into a legacy for clinician-scientists to communicate has been possible thanks to these lessons learnt.

During my PhD, I started teaching in a community college on the weekends over the topic of Physiology. I had learnt it in depth over the years because the broad subject of my PhD was the Physiology despite my research area being neuroscience. I continued over the years to teach Physiology along with other Life Science subjects at colleges including my current affiliation as Adjunct Faculty, Life Sciences, IvyTech Community College, Indianapolis, Indiana.

So these types of things are always happening in parallel. You are not just doing one thing. You are teaching, communicating, building something, trying to put together a startup company, failing at it, while you are doing doctoral or postdoctoral research or being a faculty member. Someone did ask me to join a new steering committee to try to put together a novel neuroscience course with a very new faculty. Despite all the challenges, I did that. I was the one who would hardly say no to any self-improvement opportunities within the field. This is why I would not call these activities ‘extracurricular’. Hobbies and artistic activities can be considered ‘extracurricular activities’. But activities like science communication, being able to prepare and deliver your research pitch are co-curricular, skill-building and life-changing activities, that can actually strengthen your career profile and who you are. In the future, one or all of these will make you unique as opposed to only gaining knowledge through education.

How did you get associated with IJMIO (International Journal of Molecular and Immuno Oncology)? Please introduce us to your journey there

I did not get introduced to IJMIO but rather, I was one of the founding members of the journal.

So, in 2016, I was attending a molecular oncology conference with my father, an oncologist, Dr. Divyesh Mehta, who was giving a talk and he introduced me to his friend Dr. Purvish Parikh who was there as a faculty member. I told him about how I wanted to do something different – to leave a legacy. He offered the role of honorary executive editor at the International Journal of Molecular and Immuno Oncology.  The journal was to be launched soon and he was putting together a small start-up team, which I joined.

Our goal at the journal is to encourage people who are from a clinical background, to come out of their comfort zone and actually write and communicate their work. Many people are still not communicating whatever they are observing in their clinics or their research. Hence, there is so much potential to do more. We also give encouragement to new authors and look forward to their work being published. The journal is the official journal of the Molecular Oncology Society under the current able leadership of editor Dr. Randeep Singh and a multispecialty team of oncologists on the editorial board.

It has been a very exciting activity for me because I am at the forefront of a field that is continuously undergoing a lot of change and development. So, I really chose to do this to keep myself on my toes as I am forced to read and learn constantly and stay active.

According to you, what improvements can be made in education, mentoring, and research environments in India to be on par with the USA?

Knowledge is not what is setting India apart from the US or any other country. You need to have an environment that supports or encourages fundamental research. Without the society getting interested or involved, the funding will cease.

In the US, funding comes largely from the NIH, NSF, and other similar agencies which are government-based or private foundations (Eg: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). These funds come from the public i.e. taxpayer’s money or donations. Basically, you need to empower the people and you can only do that by giving them knowledge and making them feel comfortable about research. Now, in India, there are people who are willing to donate money to hospitals, NGOs for the underprivileged, religious activities, education, children, food drives, etc. But having an actual system where everyone pays taxes and a certain percent of taxes go into funding research automatically will encourage research job creation as well as encourage our research talent to stay within our country. This change has to come from the grassroot level. For that, the public has to be included in the entire story of scientific research. For that, you have to communicate science to them: what you are doing and why you are doing it. The COVID-19 pandemic did bring that change in communication.

Moreover, science is connected. It has no boundaries. I do not look at science as being limited by national borders. I do not know if it is an unpopular opinion or not, but honestly when you are a pure scientist, you think only about science. It does not matter where you live or work. But scientists are people who have families– children, parents. Hence, we want to stay in a certain place. Once you do that, you need to sustain yourself. However noble you may feel your profession is, you want to do research and solve problems, you do need to be able to support your family. If you cannot, you will leave science or research, for sure. You will find something else because obviously you are smart and hardworking enough to get into a masters or a PhD.

The only thing that is very sad is that we have already spent a significant part of our youth preparing ourselves to be a scientist. When it comes to supporting your family, if you need to either leave the country or change your profession, then something is just not quite right yet in India. I think that we need more awareness and that is where science communication begins to gain importance. 

How is this scenario changing in India, with years passing by?

Internet, globalization, and access to knowledge have been groundbreaking for research in India. Internet has been a great equalizer; so people from all over the world have access to the same knowledge. You have YouTube videos, and online PDFs of textbooks today which are very different from our days. Back then, we had to go to the library and find interesting articles from the paperback journals that were subscribed to. We were sometimes limited by the availability of resources in the library. Since all we had were paper-based journals, we had to make do with whatever was available. Those days at the beginning of my education were very different compared to now where we have everything thanks to the Internet.

The pandemic in the last 2-3 years changed many things. For example, because of the pandemic, everyone in India and around the world came to know about RT-PCR. This was impossible before the pandemic.

It is now possible for an Indian individual who has not undergone advanced education to know what a virus is, what immunity is, what PCR is, and that you need to get vaccines. Most importantly, today the Indian public knows that you need research to solve everyday problems, and it can save lives during an emergency. This is what is needed. I think we did an excellent job of communication during the pandemic. This is the spirit that needs to continue. We need to build up that energy in our own country where people love science and research and want to support it.

Please enlighten students (like myself) about notable research domains/ SciComm ventures to be explored.

Science policy is a critical area where SciComm is very valuable. Many opportunities are available globally for individuals who can act as a bridge between scientists and the community/government. Another notable field is working for large foundations. Companies such as pharmaceuticals and technology-based require content creation for education, marketing and awareness. Any of these roles would require strong communication skills.

Knowing multiple languages is a great advantage in science communication as scientific writers who can reach across languages are highly valuable. I would suggest following Wellcome Alliance, India Bioscience, United Nations, WHO, EMBO, AAAS and various international foundations which are devoted to scientific communication.

Follow your heart honestly in terms of what field to pursue. Ignore what other people say. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Add to the experience, build on it, and make yourself unique. Don’t settle or get disheartened in the case of bad mentors or professors. That’s a learning experience too. Everything adds to your experience. Take it in a positive way, cut your losses, and move on. When you have a positive mentor or a positive experience, take it in your stride. Get as much out of it as you can. However, do not be just a taker, be a giver as well. While you are learning, give back your knowledge to society by communicating. Take a few students under your wing and pass on any knowledge/skills that you have gained so far. It is extremely rewarding and essential for humankind and the future. We share what we know.

Experiences like the pandemic have taught us life is short and uncertain. All that knowledge is of no use if we have not shared it. My plea to everyone is that regardless of whatever field you choose- be it academia, any private profession, or a biotech company, please do not stop communicating in the form of teaching and mentoring. Prepare students for tomorrow at any level. There is no work that is too small for scientists. If you can take a few 5-year-olds and make them excited about something, that is absolutely fine as you are already doing a noble deed. You are already doing enough to show others that you are capable of bringing about a positive change. Getting educated is fine, but giving back is invaluable and absolutely priceless. I fervently request you all to do it.

You have been my mentor for many projects in the last two years. I have always admired your calm, composed but tenacious attitude to solving problems. Could you share with us a memorable mentorship/teaching experience that has changed your perspective, and contributed towards your own learning process? 

