Name: Gaurav Mendiratta
Hometown: Bangalore, India
Lab: Integrative Biology Laboratory – Dr. Ed Stites
Lab website: https://www.salk.edu/scientist/edward-stites/
Hobbies: I like reading widely including science fiction, fiction, math, anthropology. I also enjoy bicycling and occasionally, soccer and playing the guitar.
What do you study? My dream is to have a complete understanding of how cells that make up our bodies work? and what changes in these cells to make a person sick? I use math and computers to study proteins that make up a cell and then study how this function changes when a cell becomes cancerous. I also work with cells in the laboratory to check if answers from my computational studies are right.
Why is it important? In the Stites lab, we study how changes in specific proteins that make up our cells cause cancer and how these proteins respond to drugs. Our work helps make better, more specific drugs and finds new uses in cancer treatment for known drugs.
What piqued your interest in science? I have always believed in asking questions. I wanted to know about why is the sky blue? What is time? What is life? How does it work? Some of my teachers and mentors encouraged this intense curiosity and opened a window into how little is known about nature in general which still drives me today.
What do you like about being a scientist: To me, being a scientist is not a matter of liking something specific about science or how it is done. It is more a way of living. Science is the method of keeping a good record while exploring the world. I believe that anyone who asks the following questions is a scientist,
What is a clear way to say what I see?
Why is this true?
How would I know if it was not true?
Can I test my understanding somehow?
What are 5 general vocabulary terms someone should know going into your field of science?
mathematical models, genes, mutations, protein inhibitors and hallmarks of cancer
What are 5 specific vocabulary terms someone should know about your research?
oncogenes, MAPK pathway, phosphorylation, hydrolysis, paradoxical activation