- So, let's just jump right
into the presentation.
Today, I'll be talking
about the microbiology
and immunology research I've done
and give you an insider perspective
towards the life in academia
and the graduate school life
through an international perspective
because I came here in 2011 for my PhD,
so it was maybe I was
your age when I came here,
and since then, this is what I've done.
So from 2006 to 2010,
I was doing my undergraduate
studies in India
in B. Tech. in Biotechnology.
And my dissertation title was,
"Identification and characterization
"of clinical isolates of
group A Streptococcus."
That is a kind of bacterium
which infects children
and gives them strep throats.
In older adults,
it causes more complex infections,
but I was focusing on
group A Streptococcus
which is more for the children.
Then in 2011, I took a
very different route.
Usually, a PhD student does his masters
and then decides on the PhD
or gets the masters
training, does some courses,
probably do a little bit of research,
and then jump into the PhD,
but I think I was too much in a hurry
so I directly applied for
PhD courses here in USA
and I got a few acceptance letters
and I found the University of Florida's
Microbiology and Cell Science
Department's PhD program
the most appealing to me
and that's why I joined it.
And over there, my research topic
was characterization of
Sec-translocon dependent
extracytoplasmic proteins
of Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus
which is the causative
agent of citrus greening
as you all must be knowing.
We'll be talking more into
detail about my PhD research
and the research which I'm currently doing
after graduating from my PhD.
In the same department,
because I thought that I want,
it was very rewarding
working with a planned
pathogenic bacteria,
but I also wanted to do something
which was close at home for me
and Leismania is an infection
which does affect the
Indian subcontinent as well
amongst the other parts of the world,
so I wanted to go more into something
which is more close at home.
And that's why I'm working
as a postdoctoral researcher
for uncovering the molecular composition
of the parasitophorous vacuoles
in which the Leishmania parasite
resides within the whole cell,
and the identification of novel targets
for control strategies.
So a very good question
when I was practicing for
this talk myself asked
that probably people don't know
what a postdoctoral researcher is.
So just to tell you more about it,
it's more of an in between position.
Once you graduate from your PhD
and before you take up a job
as a faculty position in academia.
It is very important
because as a PhD student,
you're working on one project
and you're only working on that project
and you're a student.
So it's very important to
know how to manage a lab,
to mentor other students
who are graduate level
or master's students.
So that's what the job of a
postdoctoral researcher is.
That is also kind of training
which is an in prep preparation training
to be a faculty position.
It is also a good training
for being in a managerial position
for a company's scientific
industrial unit.
So I'll be talking about
these two researches
more in detail.
So just to give you an outline.
First, we'll talk about the research work
which I did in my PhD and my postdoctoral,
currently I'm doing in
my postdoctoral studies.
And then I'll be going for
a more personal perspective
about the reasons why I opted for a PhD,
the international experience I had
during my graduate school life,
and more in detail about
the graduate school life.
And then of course,
the future in the field of academia,
how that correlates with the
PhD degree which you (mumbles).
So, my first topic is
regarding citrus greening
which you all must be very
familiar about here in Florida.
So the citrus industry is actually very,
very economically significant
for a state like Florida
where citrus is one of
the preliminary crops
which are grown.
In Florida itself,
it has an impact of about
nine billion dollars annually
and it also provides
thousands of jobs in Florida
and also creates a lot of
revenue through trade and export.
So we all love citrus.
It's very nutritious.
It boosts our immunity
and who doesn't like
their OJ in the morning?
That was all the good news,
but the bad news is citrus greening
which is also sometimes
abbreviated as HLB.
So in 2005,
we first identified
citrus greening in Florida
and annually, it has started
costing us about 3.6,
three billion dollars in losses,
and about 6,500,
more than 6,500 jobs have been,
people have lost their
jobs because of this.
And this is just the 2010 consensus,
so the numbers are much
higher now in 2016.