When you are on the track of getting a PhD/becoming a scientist, you do need people who are very calm, caring, as well as resilient in your life. They continue to steer you back into the right direction. In my case, I wanted to be a scientist and a professor.

In this path, there will be many roadblocks and hurdles: your papers getting rejected and designed experiments failing most of the times. During your doctoral degree journey, you feel like a failure numerous times. On the other hand, when you go home, your family must be wondering: what in the world do you do? Why do you spend so many hours in a lab? Many a time, you may not be able to answer such questions to their satisfaction.

Usually, it is such an esoteric topic that you are working upon: one small molecule inside one small organelle and some organism that nobody in your family has ever heard of. Then you are trying to explain it in a way that they understand by telling them that it is related to a certain disease. You also want to make your response interesting to them, so that they know you are not wasting your life on something that they do not actually understand. They are proud and happy of your achievements. However, they do not really know what you do. Even my family members can only give a very vague description of anything that I ever did. Very few people in your family and friends will pick up your papers and read them. This is the life you are leading. You are living in a bubble and everyone around you is doing something else in their lives. There is a big gap.

You have a continuous impostor syndrome going on during your doctorate. After months of framing and validating your thesis, you are faced with your PhD defense viva panel and the audience. As an ambivert, you wish to not sound boring during your thesis defense.

Hence, one of my memorable mentorship experiences was with my PhD mentor Dr. Thomas Getchell. We worked during evenings and weekends to improve my PhD presentation through inculcating various tips provided by him. His gestures of caring and taking time to improve my presentation helped me tremendously. One of his tips were that during a presentation, in order to sound knowledgeable, it need not be long but it must be interesting. The details should be kept out of the presentation or else you will have slides which are just full of words which no one wants to listen to. In this way, I started to learn many presentation skills in my final year of PhD. So my final PhD defense was the first time in my life where I could speak confidently in front of an audience. Honestly, I give all credit to him. I wish I had learnt all of this earlier.

Another tip that was given to me was that I should sit in the front in an audience during a lecture and always ask one question. Perhaps my PhD mentor understood my introverted behavior, which no one else did before. I was used to the untrue feedback from my peers of being under confident, unprepared, and unready during my MSc presentations. Instead, I would love to prepare the subject beforehand thoroughly and could always write flawlessly. But during my speech in front of an audience, I used a lot of linker words like “um”, “uh” during pauses. This persists till the present day.

I just wanted to say that the memorable moments are when someone is humane despite being a great professor/researcher. If one is able to be honest about having an impostor syndrome despite being a professor, and lead by example as to how they overcame that, that honesty works like magic. This strategy works for me even today. I always project this viewpoint to my students. I always remind myself to show them that I do not know everything but I am a human and have been through a lot of things which helped me learn and gain wisdom. By this virtue, I have something to teach them as well.
Madhura Kamat Author
Science In Context

Know all about Prosopagnosia: an inability to recognize faces

Academia Plus

Don’t we all recognize people by their faces almost effortlessly? Don’t we search for familiar faces in a party to help blend into the crowd and socialise further? Well rest assured, you are not alone!

But, what if I told you that it is impossible for few people to do what we often take for granted as a simple task. Scary isn’t it? A neurological disorder called prosopagnosia robs people of this ability. Simply put- prosopagnosia stands for face blindness. The mind of a prosopagnosic person denies having seen a face before, even if it belongs to someone known and this has nothing to do with memory loss. When visualizing a conversation that they had with someone, they are able to recall everything about that instance but their face!

There are two major types of this disorder- acquired and developmental.

Acquired prosopagnosia could be because of a brain injury or any other neurological disorder such as trauma, stroke, tumors etc.

Developmental prosopagnosia, on the other hand might occur during the developmental stages of life and in some cases, could also have genetic origins. 

Now, let us dive a little deeper into what this condition is all about. In order to do that, we need to get an insight on how our brain is able to recognise faces in the first place.

Bruce and Young, two scientists, came up with a cognitive model in order to understand the steps involved in face recognition:

  1. Face encoding: In the first step, the structural information about the face is encoded.
  2. Face recognition: In the second step, the structural information is matched to “face recognition units”, which are the stores of face memories in the brain, that determine whether a face has been seen before.
  3. Person identification: In the third step, any familiarity that is recognized in ‘Face recognition’ step, activates a ‘person identity node’, ie. an area of the brain that gives access to the biographical information of the person to whom the face belongs.
  4. Name generation: In the last step, the brain processes or attaches a name to the face, depending upon the first three steps. 

The entire process involves a core network and an extended network- broadly speaking, steps 1 and 2 belong to the core network, while the steps 3 and 4 belong to the extended network. Lesions/injuries in certain parts of any one of these networks can lead to different variants of prosopagnosia. Owing to this, there are two variants of prosopagnosia, especially in acquired prosopagnosia:

Apperceptive: a person is unable to recognize/encode the structural information of the face at all, due to an injury in the core network 

Associative: a person can encode the face but is unable to associate it with any previous familiarity, due to an injury in the extended network.

In the case of developmental prosopagnosia, no obvious structural lesions are found in either of the networks, however certain abnormalities may be seen in the cortex of the brain itself.

One question in the field of prosopagnosia is whether the patients fail in the recognition of faces only or does this inability extend to other areas as well- which in turn leads us to speculate whether the mechanism to recognize faces is involved in the recognition of objects or is it just “face specific”. As per neuroimaging studies, it has been shown that the cortical network of regions involved in face recognition does partially overlap with those of object recognition but it is still distinct. With that being said, some prosopagnosic patients may or may not have difficulty recognizing objects. Even though words are processed on the left and faces are processed on the right, it has been shown that a bilateral network in both cases does overlap. Again, most patients with acquired prosopagnosia have no problem with word processing while some do. However, people with prosopagnosia are thought to have superior voice recognition due to years of relying on voice cues to recognize others. 

Adults and children with this disorder can have other significant implications like traumatic social experiences, chronic anxiety, embarrassment and guilt and usually have a limited social circle because of this inability. Imagine never feeling comfortable around anyone and always having to do ‘small talk’, even with your best friend, because you don’t remember them!

The treatments for improving prosopagnosia differ, depending on the type of prosopagnosia, the variant and intensity of injury at the affected parts. For the acquired variant, most of the training programs usually focus on enhancing coping strategies to deal with poor face recognition. In the case of developmental prosopagnosia, another approach needs to be implemented depending upon the severity.

Nonetheless, counselling sessions for someone who is prosopagnosic or who may have prosopagnosia should be a must as the mental stress associated with this condition can be both overwhelming and confusing. Furthermore, awareness regarding prosopagnosia needs to be increased in order to separate this condition from a simple memory loss. Diagnosis is needed to first rule out the other defects. 

When I personally try to view the world through the eyes of someone with prosopagnosia, I imagine walking down a busy street among a thousand faceless people who either remove their hats to greet me or are gesturing to hit me with it, I have no clue since I can’t understand their facial expressions. This seems extremely scary, confusing and moreover, lonely. I sincerely hope this condition is brought to the notice of more and more people and its treatment can be a bit more definite.
Sanjhi Sardana Writer

Disclaimer: The content of this article is meant for educational and creative purposes only, and will not be directly used for generation of profits. All rights and responsibilities, including the authenticity of the information presented in this article belong to the original authors and their publications (listed below in the Bibliography section), and there is no copyright infringement intended.

