<p>I have masters degree in mathematics. Recently, I have applied for position of Project Assistant at a lab National Brain Research Center, National capital Region, New Delhi, my hometown. I am thinking of doing a summer course at the same center and even PhD research there. Since I expressed my enormous interest in neuroscience, the lab director asked me for short 1 page write up, why I am interested in neuroscience and if any particular problem I want to work with me or in near future. I described my interest and proposed to solve a problem. My problem is personal problem that Juliet knows well. </p>
<p>So, Juliett or other Graduate neuroscience students please introduce yourself(UG background) and your work. I wish you people share ideas and experience here.</p>
<p>So I’m not sure if by “Juliett” you mean me (juillet) but I’m not a graduate neuroscience student. My PhD is in public health psychology.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I went to a mid-ranked SLAC for undergrad; I graduated with a 3.4 cumulative and a 3.6 in my major, had 2.5 years of undergrad research (most of it through an undergraduate fellowship program), including one summer. I went straight from undergrad to grad school. My research is on the relationship between stress, drug abuse, and health.</p>
<p>I’m a neuroscience postdoc – I finished my PhD last fall and started working in a different lab at the same institution as a postdoc. My PhD work was on the molecular development of different subtypes of projection neurons in the cerebral cortex, and my postdoc work is on genetic developmental disorders of the human brain.</p>
<p>It was typo, instead of ‘ll’ I put ‘tt’ . Well are the GPA scores you reporting on 4 point scale? You gained research experience while being an UG student!</p>
<p>Is it possible in PhD research to solve whole of an illness(schizophrenia, bipolar) at least some subsyndrome(endophenotype), as these are heterogeneous illnesses, with each illness having several subsyndromes, and corresponding genotype, separate neurobiological and physiological signatures, by identifying molecular targets and developing/ isolating an agent that act on it, to get to level of developing drug? I could hardly find a publication at PhD level in academia as a doctoral dissertation though Arnsten’s work is well known in case of ADHD in developing Intuiniv but she is full professor at Yale. Instead I have seen people research on hypotheses involving part of an illness to come up with result that is used in better understanding the illness, e.g., distribution of serotonin receptors, transporters in human brain and its implication in psychoses(Varnas, Katarina, 2005), is just one of the factors or components involved in circuitry underpinning the illness.</p>
<p>I wish to work in neurobiology of cognitive dysfunctions of psychiatric origin as pharmacologists are still helpless in addressing it. </p>
<p>Julliet said they use a lot of math. But I have to start biology from scratch, though I have great interest in solving the problem. I consider math just a tool not the end to restrict myself.</p>
Maybe, if you were sufficiently lucky and hard-working, and the disease you chose was particularly amenable to investigation by whatever methods you chose. But in general, what you’re describing would be the work of many people in many labs over many years, not the content of a single student’s doctoral dissertation.</p>
<p>Yes hard-working and clever; the word ‘lucky’ seems strange to me. </p>
<p>I want to solve the problem neither for lab-director nor the nation but it is problem of myself. </p>
<p>Can such R&D be carried out in industry labs? I dont know their level/kind of research they do are at par with academia labs that are more sophisticated, in my opinion. Are facilities in industry lab at par with academia lab? I feel I may be suppressed or not have work freedom in labs in academia or no incentive for product development as they are knowledge oriented. Also, it takes a long while to research in academia environs. I think I wouldn’t end up developing solution in the form of therapy in academia environment. Is it correct? You have more training, so I think you are in better position to guide. Do R&D in industry labs require a PhD (in biomedical) or masters in bioinformatics is enough? Is it better I go for academia-industry collaboration?</p>
Don’t discount the role of luck in the scientific process – there’s an aspect of scientific success that is neither about intelligence nor hard work, just something more like “being in the right place at the right time” or “investigating the right problem with the right tools at the right time”. There are elements of talent and tenacity, but also elements of stochasticity. </p>
<p>I don’t know that I can really answer your questions about drug development, not having any experience with industry myself. The disorders I study are disorders of brain size and neuron migration – not really amenable to pharmaceutical intervention. Certainly some academic labs form collaborations with pharmaceutical companies, and some are more interested in so-called “translational medicine” than others. There’s generally quite a bit of freedom in academia to do whatever you want, as long as you can justify it to whoever’s paying the bills.</p>