It has been more than 10 years now,
a decade of citrus greening
affecting Florida counties.
And this map is only 'til 2007,
but 'til now,
the whole of Florida has been
affected by citrus greening.
So it is definitely a
very devastating disease
for the citrus industry,
and especially for areas
which are mainly focusing on
the crops of citrus plants.
So HLB or citrus greening
is actually caused
by the Candidatus Liberibacter species.
And mainly in the Candidatus
Liberibacter species,
the genus Candidatus
Liberibacter asiaticus,
africanus, and americanus
based on where they were
first isolated from.
So the Candidatus
Liberibacter asiaticus species
or Las as we call it
is the most prevalent one in Florida
and that was my focus of research.
So a little more
about the Candidatus
Liberibacter asiaticus.
It is a gram negative alpha proteobacteria
which belongs to the Rhizobiaceae family.
The term Candidatus in its name signifies
that it cannot be maintained
in lab culture as yet.
So that makes it even more
difficult to work with.
Something which you cannot grow in lab,
it is difficult to study
and do experiments on it.
So all these studies which have happened
are either field trials, or field studies,
or greenhouse studies,
or they are bioinformatics studies
which you do on the computer
based on your previous knowledge
regarding very closely related species.
So this even though it makes
it more difficult to study,
it definitely makes it
even more fascinating
because you want to see
why it's not growing
like other bacterias do.
So, it has a very different
kind of life cycle
which I will be talking about very soon,
but it has two hosts.
One is the plant host which
actually gets affected
by the citrus greening infection,
but it also has a vector host
which helps it to move from one tree
and infect the other fresh tree.
So the vector host is the Diaphorina citri
or the Asian citrus psyllid.
And when an infected
psyllid bites on the plant,
it introduces the bacterium.
Here, you can see there are many psyllids
feeding on the leaf.
It introduces the bacterium
into the plant's phloem tissue
and you can see that there is
blockage of the phloem tissue
due to the deposition
or the spread of the
bacterium inside the tissue.
So basically, the phloem tissue of a plant
is like your veins or arteries
which provide nutrients to
other parts of your body.
And similarly, the nutrition
and transport of nutrients
happens through these tissues.
But when they get blocked
because of this infection,
the plant starts losing nutritional value
in different certain areas of the plant
and ultimately leads to the
decline of the tree health.
And the tree after an HLB infection
usually dies within four to five years.
So there are groves,
full groves which have got
infected by citrus greening
and are now currently
not putting any fruits.
So the citrus greening infection
cycle is very fascinating
because the hosts are so different.
The one is an insect host which
basically acts as a vector
or a carrier from an infected
tree to a fresh tree.
And the other is the plant host
which has a completely
different physiology
and the bacterium resides
within the cells of the plant tissue.
So a very important question is
that based on this life cycle,
what proteins are helping
the bacterium to survive
in such different kind of environments
and also not to be able to be recognized
by the host's immunity?
So plants also have some immunity.
The insects have its own immunity,
but this bacterium manages to
completely hide from the immunity.
So for that, my project was more focused
on Sec-translocation mechanism in Las.
It is a kind of protein
transportation pathway
which is elucidated here,
but not to go so much
into the science of it,
basically if this is
the extracellular space
and this is the cell cytoplasm,
the proteins are being
created inside the cell,
inside the bacterium cell.
And this bacterium cell transports
these certain specific proteins
through the Sec-translocation pathway.
This is the pathway
which consists of many different proteins.
So it transports the
proteins which are formed,
not all of them, but very specific ones,
transports these proteins
and secretes them out into
the extracellular space
which provided environment
to be able to sustain itself
inside the host cell.
So I wanted to know more
about the Sec-translocation
mechanism in Las,
Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus,
and characterize and identify
these Sec-secreted proteins of Las.
So like I said
that these proteins might
be playing important roles
in the pathogenicity of the bacterium
and also helping it to
establish the infection
and sustain itself inside the host cell.