Bibliography

Career Stories

Career Stories: Chapter 17

Academia Plus

In this chapter of Career Stories, we bring you the journey of Somdatta Karak who works as a science communicator and public outreach officer. Connecting with students and helping them grow professionally is her all time favorite job. In this candid chat she takes us through her professional journey and talks about her life as an educator and science communicator.

What inspired your transition from a Neuroscientist to a Science Communication and Public outreach officer? How have you managed to make the most of this transition, while overcoming the challenges that you faced?

My journey from neurosciences to science communication happened through first transitioning into the education sector.

As a neuroscientist, a lot of my work has been on understanding how fruitflies use their senses to collect information from the world around and remember them. I often think these have steered me into thinking how we humans collect and make sense of their information. And education sector felt like the most suitable playground for me to foray into these questions.

In addition, this sector also allows me to build content and platforms that are informed by our modern-day understanding of neurosciences. So, there are enough commonalities in the questions we ask in both the sectors- research as well as education.

What differs are the cultures in each of these sectors. Research can allow for a lot of solitary thinking. Your work is very objective. Education on the other hand is a much more people-oriented work. You cannot think of students who you are working with as mere subjects of your questions. They are humans, first who are leading real lives unlike the controlled conditions of subjects in a laboratory. I think it was very difficult for me to transition into the mode of working with and for humans, where I am not an experimenter anymore, but rather a part of their community. But the time spent with students, led me towards a deeper understanding of their lives and also helped me become a part of their lives. That led to a change in my mindset.

From there, transitioning into science communication was rather easy. As an educator, I had identified the many gaps between those who create new knowledge and develop new technologies, and the young people who are the supposed beneficiaries of these. My current work largely focuses on bridging these gaps, via different platforms.

What do you think makes science communication an interesting career option?

I like that as a science communicator, one can identify which topics they want to work on, which communities they would like to work with, what medium they want to employ. I like being in a space that offers fluidity for many people with diverse backgrounds, expertise and interests to come together and build tangible products and spaces. Science communication is a field in which people can build careers in many different ways, depending upon the specific  roles they want to take up, the demography they want to reach out to and so on.

What according to you, is the role of illustrations and artwork in science communication?

I think tt helps for any form of communication/learning to be multi-sensorial. In my work revolving around the young people, I have often collaborated with visual artists to make the content more visual-heavy and low on text. I have done that primarily because India’s literacy levels and reading abilities are very poor. So, while I like the words in my content to convey only the most important objective, the context-setting is done by the illustrations and art. The visuals make the content more inviting, and less intimidating. They allow for adding layers of information that I might not want to put out in words (which might make the content word-heavy and complex) but those looking closely at the visuals will find them anyway. Together, they make the content more wholesome.

What are the possible entrepreneurial opportunities in science that students can explore, apart from research and industry?

Training in science teaches you the art of asking the right  questions, finding answers to those questions and also  takes you to the depth of understanding the world, while familiarizing you with some of the most cutting-edge technologies.

This is unique because every science student should, in theory, be able to ask a question or identify an existing problem and think of addressing it in their own unique ways. There are many pressing problems in the equality of access towards knowledge, education, healthcare, and everything else that is needed for a better life and upward mobility. And each of them present opportunities for young students that can be explored and worked on further.

Coming back to the question, I think it is entrepreneurial if you can identify your own unique question that you wish to work on. Then you can work on it through being a researcher, or contributing towards it through an industry (which is basically a team of people working in the sector) – started by you or by someone else, or by being a policymaker, or an artist who brings forth matters that we otherwise don’t notice – the list can go on, and they are all equally important, useful as well as  doable.

But I must also mention the feasibility of any of these career paths that you identify for yourself. Pick something that interests you, but also something that  you have a formal training in. Training can come from your educational background, the community that you have grown up in, or fellowships and work experience. It is important to build the right network of people, to find the right opportunities and also money to pursue the work (of your interest).

What strategies could students employ to ‘rewire and make the brain more adaptable and flexible‘ in a competitive world and within the current educational system?

Here are a few things that students can keep in mind and try to implement-

  1. Pick an area of study that interests you. You might be fascinated by the technologies that the field is building or the depth of our understanding of the world around us that it is enabling. Get trained in it.
  2. During your training, find a question that is unanswered/unaddressed.
  3. Do not be overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem. Figure out how you can bridge at least one part of the problem tangibly. What exactly will you do differently that will address (even a part of) the problem?
  4. Network with people who are working towards the same direction. If possible, intern with them while you are studying or after it. It will give you a more real-world view of the problems.
Satya Santoshi Author
Science In Context

Biosensors: a revolution in the healthcare sector

Academia Plus

Prognosis and diagnosis of any disease as well as its subsequent management has become quite easy now, with the advent in bioinstrumentation, more specifically with biosensors. Just as environmentalists can predict the level of pollution by analyzing the population of butterflies or the color of moths, a ‘biosensor’ is a device that detects our body’s physiological activity to send signals and analyze health-related conditions for diagnosis and/or subsequent treatment.

Everyone is rushing around in today’s fast world, and as a result of this daily pace, diseases are also becoming more prevalent. The lack of clinical resources has led to significant demand for wearable and portable healthcare devices as a potential solution.

Biosensors have become extremely popular today because they support the method of non-invasive monitoring – that is, a monitoring procedure that does not involve any surgical intervention in the body (Read more about the basics of biosensors).

These wearable sensors can be in the form of smartwatches, smart shoes, contact lenses, earpieces, and mouthpieces depending on the location of the body. The technology provides a wireless mechanism that makes it easier for patients to use. Skin is the outermost layer of our body and along with the protection, it also provides a lot of information about the physiological activity of the body through sweat and wound exudates. With the help of wristbands, patches, and smartwatches, the important details in case of hyperglycemia or hypertension can be measured to get instant treatment. Contact lenses can give information about changes in pH levels of the tears. Mouthpieces can be used to detect the rate of saliva production, which is known to be altered in response to exercise, stress, and dietary intake.

Today it might be difficult for people living in remote locations to have close access to any health center but devices such as these would help them get one step closer towards early detection and treatment.

Indeed, when it comes to biosensors, the future is already here. 
Nashrah Mubeen Writer

Disclaimer: The content of this article is meant for educational and creative purposes only, and will not be directly used for generation of profits. All rights and responsibilities, including the authenticity of the information presented in this article belong to the original authors and their publications (listed below in the Bibliography section), and there is no copyright infringement intended.

Bibliography

Career Stories

Career Stories: Chapter 16

Academia Plus

In this chapter of Career Stories, we bring you the journey of Lakshita Chauhan , who is the first (Senior) Genetic Counselor of the Defense Forces of India in the Army Hospital. She is currently a Senior Genetic Counselor on a consultancy basis with Mapmygenome which provides actionable steps for individuals and their physicians combining genetic health profile and health history with genetic counseling. 

With a soaring passion and commitment to the field of genetic counseling, she continues to put her best foot forward.

In this candid discussion, she speaks at length about her journey, while carving out a career in genetic counseling. 

Having come from a diverse educational background, what caught your interest in Genetic Counseling?

