Profile

I moved to Scotland a decade ago to pursue a Master’s degree at Glasgow and fell in love with this country, despite the darkness, the damp cold and the terrible food (well, I do like haggis, so there was some positive to it!). I then moved to Dundee for about 4 years to complete a PhD on the barley crop (DNA is common to all lifeforms, so a lot of techniques are interchangeable!). This was a real shock to the system as I had never even seen a farm up close before nor lived in a place where you could hear a person whispering from a few feet away! I found the people very warm and friendly and was almost sad to leave when I finished my studies. I’ve lived in Edinburgh since then and managed to fall in love with Scotland a little bit more!

My favourite part so far has been to engage with public. So much of research in the UK is funded by taxpayer’s money, and so I love to see how we communicate it back to them – give them an investor’s report so to speak. The enthusiasm I see in people here, irrespective of age or education is simply inspiring!

I am not sure where the future (the very, very uncertain future) will take me, but every moment I’ve spent here, learning, conducting experiments, engaging with fellow scientists and the lovely people of the UK will be unforgettable, and indeed cherished for the rest of my life.

My current job involves constructing molecular (cannot be seen without a microscope) machines. We do this by first identifying what components exist in nature. For example, bacteria have circular DNA called plasmid which can produce proteins with very good efficiency. So, if we introduce the code for the protein that we are interested in, we can essentially program the bacteria to manufacture it for us.

There is no real routine to my work – I discuss a rough plan with my boss at the start of the project (or even before sometimes, when does an idea really begin?) and then fill in the details as I read more about it. Sometimes I also conduct minor initial experiments to plan out the more elaborate parts. For example, we wanted to use some mammalian (family group that includes humans) cells to observe the phenomenon of ‘scattering’ – where the cells move away from each other rather dramatically. So I combed the literature and asked around to find a few types of cells, which I tested out in the lab and then picked the best one. Further work was all conducted using these cells, so a large ‘routine’ part of my job involves keeping these cells ‘happy’ and well-fed.

In parallel, I also plan for the other components I will need to conduct the bigger experiments. I also have to plan for using the microscopes to actually record the experiment – often these are shared equipment, so it is important to be considerate of that before blocking it out for your work.

Now I want these cells to ‘scatter’ at my command, so I design a ‘switch’ – we use a light-sensitive protein so that when we expose the cells to a specific type of light (wavelength), this protein will ‘switch’ on mechanisms that should allow me to ‘change’ the behaviour of the cells. Light based systems have the advantage where, in theory, one can simply ‘switch’ the light on or off.

Once this system is tested and (hopefully) working, we can then think ahead to see where it can be applied – one potential application is building artifical organs, another may be to understand how tumours form (and can be destoyed).

My typical day starts around 8am by reviewing what I’ve done so far, which is going over my notes, and seeing where I am stuck. I prefer to write everything by hand, but as we are in the age of digital information, I spend an hour daily to document everything on my computer. I also use this time to catch up with any new developments in my field.
Due to Covid, we have to book the lab times so that my colleague and I can work safely with social distancing. While the lab is a serile place, it need regular cleaning and disinfection to ensure that both the scientists and their biological samples remain infection free.
I do forget to eat food on some days, so by 2pm my stomach reminds me and I take a small break to fuel up.
The rest of the day is spent either in the lab or planning further work for the next few days. Recently, I have also been looking at writing project proposals to attract funding for future projects. While I am still learning hwo to do this, I have to spend quite a bit of time on it so by the time my ‘work’ day has finished it is dinner time. I live with flatmates so we use dinner time to cook and catch up with each other. On some days I use this time to catch up with family back in India. By bed time, I usually unwind by listening to the radio (love classcial music!) and reading some form of fiction to unwind. I typically sleep around 11pm.