So it wasn't as easy as just
to go and take a look at it.
We had to do many bioinformatic
analysis and then do,
because bioinformatic analysis
is all online on a computer
based on very closely
related other proteins
or based on very closely
related other species,
so it was important to validify
them experimentally as well.
So what I got results was
that Sec-translocation is a
major route of translocation
of proteins in Las
because it's the only one.
Usually, a bacterium has
about seven different types.
Not all of them,
but usually they have five to seven
different types of translocation pathways
through which proteins are
transported outside of the cell.
But in Las case,
because the genome size
of Las is so small,
only Sec-translocation
pathway is the major pathway
through which proteins are being
specifically secreted out of the cell
or at least into the periplasm.
So another thing bioinformatically
I predicted putative 150
candidate proteins of Las
which might be helping,
which might be getting secreted
and ultimately helping the
bacterium to sustain itself
and establish infection.
So I wanted to experimentally confirm
these extracytoplasmic
or secreted proteins.
And based on my experimental analysis,
out of the foray assay
which is a very dependable
biochemical assay
which you perform on proteins,
I confirmed 89 proteins of Las
which were being secreted
outside of the cell
through the Sec-translocation pathway.
Why I say confirmed 89 and
I do not just say only 89,
it's because the bio
assay could confirm 89.
This does not mean
that the rest of the
proteins are not secreted.
It's just that they cannot be confirmed
because we don't have the organism
growing in our lab conditions,
it's difficult to do biochemical assays.
So that's why there was this
limitation with the study.
But anyway, this study
is actually in review now
and will be published in
a peer reviewed journal.
So hopefully, that should be this month.
So that was my PhD research.
Now, coming to my postdoctoral research
which I'm currently doing.
I wanted to do something more
in the same area of study,
but I wanted to do it
in an animal system now
because before that,
I was working with a plant pathogen.
So in my department itself,
there is a lot of very
good research going on
and I happened to have the opportunity
to work on characterizing secreted
and associated proteins of
Leishmaniasis causing parasite
which is Leishmania species.
And that's my postdoctoral research
which I'm doing currently.
Don't mind the pictures.
They're a little graphic,
but the Leishmaniasis
infection is actually
a very devastating infection,
especially in the developing
countries in the world.
It is a parasitic disease
caused by the infection
with Leishmania parasites
and it is spread by the
bite of infected sand flies.
So you can see that there is parallelism
between by PhD research and
my postdoctoral research.
Both are both kinds of
one bacterial pathogen
and one parasitic pathogen
cause diseases in animal cells,
but they are being
vectored by an insect host.
Also, both are intracellular.
So in case of citrus greening,
the bacterias resides
within the plant cell
and in case of Leishmania infection,
the Leishmania parasite resides
within a type of immune cells,
you must have heard of them,
macrophages, which are the
first line of defense sometimes.
So that's where they reside.
So there are many different forms
of Leishmaniasis you can have
based on the species
which has affected you
and also based on the
country that species is from.
So the difference forms of Leishmaniasis
are cutaneous Leishmaniasis
which you can see here
which basically is more easier to identify
because you develop skin sores and ulcers.
And they are painful sometimes.
Sometimes they're not painful,
but they can be easily treated
with miltefosine treatment.
Unfortunately in some developing countries
because of the not lack,
but scarcity of medical facilities,
this can be ignored and
then it may turn lethal.
And then there is also
visceral kind of Leishmaniasis
which is more severe
and can be lethal if not
treated at the correct time.
And in visceral Leishmaniasis,
you have internal organs which
get affected by the parasite.
So in this particular picture,
the spleen is getting infected
and it gets enlarged because
it's so full of parasite
and the immune system
is trying to defend it,
but at the same time,
the infection has established a lot,
progressed a lot more.
So internal organs consist of spleen,
liver tissue, bone marrow sometimes
which is very difficult to treat,
but if given proper treatment and care,
visceral Leishmaniasis can also
be completely eradicated from a body.