I still remember when I was in class eight, I learned about genetics and biotechnology. Since then, genetics was stuck in my mind. I always wanted to study more about it and work in the same field. I was sure I did not want to be a researcher or work in research labs, so my search for the field was narrowed down to Genetic Counseling. I had no godfathers to guide me in this field so I started my own exploration. When I first read about genetic counseling, I felt – “This is it! This brings an end to my search. This is what I want!”

Which educational qualification(s) would lead an aspirant toward genetic counseling?

I myself have completed a PG diploma in Genetic Counseling.

However, in India it is not mandatory to have a master’s in Genetic Counseling (GC). A prerequisite for training as a genetic counselor is either:

  • B.Sc + M.Sc (total 5 years) or,
  • B.Tech (4 years) in health sciences and allied fields, or
  • B.Sc + 1-year Diploma course in Genetic Counseling (total 4 years).

Once an individual trains under a GC, they write the certification exam conducted by the Board of Genetic Counseling India (BGCI), to practice as a GC.

Separately, students from a medical background (MBBS and MD degrees) can pursue a doctorate of medicine (DM) course in Medical Genetics (3 years) and then opt for a career in genetic counseling.

Please share your views on the scope of Genetic Counseling in India.

According to me, the scope and demand of GC is growing in every domain.

Looking back, a decade ago, Indian society was largely unaware of genetic counseling. Even if they were aware, the clinicians were not accommodative of the field, and hardly felt the need for it. But now, the medical bodies and society are welcoming the GC profession with open arms.

As the rate of prevalence of diagnosing genetic conditions is gradually increasing, and understanding the report is not everyone’s cup of tea, people have started acknowledging the significance of a genetic counselor in India. 

What is the most satisfying part of your work, as a GC?

Being the first GC of the Defense Forces says it all!

I feel honored and blessed to be a part of such an organization. I can get valuable clinical exposure and every single day I meet a new family with diverse perspectives and understanding of their health condition, genetic testing, and cultural beliefs. Counseling, diagnosing, and helping out patients and their families, especially when they are heartbroken, showing them a ray of hope is what I have always wanted from my life.

How important is regional language proficiency, for a practicing genetic counselor in India?

It plays a crucial role in this profession. Not everyone is comfortable with the national language. A large part of those who need genetic counseling, understand it best in their native language. I believe that as genetic counselors we need to build a rapport and make our patients and their family comfortable. It is always a two-way street. If my consultee is confused or is left in doubt due to the language, then it is a barrier to delivering essential information.

It is necessary for the families to comprehend the knowledge and hence, language cannot act as a deterrent.

Having experienced both, a clinical lab and a hospital setting, could you compare the two, in terms of the work profile as a genetic counselor.

There are three different aspects that we can discuss here:

In terms of the frequency of patients – I have observed that the number of patients and their follow-up rate is good in the setting of an army hospital. But if I talk about private or government hospitals in India, genetic testing is still quite expensive and it is inversely proportional to the number of patients.

Comparing this with clinical labs that offer genetic counseling, the sample size could be quite high due to the presence of the lab in multiple cities. Unfortunately in a lab setting – clinical exposure as a genetic counselor, ample patient interaction, and follow-up is something that is still lacking.

In terms of the patient’s acceptance of the counseling offered – In India, a family trusts the counseling provided in a hospital setting when compared to a lab setting. Therefore, when counseling is offered in a hospital setting, patients are more welcoming and accepting.

Job-related perspective for genetic counselors – As I mentioned above, the field is gradually expanding and genetic counselors are in demand, in metro cities. Although we still need to work hard to spread awareness and promote genetic counseling and its importance. We need to work to make it a better place for newcomers in this field.
Khyati Arora Author
Science In Context

Diving into the world of Probiotics

Academia Plus

‘Probiotics’ has become quite a buzz-word nowadays, especially in context of treating any kind of stomach/intestinal disorders. In this article, let us dive deeper into what they really are, and how they work.

Simply put- probiotics are a group of living microorganisms cultured in a laboratory setting to be used as a food supplement for human use. Before you begin to cringe, let us understand that these tiny organisms from the probiotics, that include bacteria and/or yeasts are actually very similar to the naturally residing microbes found in our body and more specifically, out gut. Thus, when probiotics are taken through diet, they add on to the ‘good microbe’ population in our gut.

(Read more about the gut microbiome and its influence on human physiology in the previous articles).

However, as we all know, every microbe consumed might not necessarily be beneficial to our body. And therefore, for a microbe to be called a ‘probiotic’, it must have certain characteristics-

  1. It should belong to one of the species of microbes that is isolated from humans and is easily cultivated in a lab setting
  2. It should be able to survive and thrive in the intestines after being consumed
  3. Last but not the least, it should be safe to consume

So, how to probiotics really work?

Imagine a scenario where the ‘bad bacteria’ in your gut have taken over the good ones. This is a common plot which plays out when one falls sick and the doctor has to prescribe antibiotics to fight off the infection. Now, while the antibiotics kill off all the ‘bad bacteria’ in your body, they may also accidentally end up destroying the ‘good bacteria’, since the good ones are now so few in number. In this scenario, not only is your digestion affected, but the other physiological parameters may also get disturbed.

This is one of the main reasons that your doctor prescribes probiotics along with antibiotics, in order to maintain a healthy composition of gut microbiome and to keep it neutral. Apart from carrying the microbes themselves, probiotic supplements influence the growth and development of ‘good’ microbiota by modulating the components released by the intestinal cells, thus creating a conducive atmosphere for the microbes to grow.

Now, because of their beneficial effect on our bodies, researchers have been trying to find out how the consumption of adequate probiotics can help fight against various gut-related medical conditions. A few conditions that might be helped by adding probiotics to our diet are inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), constipation, lactose intolerance, and antibiotic-associated diarrhoea. Studies have shown that apart from an improvement of the conditions themselves, there is also an enhancement of the working of the immune system by consumption of probiotics.

Considering the continuous bi-directional communication between the gut and the brain, it is not hard to predict that consumption of probiotics can influence our mental health in a positive manner. A few studies indicate the benefits of consuming probiotics or as they are called “psychobiotics” as future possibilities in the treatment of depression and anxiety. Psychobiotics are a sub-class of probiotics mainly containing specific families of bacteria, such as Lactobacilli, Bifidobacteria, Streptococci and Escherichia. Their presence in the gut influences the crosstalk between the brain and gastrointestinal system through the neurochemicals produced by the flourishing microbiota of the gut. Thus, psychobiotics have applications in mood and stress alleviation and even have remedial effects in the treatment of various neurodevelopment and neurodegenerative disorders.

While all this sounds interesting, one may ask themselves the very valid question- what are some easy-to-acquire sources of probiotics?

For a food item to be considered a probiotic, it should contain sufficient living bacteria (preferably in millions) that survive the food processing and the bacterial species present in the food item should have benefits to human health (such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium). Thus, the largest source of probiotics are fermented dairy products, such as yoghurt, kimchi and sauerkraut. Apart from this, probiotic supplements can also be consumed through food, drinks or in the form of capsules or powders. Probiotic supplements are often consumed in combination with prebiotics – which are complex carbohydrates that feed the microbes in our gut. A combination of both means that not only are you supplying your gut with ‘good microbes’ but also providing the microbes with nutritious food so that it can thrive in your gut.

