2021
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Why did you choose to do a PhD?
Day in-day out, the progress made by science and technology, new medical inventions and the newer drugs developed by the experts of the field, always inspired me to a new height altogether. I still admire the great scientists and scholars, all the innovators and industrialists who have had the mettle and conviction to take these inventions and discoveries, trust them and use them for the betterment of society and the people living in it. I took inspiration from these individuals and dreamt about reaching that standard to get accounted as a contributor to the society. The desire of knowledge and expertise and the hunger to make a difference by uncovering gaps and identifying potential solutions made me look towards a research direction to gain mastery over my undergraduate learnings in Pharmacy.
Why did you choose to do graduate education at NUS? If you received offers from other universities, why did you pick NUS?
NUS fulfilled all the criteria I had in my checklist – a renowned university with consistently high global rankings, strong research focus, impressive line up of Professors and Researchers, located in the diverse nd multi-ethnic country, grant of financial scholarship, proximity to my home country India, and the chance to explore the South-East Asia. there was no reason to not chose NUS!
How does graduate school compare to your undergraduate experience?
“Undergraduate experience teaches you to be a jack of all trades and prepares you to get out in the real world. Graduate school teaches you to be a master of a specific area, uncover the complexities of the real life and how to find solutions to those complexities yourself.
Undergraduate life is more sheltered and protected whereas Graduate school teaches you to go out of comfort zone, make mistakes, learn from failures, the strength to take calculated risks and to not be afraid of the unknown.”
Briefly share about your research or thesis (i.e. dissertation topic for Masters by Coursework students).
The unavailability of effective therapeutic options for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has made identification of novel modulators of the disease pathogenesis imperative. While the precise disease pathology is poorly understood, several approaches simultaneously targeting various pathological factors have been proposed. The overall goal of the thesis was to explore potential novel therapeutic targets for AD. Two different approaches were used: (i) exploring the synergistic effect of DHFR inhibition in enhancing the neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory actions of GSK-3β inhibitor; and (ii) elucidating the mechanism of docosahexaenoic acid, a dietary supplement, in mitigating hypometabolic disturbances in AD. The results showed that both these approaches may be further explored as a viable path to enhance therapeutic outcome and delay the progression of injury in AD.
On hindsight, would you have chosen the same research supervisor for your graduate programme?
“Definitely yes, over and over again!
Prof Ee was well balanced in her approach – giving the space to experiment, fail and learn on my own, while always being there to guide and mentor when need be. She was strict when things were not going right, but nurturing and encouraging when I stumbled a roadblock. She also encouraged me to go out of my comfort zone to be a PhD intern at GSK, right in the middle of my Phd term, and work in an area completely unrelated to my thesis just to give me an exposure of what it meant to work in a pharmaceutical industry. Thanks to that adventure and experience, I got to know GSK and now have a very fulfilling career at this leading Pharmaceutical industry.”