Another thing is that some
people do not have any symptoms,
especially for visceral Leishmaniasis.
That can be very lethal.
And you actually recognize when you have,
the time point at which you recognize
when you have got a
Leishmaniasis infection
is when you acquire a
different or co-disease
because your immunity
is already compromised
because of the Leishmaniasis infection.
And then you acquire another disease
which is just looking for
an opportunity to come by.
So as just to give you a picture
of the impact of this infection,
the cutaneous form,
there are about 1.2 million
cases annually and globally.
And visceral, it's
about 0.4 million cases.
So it is very prevalent
all over the world.
It's not present in USA
and many cold climates,
but most of the tropical countries have it
except for Australia
because probably it's not reached there,
the sand flies.
Anyway, but it's present
in more than 90 countries
and like I said,
it's also affecting
the Indian subcontinent
so I have a more closer
motive to work hard on this.
So this is what I'm doing right now.
The Leishmania infection
cycle is very interesting
and it is very parallel to
the citrus greening life cycle
even though we cannot
compare both of them.
Citrus greening is a bacterial disease.
This is a parasite which
is a eukaryotic organism.
But still, just to compare,
the infected sand fly takes a blood meal
of a healthy individual
and the promastigote form of the parasite
get entry into the healthy individual.
These promastigote forms
once inside animal cell
transform into amastigote
forms which are not motile.
The promastigote forms are motile
because they have to
go and reach the cells.
The amastigote forms, once
they are inside the cell,
they don't need to be motile.
They need to be multiplying faster.
So the amastigote forms
multiply really quickly.
This is the diagnostic stage.
In this stage, if you
catch it, it's very good.
You can do the treatment
and you'll be fine.
So once they multiply,
they infect either other macrophage cells
or if a sandfly bites an infected
individual at this stage,
this sand fly starts
carrying the infection
and then the amastigotes
convert into promastigotes
and then the cycle continues like that.
So just to give an overview
about the Leishmania parasite,
like I was saying,
the flagellum is highly developed
in the promastigote form
because it needs to be motile
to find the particular cell
it needs to be dividing inside of.
Once it's inside of the
cell like you will see,
here, these are Leishmania parasites.
This is one cell.
This is the nucleus of the cell.
So once they are inside the cell,
they convert into amastigote form
where they don't need
to have the flagellum,
but they do need to have all
the other metabolic organelles
to be more active.
So this is from Leishmania
mexicana species.
So they have this kind
of vacuoles which form.
This picture represents the
Leishmania donovani species
and this is a macrophage cell.
And you can see that this cell
has been affected by one parasite,
Leishmania donovani parasite.
And you will see that the
parasites which are outside,
they are still in their promastigote form.
So it's very interesting
and it's very interesting to view it
every day under the microscope
and just see and take a
look at their behavior
even though all that has
been documented already,
but it's just fun to just
view it and see how it works.
So the project objectives.
This is another.
The N represents the nucleus
and the V represents the vacuoles
which contains the parasites in it.
So the project objectives in mine.
This project is that the parasites
reside in the parasitophorous vacuoles
which may play an important role
in the parasite survival inside the cell.
The LPVs are conduits
of parasite strategies,
the strategies are basically proteins
which modulate the whole cell
activities in their favor.
It's like a virus on your computer.
So the virus starts doing
stuff for your computer
to make it work according
to its own programming,
something like that.
And then understanding
the molecular composition
and characteristics of LPVs
which will help us in determining
their role in Leishmania pathogenesis
and then this knowledge
will ultimately help us
in identification of novel targets
to identify a new strategy of control
which basically means that these parasites
are releasing proteins inside
the cell to help reproduce.
If we target those proteins
which are secreted with a drug,
then those proteins will not be able
to help the parasite
to reproduce any longer
and then it can be treated very quickly.