Now you know how to answer most of your stomach distress calls: just call upon your doctor and ask if you can have some probiotics!
Guneet Kaur Writer

Disclaimer: The content of this article is meant for educational and creative purposes only, and will not be directly used for generation of profits. All rights and responsibilities, including the authenticity of the information presented in this article belong to the original authors and their publications (listed below in the Bibliography section), and there is no copyright infringement intended.

Bibliography

Career Stories

Career Stories: Chapter 15

Academia Plus

In this chapter of Career Stories, we bring you the story of Dr Mahita Jarjapu, who is a Bioinformatics Researcher & a postdoctoral fellow at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, San Diego, California, USA.

Being a researcher with profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, only fuels her sheer grit and determination to continue thriving and building a Career in Academia. She also vouches for empowering other researchers who have disabilities, to make a significant mark in STEM fields.

In this candid discussion, she speaks at length about her interdisciplinary research journey, sheds light on how she overcame the challenges faced due to her disability, while suggesting some simple, and practical measures that society at large can adopt in order to practice inclusivity. 

What inspired your  transition from a masters in chemistry to a PhD in biology?

I did my BSc in Biology (Botany, Zoology, Chemistry). I have always been interested in biology from my school days. During my BSc, I started developing an interest in Chemistry. So, during my MSc, my interest in the interface of biology and chemistry grew. Basically, I have always been interested in this because I wanted to understand how biology works at the molecular level. Molecular Biology involves protein molecules and their interactions. These interactions come under the domain of chemistry. Hence, this is what I wanted to do for my PhD.

We have divided our understanding of the universe into different disciplines (physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics). In reality, all these principles come into play simultaneously. Presently, even in science, when we are trying to solve a problem or investigate a research question, we tend to look at it from only one point of view; we do not consider other factors that are outside our area. For example, you take the interactions between two cells. From the perspective of biology, you will observe the proteins involved in both the protein and cellular interactions. If observed through physics, cells are dynamic and not static. All these factors need to be considered. If you want a complete picture of the problem for solving it effectively, you need to look at it through the lenses of different disciplines.

Your current research journey has been filled with immunology, omics, computational protein biology, structural biology, and bioinformatics. What  influenced you to choose interdisciplinary research for your career?

As I explained earlier, it is important to look at the context or the bigger picture. So, I understand that it can be difficult because if you have done MSc in chemistry and you go and do a PhD in Biology, then you have to revise many concepts. I have to admit that in the beginning there will always be a steep learning curve but if you can overcome that, then it is worth it. I have benefitted from this. After my MSc in Chemistry, when I started my PhD, my knowledge of biology was very poor. So, when you do a PhD, you have to clear a qualifying exam after two years of enrolling into the PhD program. This qualifying exam is tough because the question paper is designed to apply your knowledge instead of being fact-based. For that, you need to have a very good understanding of biology concepts. Hence, for the first two years, I had to spend a lot of time catching up with my knowledge of biology. After I gained that knowledge, I could put together a lot of my chemistry knowledge gained from my MSc. Having these two subjects together helped me to look at the question from multiple perspectives. I think that is very important when you are approaching your problem. It will teach you how to design an experiment and will also tell you whether the experiment is feasible; or what would be the drawbacks of the experiment. The experiment will solve one question but it will also lead to another question. Hence, you have to keep all these factors in your mind. This is the reason why I wanted to work across disciplines.

My PhD was mainly in Bioinformatics but I did not have any working knowledge about coding. I had to teach myself to practice, which is not very difficult. You can learn it yourself through online courses. From personal experience, it is better to learn  anything involving wet lab research in real time. You need practical experience with a wet lab. These practical experiences are not possible to obtain when learning from online courses. But, coding languages can be learnt online for dry lab work. Initially, if you want a career in wet lab and then want to switch to dry lab, you need to have more practical experiences first. Later, you can teach yourself coding online.

For my first postdoctoral research at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA, even though the focus of the lab was in computational biology, it was located in the Computer Science department. Most of my friends were computer science graduates. In my lab, we had people who were working towards a PhD degree in computer science and their research involved developing different algorithms that could be applied to address problems in biology. If you are a PhD in Biology, you would have to apply it in computer science. That was something new for me because I had to learn computer science. I had to write code and use it to generate data. The computational time and memory usage  taken by the algorithm needs to be kept in mind while writing a code for it.

Now, in my current postdoctoral research, I deal majorly with immunology. So, whatever I learnt in computer science, I apply and develop it to investigate questions in immunology.

How did your research interests lead you to your current Post-doctoral fellowship at Peters Lab, La Jolla Institute for Immunology?

When I was pursuing my PhD, it was on protein-protein interactions, in the context of an innate immunity pathway, which is the TLR signaling pathway. I studied how mutations in the TLR proteins affected their ability to interact with downstream signaling proteins. So, this led me to be interested in molecular recognition.

Antibody-antigen interactions are a type of protein-protein interaction which are much more diverse due to millions of antibodies produced by each individual. Each of these antibodies has a different specificity. So, I am curious to know how these specificities arise, and what mutations in the antibodies cause them to be specific to one antigen but not another. It is not feasible to study millions of antibodies experimentally. The Peters lab is a pioneer in the development of computational tools for addressing these types of questions in immunology.

My current project is wholly based on COVID, I have been studying antibodies that bind to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. I have also been studying the mutations of different variants of this virus: alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. These variants have their differences because of their mutations. I have been trying to understand how these mutations in these variants affect the ability of the antibodies to bind or interact with them. That is the question I am currently working on. Another question I am dealing with is basically understanding what makes antibodies specific to a particular antigen. Again, it all comes down to the molecular level. It is all about chemistry. Because protein-protein interactions are nothing but various amino acids interacting with each other. So, that is how I got interested to work here at Peters Lab. It is a fantastic place. My colleagues come from all over the world: Europe, South America, Africa, Australia, Asia. They all have their diverse perspectives on life and research. So, it is a very good learning experience here.

Your current PostDoc research lab has majorly focussed on immunoinformatics i.e. immunology and bioinformatics. How is bioinformatics applicable to research in immunology?

There are multiple examples of this.

One example from our institute is single-cell RNA sequencing. Blood samples taken from volunteers who have been vaccinated or have a specific disease can be used for extracting white blood cells/leukocytes. Single-cell sequencing of these cells, taken from blood extracted at different time intervals, produces millions of gene sequences. Bioinformatic algorithms help to cluster/align these sequences together and help identify differences in the transcription/expression of certain genes and proteins in these cells. Under-expression or over-expression of these genes signifies that they play a role in a given disease.

Another example is BCR (B cell receptor) sequencing. Antibodies are secreted forms of BCRs. Antigen-specific B cells can be isolated from different blood samples and sorted. Sequencing of these B cells provides the sequence of antibody that the particular B cell is expressing. Millions of such sequences from different individuals help researchers identify what sequences are important for an antibody to be effective against a specific antigen. The unique features of these sequences are understood. Different individuals produce different antibodies but sometimes there are commonalities in the sequences between two individuals. Such examples are types of convergent evolution – i.e. the sequence is favorable for the antibody which is why multiple individuals produce such antibody sequences. All these findings are due to the application of bioinformatics algorithms to immunology. In India, this has a lot of scope for such studies owing to its diverse population.

