For the Journey, Not the Goal
By: Hritika Chaturvedi
Tags: Initiative, Youth, Neuroscience, STEM, Ideas

Anushree Krishnamurthy discusses her childhood encounters with neuroscience and biomedical research as those that gave rise to her now developing academic interest. Learn more about how Krishnamurthy has and persists to tackle the supposed redundancy of “being human.”

Photo by Anushree Krishnamurthy

Where are you from, what do you study, where are you currently based?

My name is Anushree and I hail from the city of Bangalore, Karnataka, India. I am an undergraduate student based in Fergusson College (Autonomous), Pune,

Maharashtra. I have always been inclined towards a career in Life Science, and

decided that a strong foundation in a course that offered core knowledge about

Chemistry, Plant Sciences, Animal Sciences and Earth Sciences would be a suitable start to my journey. I am currently in the final year of my under-graduation, and have chosen Animal Sciences as my major.

Why neuroscience?

Well, a simple and rather cliché answer to this not-as-simple-as-it-appears question would be that neuroscience tickles my brain the most. The plethora of unanswered questions about the human brain and the clockwork behind it’s functioning is something that intrigues me a lot. A 3 lb mass of “human Jell-O” is solely responsible for defining what it means to be natural selection’s success story. Well, we live in a world where “being human” seems redundant, but that’s a story for another day. In essence, the mysteries behind the working of the human brain propelled me to aim for a career in Neuroscience. My “not-so-cliché” version of the answer actually has a personal aspect to it. Very recently, my grandmother, who is probably the most hard-working and energetic person I’ve seen, suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. A severe brain hemorrhage, coupled with a blood clot left the entire right side of her body paralyzed. Her speech was affected as well. For someone who’s never found an excuse to skip work, even at the age of 70, this was devastating. But the worst part was that there was no pre-defined symptom that would have suggested that she would most likely have a stroke that day. After she was admitted into the ICU, I went through a lot of literature on the topic, but I could not find any solid method to be able to predict a primary stroke. There are ways to predict further occurrences after the first stroke has hit, but nothing

to predict the first one itself. If that missing jigsaw piece could be found, it would help predict and in turn, prevent millions of stroke cases in the future. This personal experience made it clearer to me that pursuing neuroscience would be the right way forward so that I could work on such pressing issues myself and work out a solution so that others would not have to face what my family, and several other families of stroke patients have been facing all this time.

What first sparked your curiosity about neuroscience, and how did your interest inspire what you are currently doing?

Photo by Anushree Krishnamurthy

My interest in neuroscience can be attributed to my childhood fetish for reading. I

am, and have always been an ardent bibliophile, and the electrifying world of the

brain was first opened to me by Dr. V.S Ramachandran in his book, “Phantoms in the Brain.” Soon, I was hooked onto neurofiction and Sigmund Freud, Oliver Sachs and David Eagleman were my new idols. With time, I moved on to conceptual books on the subject and began exploring the different facets of this vast field. I started attending conferences and ideathons to help me gain an in-depth idea of the various topics in the field such as computational neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience, developmental neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience and a lot more. In the process I connected with many people who have helped me shape a solid vision about my future in this field. One such conference that served as a turning point in my journey was the Monsoon Brain Meeting held in June 2020. Till then, I was just another unassuming undergraduate student exploring neuroscience from the outside, but MBM 2020 gave me the opportunity to finally be a part of the field. After 3 days of mind-blowing talks from eminent speakers, a group of like-minded people joined in to form a student interest group in neuroscience, and I was lucky enough to be one among them, because 3 months later, this small group blossomed into Project Encephalon (PE), an inclusive, heterogeneous neuroscience community encompassing around 400+ members from 16 countries and growing! I am honored to serve as the Chief of Internal Affairs at PE where I manage the internal working of the organisation. We mainly invite speakers to present their work in Journal Clubs and also have an ongoing blog series titled Sapiens in Neuroscience. In addition, we have a host of events such as podcasts and reading clubs in the pipeline. Project Encephalon helped me reach out to several people and gain important insights, both about the cutting-edge research going on in the field and about life as a neuroscience researcher and strengthened my resolve on making it big in this field. In essence, my love for books inspired me to begin this journey in carving a niche for myself and is one of the main reasons for me to stand where I am today.

What sort of experience do you carry in your field of interest?

Currently, I don’t have any experience in my field of interest. However, I have been exploring my interests since 11th grade via short internships to get a taste of what research is really like. I have gained quite some experience in the field of ecology by working under noted scientists like Dr. Uma Shaanker at UAS-GKVK, Bangalore on the antagonistic activity of endophytic fungi against plant pathogenic fungi and Dr. Aravinda Madhyastha at ATREE, Bangalore on Morphometric Analysis of freshwater mollusks as summer internships. I have also gained some lab experience in molecular techniques through molecular biology workshops conducted in IISER Pune. Just like many other undergraduate students, I had hoped on finally being able to work in my field of interest this year but the pandemic expertly foiled my plans. I really hope the situation improves and I can finally dive into some serious work in the field.

What do you hope to accomplish in the future?