So it's very important to
identify those proteins
which are helping it.
- I have a question.
- Yes?
- So those vacuoles--
- Uh-huh.
- [Student] Where did the parasite get in?
So did they eat,
did the cell eat it like
endocytosis inside the lisosome?
- So the macrophage cells, these
cells are phagocytic cells.
They engulf any foreign particle
or in this case parasite,
or infect bacterium cells,
or any foreign particle
which is nonself to the body,
they engulf it and either they lyse it
or if it's not harmful,
then they just excrete it out.
So it's very actually easy
for the parasite to get
engulfed by the bacterium,
but what's interesting is
that the macrophage cell
is not able to lyse it,
but actually the parasite is
forming a vacuole within it
and actually making a home out of it.
So that's very fascinating.
So all this is about research work.
Coming to a more personal experience
throughout my graduate school life,
I will come directly why
I joined the PhD program.
So I always wanted to be
in the field of academia,
so that was definitely
one of the main reasons
why I was looking into
going into a PhD program.
But definitely, there
are many other things
which go into deciding on a PhD.
So the main and most
important thing to at least me
was that you would achieve
something significant.
You would have gone
through a whole experience
to get obtain not just a degree,
but also obtain a knowledge
and understanding in a way
which you usually do not do
in your general curriculum.
And of course, it's a long procedure.
It's a very big commitment,
so that's why the meme over here.
You also learn or discover something new.
It's not something which
has ever been done before.
Even though it is very narrow
and it's not like you are,
you are not being Columbus
and finding a whole new civilization,
but what you're doing is very narrow
and very specific, but it is noble.
It's your work and you
have found those results.
Nobody in the world
has ever found out
those results 'til then.
And those results will be used
to find out more stuff later
on by other researchers.
So that was very rewarding to me.
It's also the drive for research.
I've always been a very curious child
and people can take out their
curiosities in many ways,
in creative ways, in sports,
in many different forms,
and for me, it was research.
You got to play with a biomolecules
and organisms which you can't even see.
And it was just fun
because at least to me,
it was very interesting and fun
because you're doing something
which you used to read in textbooks
and now you actually see them.
I remember the first time I extracted DNA
out of plant tissue
and because it was so much DNA
so it precipitated in the test tube
and I could see it first time,
all that DNA, precipitated
DNA through my naked eye.
So I got so excited.
I wrote in my journal
that this is the first day
I saw DNA through my naked eye.
And so you have to find what interests you
and what drives your curiosity.
Another thing is that
you do become an expert
in the particular area you are working at.
So about my PhD,
of course, my professor does
know a lot about in that area,
a lot of knowledge in that area,
but my dissertation thesis PhD
is something I would be
knowing the most about.
So you are the expert.
Even in that little area of
90 pages you have written,
you are the expert.
And that's why actually
celebrities get their PhD
because they have achieved
a level of expertise
in that particular field.
You also get to enjoy
the academic environment.
I think the academic
environment is really fun.
A lot of people make fun of that
that oh, you're a professional student,
but it's actually fun because
you get to be on the campus,
you get to see many students coming,
you mentor so many undergraduate students,
you take up many new classes,
anything new which has come
in your area of knowledge,
you can take a class about it.
You can interact with different
groups and researchers.
You can interact with professors.
It's actually a very good environment
to hone your skills in.
You also develop important
transferable skills.
So what was very important
to me was that I wanted to go
and teach further in the field of biology.
And in order to do that,
you don't need to only have a degree.
You also need to have skills
to be able to teach people,
to be patient enough to go
with every kind of student.
And those are the kind of skill sets
which I also learned during the PhD.
It's not just the scientific
skill set of bioinformatics,
of microbiology, of biochemistry,
but it was also the life skills
which you learn over the process of a PhD.
So those are very important.
And of course, you get paid
to study, so that's very good.
Of course, this picture
is probably an overreach.