Depending on where humans live, whether in the North or South hemisphere, we have been exposed to different types of pathogens that influence our immunity and determine how we respond to them. In the case of India which is a tropical country, we see more cases of malaria or dengue. If Indians are infected with malaria, they have antibodies against the respective antigens. Sometimes, these antibodies have been found to interact with dengue proteins. This is an example of cross-reactivity which can be explored more in India.

Another example is understanding the cross-reactivity of T cells and antibodies to different pathogens. T cells are usually specific enough to bind/interact with a peptide from a particular antigen. The same T cell can recognize a peptide from another antigen if there are similarities between these two antigens. Bioinformatics can help here to understand the similarity in peptide sequences between these two antigens and its extent to understand cross-reactivity. So that is another way of applying bioinformatics to immunology.

As data generation increases, there is also a need to develop databases and repositories to store and access this immunological data. There are several databases for the immunology community – Immune Epitope Database, Coronavirus Antibody Database, and IMGT database, to name a few.

Many students consider the terms “bioinformatics” and “computational biology” to be the same. Please clear this misconception.

Computational biology is a broader field and encompasses bioinformatics as one of its subjects. Basically, computational biology is using computers to investigate any biological question. 

Bioinformatics is mostly related to data generation, handling, development of softwares, algorithms and databases to deal with biological data.

Another group that comes under computational biology is systems biology, which is the mathematical and theoretical calculation-based study of the dynamics of large biological systems. For example, understanding the fusion of protein molecules within a signaling pathway; understanding the dynamics of the various proteins involved, so on and so forth. So, for time 0, if you have, say x number of proteins, after time t, their number is estimated and their effect on the signaling pathway is explored. These are questions dealt in computational biology and not bioinformatics because there is not much scope for involvement of ‘data handing’ here. 

However, Bioinformatics has become increasingly important now because of the improvement in technology which has led to the generation of more data; especially proteomic data. Hence, to handle that data and to make sense of it, you need numerous innovative bioinformatic algorithms. I would recommend checking out The Human Cell Atlas as a great example.

Machine learning, on the other hand is a completely different concept. On a fundamental level, if you look at it, it is all about modeling the data. Basically, if you have the data, you will try to derive a mathematical equation from it. For example, if you have two groups: one control group and another group with diabetics, machine learning will try to develop a probability model to predict diabetes in a person. For that, you will have a dataset which will have the information of the sample population: age, gender, eating habits. Each of them will be labeled as “diabetic” or “non-diabetic.” Based on the machine learning algorithms, you will be able to derive an equation from this dataset to separate this data into these two categories. This model will be used on a new dataset to predict the risk of diabetes. This is a very simple example of machine learning.

You have a stellar record of numerous scientific publications and you have also held the position of scientific writer for “The STEM Times” newsletter for the past 4 years. How did you discover your passion for science communication? 

Writing is something I have been very good at since I was a child. I think you might be aware that I was trained at Balavidyalaya. For my training, I had to do a lot of writing and reading and liked it a lot. I caught the habit from a very young age of 4-5 years. Writing was one way of expressing myself, because talking for me was limited by the choice of words that I could use. But when I write, I can express myself much more beautifully. I have been interested in writing for a very long time. In fact, when I was in school, my teacher used to tell me not to become a scientist. She always suggested I become a journalist. However, I was interested in science.

I did not find it difficult. I enjoyed the process of writing. Even during my MSc, PhD students would request me for help in editing their thesis and I used to enjoy it. During my PhD also, I liked writing, making stories, and explaining concepts. During this time, I realized that there is a disconnect between the public and what we scientists do. I felt that it is important to make them understand what we are doing. It is very important to be able to explain to others in a very simple way so that they understand the importance of what we are doing. So that’s how I ended up working for “The STEM Times.” The focus of STEM Times was to basically convey scientific concepts to people in a simplified format.

During my bachelors and masters, I used to write a blog. I used to write about my experiences at NCBS through poems. People would tell me how they liked my writing and then it struck me how I could use my fondness for writing to communicate science and research.

Your previous interviews that outline what you are and how you grew up, are an inspiration to many, especially for women in STEM. Please tell us one or two pieces of specific advice you wish family members, mentors, or colleagues of children with any form of disability to adopt. 

I think parents should not underestimate their children just because they have a disability. Each of us has flaws. For some of us, it is visible while for others it is hidden. I feel that humans have the ability to somehow find solutions or alternatives to an issue, quite unknowingly, if the issue does not seem big to them. It is all in the mind. The bigger we imagine our issues to be, the harder it becomes to overcome that. This can be solved by the approach of breaking down the problem into multiple steps.

Everyone has their own shortcomings. No one is perfect. However, the society we live in does not see a person with a disability as capable of doing anything. But that is not true. This mindset is similar to people noticing a single black spot on a white paper. People should be open-minded, supportive as well as encouraging towards people with disabilities, especially disabled children. This instills self-confidence in them. Above all, please do not discourage them. I understand that well-wishers and parents of these children would have a feeling of wanting to protect them but it only hurts them in the long run.

Small actions can make a lot of difference. In my own experience, my parents never discouraged me from doing whatever I wanted to do; especially when I wanted to move to a new place for my MSc. They never asked questions or doubted my ability to live on my own, far from home. They just encouraged me to study. But other people were very surprised when my parents decided to send me to IIT Madras. Such actions make a huge impression on children because it conveys that you are confident in them and their qualities. It makes them believe in themselves instead of depending upon others for their confidence.

What measures would you suggest to increase the inclusivity of researchers who are deaf, in STEM fields in India?

You should ask what they want. Researchers who are deaf should be asked what they need as it can vary from person to person. And others need to take some minimum effort to accommodate these needs. This goes a long way in helping them. Something that might seem small to you actually makes a big difference to us. The best example is – closed captions and the service of live captioning.

For example, during my education, I did not have many facilities that could have helped me. For me, it is very important to look at a person’s face while they are speaking. If they turn away and speak, I cannot understand. So it was really difficult following classes, since we did not have any captioning service. So, I had to depend a lot on my classmates for notes. During the class, I would have to look at the notes from the classmates sitting besides me and copy them down. Basically, in college you know how they teach. The professor will speak and tell us to hear and write about it simultaneously. For me, both were not possible. Either, I can look or I can write- only one thing at a time. Hence, I would listen to the professor and then once the lecture was over, I would copy the notes from my classmates. Unfortunately, you miss out on a lot of information; you do not know 100% of what was discussed in the lecture. So, I used to go to the library to catch up on whatever I missed out on. Hence, live captions are very important.

The experience during my PhD was very different from my MSc, because instead of classes, we had research, conferences, and seminars. Seminars and conferences usually consist of questions between the audience and the speaker. For me, I would miss out on most of the questions. I did not like that. All that changed when I came to the US and started using Zoom. I saw these closed captions and then finally understood what goes on in Q&A sessions. When you are asked a question, it makes you think about how to address it. For people like me who are deaf who communicate using spoken language, we need closed captions to follow meetings and seminars.