Photo by Anushree Krishnamurthy

Interestingly, neuroscience is something I’ve quite recently fallen for. My interest in research itself was sparked when I was 15. One morning, I came across this article in the newspaper that, in big, bold font read: “Crispr Cas9: Gene editing technique named scientific breakthrough of 2015!” That was my “epiphany moment” where I just knew that I had to become a scientist someday. My joy knew no bounds when the same scientific breakthrough was deemed Nobel Prize-worthy a few days ago and my idols Dr. Jennifer Doudna and Dr. Emanuelle Charpentier became one among the very few women laureates this year. Even now, the field of genetics is very alluring to me which is why I plan on integrating both neuroscience and genetics to study gene therapeutic techniques to help work on a novel treatment for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis. However, I wouldn’t like to narrow down my future plan right now, the reason for which I shall be answering in the 10th question. I also hope to be able to find out a holistic approach to predicting stroke disorders, especially in people with underlying cardiovascular problems who are predisposed to such risks. In addition to all this, I am extremely interested in science communication. When the pandemic first struck, I was appalled by the mediocre understanding of basic scientific concepts in the general public. Simple words such as ‘respiratory virus’ and ‘airborne transmission’ was met with blank faces. It is absolutely necessary to equip laymen who are not from the scientific field with a basic understanding of science so that it would be easier to handle, god forbid, such pandemic-like situations in the future. With this in mind, two of my batch mates and I started a digital science magazine during the lock down called The Science Paradox. We aim to break down complex concepts into a simpler, more comprehensible and fun-to-read form for the common man to understand. Though I’ve just stepped into it, I hope to use my experience in Sci-comm to make a change in the general “science is only for scientists” perspective so that everyone begins to appreciate and develop interest in STEM in the future. Being an all-girls initiative, we also advocate the importance of women in STEM, and hope to encourage many more girls with potential to make a mark in the field of scientific research.

Do you find that your age hinders you in any way toward advancing in the field of STEM?

Age has never been a barrier, at least for me. In fact, all my mentors till now have

always encouraged and motivated me to the best of their abilities in the field of

STEM. Rather than age, I would say that my lack of experience hinders me in

advancing in the field of STEM. It’s ironic, really. You want to get a head-start in

your career, so you start applying to labs at a young age hoping to gain experience but you don’t get a chance to because you have “no prior experience in the field”. Of course, I wouldn’t want to generalize, but that is the case majority of the time. I call it the “experience paradox.” If you actually think about it, most undergraduate students (excluding a few scientific prodigies) at least in India are subject to the “experience paradox.” There are very few scholarship programs and internship opportunities where “brand new, hot out of high school” students are allowed to work in labs and gain said experience. In my opinion, this is the biggest hindrance to the advance of science in the country because most students lose interest in the field when all they get to do is study bookish theory and perform a handful of monotonous experiments in the name of “practical knowledge” in college. Instead, if working in labs is a more open process, where you aren’t required to already know what’ll happen when you treat A type of cells with B solution, more students would actually be curious about pursuing a career in science. Such a system would also ensure developing a sound scientific temperament from a young age as students would always try and question a particular phenomenon rather than learn it as it is just for the sake of passing examinations. I believe that learning primarily through practical experience would fare better in strengthening core concepts for students in STEM rather than just including it in the syllabus as a supplement to theoretical knowledge.

What is your take on interdisciplinary science, neuroscience in particular?

The very essence of science is interdisciplinary. I had mentioned previously that I

wouldn’t like to narrow down my career interest solely to neurogenetic research. This is because I believe that research requires different perspectives in order to be

exhaustive. And these different perspectives can come to pass only by adopting an

interdisciplinary approach.

Are you open to or keen on approaching neuroscience via an interdisciplinary lens?

Absolutely! Although I haven’t planned on exactly how I’d merge the two as of now, I’d really love to explore the intersection of science and arts especially in a

therapeutic context. I have attained vocal training in Indian Classical music (Carnatic style) since the age of 7. So, one arena I’d definitely love to explore would be the effect of different Indian Ragas on human emotion and cognition. The variations and vibrations that is accompanied by the rhythmic beats (called Taalam) can have several therapeutic effects which are being studied quite extensively now. Contributing to this comparatively lesser known amalgamation of conventional neuroscience and traditional music would be an enlightening experience.

What advice would you give to other young scientists who plan on entering or seek to establish themselves in STEM?

One advice I definitely wish someone had given me when I was younger is “No

matter how tough things get, don’t ever think of giving up, and don’t ever think that you’re not good enough.” Most of us have high expectations from ourselves and tend to be overly critical of the decisions we make, a lot more critical than parents and peers can ever be. And when these carefully drafted plans and assumptions are not realized, then all hell breaks loose. A once confident and strong soul starts doubting itself, starts questioning every decision it ever took and teeters on the border of depression and anxiety. You might have been the epitome of high morale and self-esteem, always sure of yourself and your actions, but when, at any point, you are not able to “exceed expectations,” you

tend to lose it. You become depressed, and you think that maybe this is not what

you’re meant to do, you don’t have the potential to succeed. You are not who you

expected to be. Many of us were sold to the idea that if we score good marks, work our arse off on unpaid internships, graduate with distinction from a prestigious university, get a PhD and start working as a post-doc in a renowned lab, that’s when we will reach happiness. For some, the list doesn’t even end there. If there happens to be a diversion or an obstacle along this way, then disappointment sets in. If you keep expecting that by doing ABC, maybe someday you’ll achieve XYZ and only then you will be happy, then chances are you’ll keep on doing XYZ, waiting for ABC to happen for the rest of your life and never be satisfied. Life isn’t an equation that you have to try so hard fitting into. I’m not saying that one should settle for mediocrity and not aim for the best. I’m trying to differentiate the thin line between goals and expectations. Goals keep us motivated to achieve something worthwhile in life, whereas expectations don’t have a limit. And this limitless craving for more, is what leads to disappointment. When you keep your expectations low, even a small achievement such as working an extra hour would make you feel happy about yourself. It is important to see happiness not in your goal, but in your journey. When you’re happy doing what you’re doing, you will automatically do better. And as you do better, you go one step closer to your goal. You may even turn out better than you expected to be.

Interviewed by Hritika Chaturvedi