You do not get paid a lot,
but that is enough to not let
you worry about paying bills.
You're not working to pay bills then.
You're working
and your bills are getting
paid by the stipend
and what you're doing and
focusing on is your actual work.
So you don't have to do two jobs.
I mean, it depends from case to case,
but it's always fun to earn
something for studying.
It's quite an incentive and
push for you to work more.
And of course, at the end of it all,
you achieve a prestigious title
and that was very important to me.
You're a doctorate.
Everybody respects you.
And it's not just about respect.
It's about the fact that you
don't even have to prove it,
but everybody already can see
that you committed to
something and you achieved it.
So that can be done for any field,
but in field of academia,
PhD is probably the easiest
way to commit to something
and achieve it and prove
your worth basically.
So I think those were my reasons.
There are variable reasons
for which people do.
Some people do it because they
didn't get into med school,
but there are different reasons.
Whatever your reasons are,
there are definitely
many benefits out of it.
So coming to the
international perspective,
I don't think you'll be
able to read this now,
but it's just the F-1 student visa process
is a very dark humor kind of way.
But I was from India
and a bachelor student.
I was 23 when I came here for my PhD.
And frankly speaking, it
was a lot of difference.
It was not more difference.
I'm from New Delhi, India,
which is already a very, very big city.
Coming to Gainesville was
actually coming to a smaller city
from a very big city,
but in terms of college
life, it was very different.
Firstly, the credit system.
So it was very different for me.
In India, you usually have a percentage.
So you give an exam out of 100,
you get whatever percentage
you get and that's your score.
But a credit system is much different.
It's more adaptive to the
particular set of students.
So that is something which I learned here
and I adapted very quickly to it,
so I would advise you
that if you do get an opportunity
to work or study abroad,
try to get the system very
quickly adapted to your lifestyle
because it will be beneficial to you.
I could transfer a lot
of my undergrad credits
to my graduate school because
of getting to know that okay,
my percentages which are
really high over there,
I don't have to take another
class of the same thing
and I can actually just transfer it
and I'm actually getting an A in it now,
so that's really cool.
Even though on percentage
system, if I got 81,
through credit system, you
can actually try to get an A
if the whole class is getting a curve.
So all those systems,
just to tell you that it's very important
to know the system you're working with
and try to make it work according to you.
That's what I did.
The college life is definitely different.
College life is more
independent, I will say.
You choose your classes.
You choose according to which semester,
according to which point
of time in your life
you want to take which class.
If you're already taking
a busy or difficult class,
you don't want to take another one.
So that kind of independence was very,
very I would say very fortunate
for you guys to have because in India,
you usually have a curriculum set.
So in each semester,
you have a curriculum of classes
which you will have to take
and that's the semester you take it.
Whatever you score on
it, that's your grade,
so you better be good about it.
So that's something which I
think is very student oriented.
The college life other than that,
I mean, I did not come for
an undergraduate school
which probably would give
me more in depth knowledge
about sororities, frat
houses, this and that,
but other than that, the
college life was very nice.
The students were from all over the world,
especially because USA,
people from all over the world come.
So that was very nice.
I met people from many
different countries,
experienced many different cultures.
And the college life is
very student oriented
and you have different groups
for the kind of activities you like,
the hobbies you like,
so that was very nice.
Another very important
thing which I found out here
was that you're not spoonfed.
In India, I would say that the culture
of going to a college is almost mandatory.
If your parents or you can
afford it, you go to college.
So over here, it's not like that.
It's not necessary for
you to go to college.
It's your will to go to college.
If you want to go to
college, you go to college.
And that's why there is no spoon feeding.
Nobody is pushing you to do something.
It's up to your curiosity,
and your commitment,
and your drive to go
and do or get an A grade
or get a B grade.
It's up to you and your
professor can give you
and guide you actually,
but they're not gonna spoonfeed you
with each and every answer.