I have attended conferences in India as well as abroad. Whenever I was in India, I was saddened to see that no one would care to ask or arrange real-time captioning for me. But when I visited conferences in Canada, they asked about my needs and made arrangements for me to have live captions. Everyone was given a device and a URL link. The link had to be opened. Then the microphone in the device would hear any speech and convey it to a third person who would immediately start typing these captions and it would be visible to a person who is deaf. This system should be implemented in Indian conferences, as in Canada I could follow everything that was being spoken and it made a huge difference to me. I could understand questions which enabled me to think more about the problem or the topic. This facility is not offered either at Indian conferences or in Indian universities. I hope this facility is provided at least in top-tier institutions in India, like IIT, NCBS, TIFR, etc. – I know that it is provided in IIMs.

Another important aspect is to increase awareness and not judge a researcher because they are deaf. I hope my experiences are able to help others like me who are also pursuing their research in India.

These days, there are softwares to help people who are deaf: Live transcribe by Google. It converts speech into text. MS Windows 11 also has an inbuilt feature for converting audio into text. This feature was designed by another person who is deaf, and who was trained in the same school as mine and is currently working at Microsoft in Seattle, USA.
Madhura Kamat Author
Science In Context

Influence of gut microbiome on Serotonin

Academia Plus

Have you ever wondered why you always have a bad mood when something is wrong with your stomach? Well, recent research has thrown light upon the fact that all our body parts are largely affected by the ‘Gut Microbiome’- a haven of around 300 billion micro-organisms! These tiny creatures are known to play an important role in human development, right from the fetal stage. No wonder our gut is called the second brain

Although microbial colonization in the gut is a successive process, it is known to remain stable and resilient if there is an absence of stress-causing factors. Several factors are known to influence microbial composition at different stages of life- exercise, use of medication, diet and lifestyle.

Out of all the various body systems affected by our gut microbiota, the central nervous system stands out as the most interesting and hot research topic of this decade. Our gut and brain are connected via a bidirectional communication network called the Gut-Brain Axis.

Recent research has shown that our gut microbiome can alter the levels of Serotonin in our body, thus leading to episodes of anxiety, depression, panic attacks etc. And while this word has become common vocabulary nowadays, let us have a closer look at what exactly is serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter- which means that it carries messages between nerve cells in the brain and other parts of your body. Serotonin plays several roles in the body, including influencing learning, memory, happiness as well as regulating body temperature, sleep, sexual behavior and hunger.

Interestingly, about 90% of the Serotonin found in the body is produced in your gut itself! This serotonin is then released into the blood circulation and transported to other organs. Only about 10% is produced in the brain. Thus, you can now see how relevant and necessary it is to maintain the population of the gut microbiota producing serotonin.

Microbiome dysbiosis or in simpler words, the prevalence of bad bacteria over good ones, is associated with many diseases that lead to altered levels of serotonin. When researchers tried to replace the good bacteria in the gut with bacteria that led to swelling and inflammation, they observed that there was a slowing down of the serotonin secretion!

However, the good news is that you can take care of your gut microbial population, by choosing the right kind of diet. Recent research has also come to the conclusion that intake of probiotics will improve the integrity of the gut lining and help in increasing serotonin production. With a 10.7% of the world population suffering from depression, Alzheimer’s and other mental disorders, probiotics is a ray of hope-towards a world free of anti-depressants and its side effects. Want to avoid such disorders in the future? Make your diet rich in Lactobacillus helveticus and Bifidobacterium longumin from now on and keep your natural serotonin levels at par!
Malavika V Writer

Disclaimer: The content of this article is meant for educational and creative purposes only, and will not be directly used for generation of profits. All rights and responsibilities, including the authenticity of the information presented in this article belong to the original authors and their publications (listed below in the Bibliography section), and there is no copyright infringement intended.

Bibliography

Career Stories

Career Stories: Chapter 14

Academia Plus

In this chapter of Career Stories, we bring you the journey of Mustafa Inamdar who has a postgraduate degree in biotechnology and is currently working as a science communicator at Decode age, a Longevity Research company, where he mainly drives the content for their social media pages, as well as their podcast. Additionally, he also runs his own podcast – Biotech Talks. 

In this interview, he speaks at length about his journey in science communication, his approach to creating content for his YouTube channel, and elaborates upon his important learnings.

Could you briefly take us through your journey so far, and what led you towards pursuing a career in science communication? According to you, what is the main purpose of science communication- are you primarily setting out to engage, inform or educate your audience?

During the 2020 pandemic, I was a Master’s student who was attending classes online from home and found them to be quite unsatisfactory. To make the most of the situation, I decided to start my own YouTube channel, where I would teach my classmates the course curriculum in a fun way, similar to some of the previously published content. After receiving great feedback from viewers, I came up with the idea of interviewing life scientists and researchers. I reached out to a good friend of mine who was a Ph.D. student at the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) in Pune, India, and asked if she would be willing to talk about her research for my channel. She agreed and that’s how I got into science communication.

The main reason that I kept doing this was because I liked conversing with scientists and diving deeper and deeper into the subject. Since my school/college didn’t offer the best education, I wasn’t happy with the lectures. I was more content with the lectures accessible on YouTube like MIT open courseware. It was similar to the knowledge I was getting while speaking to researchers. That kept me going.

Moreover, I figured that the connections I was making through Biotech Talks would be beneficial in the future. And indeed, towards the end of my masters, I got four job offers without even applying for them. It’s also because of my channel that I managed to get a job at my current organisation.

I’m a firm believer in science, and being an atheist, nothing else matters to me. Sadly, I see that the younger generation is being heavily influenced by the content on the internet put up by political parties attempting to manipulate them. This is, I believe my primary purpose of Biotech Talks – we need to replace misleading media content with something more authentic.

Putting our podcasts about researchers can hopefully inspire others to join the science field. That is also one of the reasons I continue to work in science communication.

Do you have any personal guidelines in place, to ensure effective (and authentic) science communication? Also, what kinds of questions do you generally ask the interviewees?

I make sure to begin each project with thorough planning. To reach out to researchers for my podcast, I send cold emails which provide an overview of my YouTube channel as well as links to my previous podcasts. Once researchers have accepted my invitation, I perform a thorough background research to prepare relevant questions for the podcast. I send them a list of these questions and ask them for their inputs as well. They usually do have a few of their questions to add to the list. Additionally, if the interviewee agrees to conduct the interview at their office, I make sure I am punctual and avoid any delay from my end. 

Occasionally, whenever I interview at their own office, few researchers or scientists who are around, express an interest to be a part of my podcast.  Since I am unaware of the research and history of that scientist, this circumstance is unplanned. However, taking into consideration their desire and interest to support my channel, I immediately conduct interviews for them as well. Gradually, through my experience of conducting interviews (over 25, so far) I’ve grown accustomed to including unplanned elements and built my skills towards producing on-the-spot content for my podcasts upon request.

Some questions that I routinely ask scientists and researchers are: 

What kind of research are they doing?

What is the meaning of a Ph.D.?

Why are there more male scientists in Indian Academy and fewer female scientists?

What is scientific temper?

What is the importance of humor in research?

All these questions revolve around topics that I personally find very interesting and relevant.

How would you demonstrate to your audience that you are trustworthy with the information you provide?

