ATUL POKHAREL
“If I can do it, it’ll help us cure cancer,” he said as he stood in the lobby of a building at Harvard University.
“So, you’re trying to understand how DNA repairs itself?” I attempted to sum up what I had understood so far.
“Yes, more specifically, I’m trying to design a molecular probe to…” He continued to explain his research, taking me deeper into a newly explored world of DNA, proteins, and enzymes called Chemical Biology. As he spoke, his face lit up and his hands assumed one fluid posture after another. While his eyes looked at me, I doubt it was my face that he saw. By the time he was done, the garland of scientific terms that he had strung together into Nepali sentences had touched something deep.
This is a young man, I told myself, who is creating the future of Nepali research. I must speak to him again.
That was the first of many conversations with Dr. Uddhav Shigdel, a scientist at Harvard University. At 30, his accomplishments are already beyond what most scientists achieve in their lifetimes. And in 2009, the American Cancer Society recognized him as the most promising young cancer researcher in the world.
Indeed, the nature of his achievements leaves your writer little qualified to expound on them. However, scientific discoveries and awards aren’t the most remarkable thing about Uddhav, as he prefers to be called. Nor is it that he’s very personable, social and so concerned about the Nepali community around him that he volunteered to teach Nepali classes for free during summer holidays. The most striking thing about Uddhav is that his past in Nepal gives us a glimpse into the making of a top Nepali scientist, and his vision reflects the future of Nepali research.
Uddhav began his undergraduate studies in the field of Environmental Engineering at the University of Colorado, and that too only after a second attempt.
“I didn’t know that I wanted to do chemistry, although I wasn’t bad at it. One of my friends was a Guru at chemistry. He would teach me once in a while. In front of him, how could I dream of becoming a chemist?”
The first year that he applied to universities abroad, he was rejected or he received no financial support.
“I had no money to even pay for my GRE’s,” he recalls, even though he was applying for a good college. “But once I decided to do chemistry in university, I dedicated my life to it.
“I went to the government school in Hetauda. I joined Budanilkantha School [in Kathmandu] in fifth grade on scholarship because I did well in the entrance exams.” His eyes became nostalgic. “I would be ashamed to leave the compound because I didn’t have clothes to wear other than my school uniform. I still remember my roommate offering to pay for tuition classes during vacations. My father was a clerk, and never went to school. Throughout my life, he was determined that I should study. So I tried my best. I would take every opportunity to study. In school, I would help other students with their homework.”
And then, with a playful glint in his eyes, he remarked, “This made me very attractive to the girls in higher classes.”
Well into another conversation, the three of us, his wife included, sat on the floor of his modest apartment, having Nepali foods and discussing. “I used to hear about Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar when I was a child. Later, I began to see all three in the action of enzymes and molecular dynamics. That’s where I find my inspiration. It’s deeply engrossing for me, and satisfies a thirst for knowledge that I developed over the years. I like finding out how to do new things. I love the challenge.”
Success is far from certain in scientific research. Often, it’s like wandering into a dark room and feeling your way around, using the limited tools that science has to offer.
One of Uddhav’s achievements, while still a student, was to create a tool that could be used to combat cancer. It helped scientists understand how DNA might be repaired by trapping the chemicals that do it naturally. Since cancer results when cells with damaged DNA manage to reproduce, Uddhav’s tool will be important in fighting it. Yet, such a powerful tool is only the size of a few atoms, and it’s no secret: Google uddhav dna probes to find out.
“I still remember going to my lab one morning to see the results of an important test. I had spent five years building up to that moment.
My whole PhD depended on this one result. If it came out positive, I would graduate. If it didn’t, I would probably have to leave. I had even told my future wife that we would marry only after I got my PhD! So my hands were shaking, my body was very nervous, my heart was thumping very violently.”
My whole PhD depended on this one result. If it came out positive, I would graduate. If it didn’t, I would probably have to leave. I had even told my future wife that we would marry only after I got my PhD! So my hands were shaking, my body was very nervous, my heart was thumping very violently.”
As it happened, the result was better than expected. He graduated from the University of Chicago as one of the few people in the world, even within his own field, with the expertise to do this kind of work. Despite that, he explains to you as though it were like making tea in the kitchen.
“That’s where the thrill of research comes from. The techniques might require skills, but that’s the easy part. You just don’t know whether you’ll succeed. But when you find the answer and make something that no human being has ever made before, that’s bliss!”
It turns out that tea is one of his specialties. So it was over a cup of his famous tea, with snow billowing against the glass on a wintry New England night, that Uddhav explained what he hopes for. And we began to discuss.
“We need to engage in basic research in Nepal as soon as possible,” he began. “It’s difficult to do and it usually takes many years for basic research to find applications. So we have to start as soon as we can.”
“How do we argue that it makes sense for a country that’s poor to invest in scientific research with such uncertain results?” I asked.
It’s risky, he admitted, for nobody can predict scientific results. But what he did predict with certainty was that new resources will come forward once we start.
“There are many willing to fund world-class research; we just have to make a start. And we have great potential for research in Chemical Biology and related fields. I truly believe that we have a lot of untapped talent. We just need the opportunity.”
I came around to his position, eventually. And it probably shouldn’t be surprising that he made the goal of world-class basic research in the sciences in Nepal look reachable: If Uddhav’s life is any guide, the only difference between the impossible and the possible is inspiration, hard work and a little luck.
Eventually, with the morning sun on the horizon, our conversation ended. The final words were his, but the sentiment was shared: “If I’ve learnt one thing in my life, it’s that nobody should underestimate the genius of the Nepali people.”
And thus, our argument ended, with absolute agreement.
Work originally published on:http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=42999
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