And that's something which I really like
because that kind of makes you
help you decide whether you
really want this or not.
If you really want it,
that's only when you
will work for it yourself
with your own motivation
and not because somebody's
pushing you into it.
So I think that's very good
about student life here.
Another thing which is very
specific to I would say PhD
is that there are phases when
you are treated as a student
and then there are phases
where you're treated as a
professional during your PhD.
And I think the balance between
the two is very important
and the balance how to get to
know when to act in which role
is very important.
As a PhD student, you might
have undergraduate students
who will be volunteering in your lab.
So for them, you need to be professional.
You need to mentor them as a professional.
But to your PhD guide,
you're always gonna be a student
and it's best that you're a student
because then you can imbibe
as much knowledge from them.
So I think that balance is something
which I initially struggled
with because I was 23
and then sometimes I had
to act like a professional,
but at the same time sometimes
I had to be a student.
So it's a little,
you have to wrap your brain around it,
but once you get the hang of it,
it's probably the best.
You can be a student when you
want to watch a free movie
being showed for the
students in the college
or you can be a professional
and get all the benefits of
healthcare and dental insurance,
so all that is very nice.
A very, very important factor
was the teaching experience
because initially from day one,
my plan was to be in the academia
higher education system itself.
So the teaching opportunity
or the TAing which I did
was very, very beneficial
and crucial to me.
The TA I was,
it was a TA position,
but we were given our own.
They were like you are PhD students.
You can handle two sections and
here are those two sections.
You are in charge.
So it was very interesting.
It was a lab class, microbiology,
and it was very interesting
to see students from different courses,
premeds, nursing, and many other courses
or even microbiology
majors to come and learn
and you are a novice yourself
because you were an undergrad a year ago,
so now, you're teaching those undergrads.
But it's very rewarding.
I think if you can teach somebody,
you're probably helping them in a much,
not helping, but probably
giving them a very good gift.
And I know it sounds cliched,
but I can say that with experience
and I think any teacher would
say that with experience
because it's very,
it's very rewarding to see a student
get excited about the field
of study you are excited about
and you have created
that excitement in them.
So that's very rewarding.
And of course, it was
a new culture for me.
India is very different from
USA in terms of culture.
Some things which are
very, very taboo in India
are very okay here.
Some things which are very okay in India
are very taboo here.
So it was very interesting to know that.
Although I'm from New Delhi,
so it's a very big city and I mean,
there's a lot of western
culture influence there.
So it wasn't a shock I
would say, cultural shock,
but it was definitely a very
I would say learning experience
and it was fun.
I think now, I can go to any country,
at least English speaking countries,
and be very easily able to interact
with the local people there,
learn about their stuff
because coming here,
going through the same education
system as they are going
and just learning about them
gives you a very good not
just boost of confidence
but also a boost of curiosity.
So the graduate school life,
I can break it down to the
kind of stages you go through.
You get accepted, then you come here,
and then you do rotations
in different laboratories.
And based on that, you choose a lab.
It's not just that you only choose a lab.
The lab also has to choose you.
The professor has to
like you and your work,
your way of working, your lifestyle.
If the lab works from
8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
and you are used to coming at noon,
then of course, that lab
is not gonna choose you.
So it's like almost a mini
marriage and if it fits well,
then it's really good.
So you choose a lab.
Then you choose a committee.
A PhD committee consists of four or five,
sometimes six professors,
which are basically your PhD committee.
What they do is guide you
throughout your course
since after choosing all this
is guided by the committee.
So when you're probably in
your first year or second,
end of first year of
second year beginning,
you do your first committee meeting
where you explain what your project is.
Of course, by that time,
you have no results.
Even if you try, you have no results.
So you basically just
introduce your subject to them
and your project to them.
Based on that, they give their inputs,
and based on that, you
try to do experiments
and plan your experiments.
That's very important.
Then you have written qualifier,
written qualifying exams where,
so this qualifying exam is basically
after two years into your
PhD as a PhD student.