When a scientist talks about their research, what they say is assumed to be the truth. I do not truncate it if the researcher has spoken for 40 minutes, I post the complete 40 minute talk. 

Recently, one of my videos went viral- I had taken some questions which I usually ask researchers and scientists and collated them into a video. About 10-15 scientists shared their views about what they believe a Ph.D. is, and it had an interesting flow. The video got over 2.6 lakh views and the comments were impressive; Prior to this video, my channel had 1k subscribers, and after this stint, the subscribers increased to 7k. In the comments, a lot of people said that the video had opened their eyes and they would now continue with their Ph.D.

I’m uncertain of my feelings on the matter because- a Ph.D. is indeed a hard path to take and if you have the opportunity to obtain it from a renowned institution then that’s wonderful. Yet, the fact that some students end up struggling to complete a Ph.D. from a university for 10-11 years is quite disheartening.

In the light of this scenario, I’m now planning to create a video titled “Why I Quit My Ph.D.” to provide a platform for those who have gone through this experience and want to share their stories.

How do you handle criticism- and balance people’s perception regarding your shared information (especially if they do not agree with it) against your conviction regarding that information?

Sometimes, if they are speaking the truth, then I have no option but to accept and ponder over it. The reality of research in India is like two sides of the same coin. I only portray the positive side of it through my interviews. The negative side is indeed there, however.

I had a great admiration for one of the scientists I interviewed, believing them to be exceptional researchers. When I visited one of their affiliated institutes, I had the chance to meet one of their students. To my surprise, they portrayed a completely different version of the scientist, which was inconsistent with how they presented themselves in my interview. This made me acknowledge that  it is impossible to know whether the professor is a good or bad mentor until one experiences it. Prior to joining a Ph.D. program, it is important to investigate the nature of one’s PhD guide/mentor.

Quite recently, I suggested to my peers that just like there is a Glassdoor app which allows individuals to look into the credibility of a business and provide anonymous reviews; it could be beneficial to have a platform where Ph.D. candidates can give an anonymous feedback regarding their PhD guides. This could be a very useful website.

I am attempting to bring awareness to the Indian Academia by asking relevant questions. During one of my interviews with student scientists, I urged them to not only talk about the pressures from their parents but also to comment upon the institutional aspects, such as the bad practices of PIs and inadequate regulations. As a result, I was given some meaningful, but heartbreaking answers.

I’m hoping to encourage others to recognize this problem. There are already a lot of PIs discussing this issue, but perhaps a bigger revolution is necessary.

What inspires you to keep continuing this journey of science communicator?

During my second year of college, I had this remarkable opportunity to visit the NCMR NCC research institute in Pune, India for my Avishkar project, where we had a chance to construct an affordable fluorescence microscope. I was honored to meet Dr. Praveen Rahi, a highly-regarded scientist, and a remarkable individual. Although he spent four hours talking to me, it felt as though only five to ten minutes had passed!

It was through such dynamic conversations with the scientists and researchers that my interest in science communication flourished, which I have been diligently pursuing ever since. Through this, I am able to learn the reasoning, methodology, and the perceived outcomes from the scientists I interview and hence dive a little deeper into their mindset. It has been an enjoyable, extraordinary, and instructive experience.

Through my work, I have been very fortunate to have encountered such exceptional scientists that I may not have had the chance to meet otherwise. It was truly inspiring to personally connect with them and gain insights into their work, which was the driving force behind my motivation.

It’s a shame that our educational system has the potential to sap out the enthusiasm and curiosity of students because of the approach towards teaching subjects such as biology. Conversing with scientists and experts can truly be a source of invigoration to pursue a career in a scientific field.
Raksha Sharma Author
Science In Context

Changes in gut microbiome & its impact on mental health

Academia Plus

When one hears the term superorganisms”, the first thing that comes to mind is the Marvel Cinematic Universe Superheroes. But, did you know- that you yourself are a superorganism? Turns out, it’s not a necessity to get bitten by a radioactive spider to become a superorganism. Every human being is home to billions of microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, viruses, and many others which either live on or inside the human body. The number of microbiota present in human beings is almost 10 times the total number of human cells!

The most significant population of microorganisms, which make up to 1 kg, inhabit the digestive tract and they are collectively called the “gut microbiota” or the “gut microbiome”. The gut microbiota is actively involved in maintaining human physiology and communicates regularly with other body organs, including our brain.

A two-way communication system exists between the gut and the brain known as the gut-brain axis. There are two main pathways through which this bi-directional communication system operates:

  1. Neurologic pathway: The enteric nervous system (ENS), present in the intestine (also called the second brain), together with the Vagus nerve make up the neurologic pathway. Various neurotransmitters (GABA, serotonin, melatonin, histamine etc.) responsible for sending direct signals to the brain are produced by the sensory nerves present in the ENS.
  2. Metabolic pathway: The gut microbiota produce several components known as metabolites which have the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and can affect the functioning of a special type of brain cells known as microglial cells which are necessary for the proper development of the brain as well as for modulation in the behavior in humans.

We have already touched upon these pathways in our previous article.

However, did you know that the population demographics of the gut microbiota changes rapidly with changes in the external environment? In this case- the gut or the digestive system.

For example, production of biologically active molecules such as peptides, or production of inflammatory molecules such as cytokines in the gut, directly affect the gut microbiota population. 

Now that we have had a quick look at how the gut and the brain communicate and what may cause disruptions in this communication (long distance is hard, phew!), we can move on to read about the various ways by which the microbiota residing in us impact our brain activities.

It has been found through various experiments that an imbalance in the gut microbiota (known as dysbiosis), can lead to clinical depression. Long-term swelling (also known as chronic inflammation) that occurs during stress-related disorders leads to changes in gut microbiota reduces serotonin production. The gut is responsible for providing 95% of the total serotonin which is known to play a beneficial role in several functions of the body. Inflammation in the gut can also cause stressful environments for the microbial population and can subsequently lead to symptoms of anxiety and depression.

On the other hand, changes in the gut microbiota can also be caused by on-going stress in an individual. In response to these changes, several metabolites, toxins, and neurohormones are released that can further impact an individual’s mood and eating behavior. The changes in eating behavior can further affect the gut microbiota population, creating a vicious cycle.

Therefore, it is evident that adapting a diet and lifestyle that promotes the growth of beneficial gut microbiota will lead to an optimal utilization of the gut-brain connection and help us maintain good mental health.

Probiotics such as yogurt, cheese, pickles, etc., are found to have species of microorganisms called – Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium which are key components of a ‘healthy’ gut microbiota. A term called psychobiotic has been recently coined to show their importance in mental disorder therapies as they can act as  antidepressants and work against anxiety. Conversely, high-fat diets and highly-refined carbohydrate diets constitute an unhealthy diet that causes an unfavorable changes in the gut microbiota population and thereby can also affect our overall mental health.

Thus, one can safely say that the way to a ‘happy mind and heart’ is through a ‘happy gut’.
Sanjhi Sardana Writer

Disclaimer: The content of this article is meant for educational and creative purposes only, and will not be directly used for generation of profits. All rights and responsibilities, including the authenticity of the information presented in this article belong to the original authors and their publications (listed below in the Bibliography section), and there is no copyright infringement intended.

Bibliography