What this qualifying exam is
is that it makes you a PhD candidate.
Before that, you were a student.
After qualifying for your PhD candidacy,
you are a candidate.
That means that you do have the
aptitude to be a researcher,
to think scientifically and
plan everything scientifically.
But before that, you're just a student.
You're learning how to be one.
But if you don't have the aptitude for it,
then there's really no point doing it.
So you have written qualifiers
which is more subjective
based on your committee.
The oral qualifiers is
more about your research,
what you've done.
So you present what you've been doing
and if that sits well with the committee,
if they think that it's
scientifically relevant and sound,
then they pass you and
you are a PhD candidate
which is really a milestone.
Then usually you have
more committee meetings
depending on how long you're taking.
I did this in four years,
four and a half years,
but some people take
longer to finish their PhD
so then they have more
number of committee meetings.
Then of course in your
last semester probably,
you're writing your thesis and
manuscripts about your work.
That itself is a very long procedure.
You write, then you send
it to your professor,
then they make corrections on it,
then you make those corrections,
then you send it again,
and then they find new corrections
and probably some more ones,
and then it's a process.
But it's actually now
that I think about it,
it's actually fun in
itself because you're like,
you get up in the morning,
you have your coffee,
and you're writing,
and then you get out
probably in the evening.
It's nice to look back at it
because you feel that okay,
I have that capability.
I never thought as an undergrad that oh,
I don't think I can do that,
but now that I think of it,
I'm really happy that this PhD experience
brought that out of me.
And I think it can
bring it out for anybody
because you want to write your thesis.
Then your thesis finally gets approved
which is the most important part.
And then you defend your thesis.
So basically, you give
an oral presentation
about your thesis and your work,
and then people ask you questions
and you defend those.
They ask you scientific questions
and then you defend it scientifically,
proving why you did that and
why it's scientifically sound.
And then you graduate.
So PhD graduate school life
was like a family to me.
This is our lab with their family members.
You meet people from around the world.
One day, we had international night
in which we had food from
every kind of country
and we put flags on it so to
identify whose food it is.
You're always in your lab.
This is your second home or
probably your first home.
You enjoy the lab life though.
It's really fun.
You go to very new and exciting places
and present your work.
My poster is cut out here,
but you present your work
either as poster or oral presentations.
You get to teach which is always fun.
At least for me, it was a lot of fun.
And then you graduate
and you're really happy
that it's finally done.
And the future prospects after PhD are,
it's actually up to you.
You can do a PhD and then go into acting.
That's not a problem,
but usually what people take the route of
is that they become
postdoc for academic jobs
and which is basically
a pre-faculty position.
It's research oriented.
It's more focusing on
the management of a lab
and how to run a lab.
The salary is a little lower,
but I would say that
you're learning too much.
The industry job and start ups
are what people do for
more lucrative options.
It's more applied research
in the industry job and the start ups.
Whatever skills you've learned,
you try to market them.
And then some people
go for further studies,
MBA, MD, and probably work
for the many different
directions after that,
government policy making jobs,
which grants to get approved,
which grants not to get approved.
And also, sometimes we see
in like very popular shows,
some PhD people get to
work with NASA, FBI, CDC,
and all those really fancy jobs,
and work with zombie related viruses,
so it's fun. (laughing)
So with that,
I would like to acknowledge everybody
throughout my PhD experience,
especially University of
Florida which accepted me
and gave me the education,
my PhD lab and its members,
my professor Dr. Nian Wang,
the funding agency which
was for my PhD research,
my current lab which with
Dr. Kima and my lab mates.
I don't have everybody's picture there
because I couldn't find it
and we're yet to take a
lab picture with me in it,
the funding agency for my current
research about Leishmania,
and a very big thank you to all of you
for going through and
giving your attention.
And with that, I will take
any questions if you have.
- Thank you.
(audience applauding)
