Hi everyone! My name is Avni Bhalgat and I am a second-year PhD student in the Cancer Biology program at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. I am interested in developing and discovering a new immunotherapeutic for pancreatic cancer. To give you a little bit of background on me; I love travelling, reading, cooking and making people happy. I was born in the United States and moved 6 times while I was there before moving to India in 6th grade. I stayed there through middle school and high school moving 2 times in India as well and going to 3 schools before deciding to come back to the states for undergrad and graduate school.
My Interest in Science and My Path to My Undergraduate Degree
When you’re younger, everyone asks you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My response in 1st grade was, a scientist. My dad is my biggest role model and he has a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Utah. Watching him work magic in his mysterious lab to create life changing medicines was my biggest inspiration. By the time I was in the 2nd grade my goal had been refined to a cancer researcher and when I was in 4th grade I knew I wanted to get my PhD and study breast cancer. That year we had this yearlong project where we had to read books and write different kinds of book reports on them to be able to “graduate”. Everyone had to do 8 to get a bachelor’s degree and that was the speed the class went at. If you read and wrote 2 more, you would get a master’s degree. If you did 4 more, you would get a PhD. I got the PhD and it really sealed the deal for me in a lot of ways, even though conceptually getting this PhD in class was very different from the PhD I was aspiring to get in the future. In the 5th grade we had to do an independent thesis project on some natural phenomenon and all my classmates picked things like water or tornados and I picked atoms, a concept I didn’t even truly understand but wanted to learn more about. That was my first undertaking into research of a concept from ground up and really solidified my lifelong interest in STEM.
I know that this steadfast a career goal is unusual. Even more so to actually end up here today, doing my PhD and fulfilling a dream I had since I was a little girl is a very unique experience. However, it isn’t always that simple, my resolve in the ultimate goal may have stayed unwavering until it was time for me to pick a major in college, but at every step of the way there were many hurdles to overcome. Many times, it seemed like I should give up this dream and opt for something that wasn’t taking a step into the unknown, like math or history. Something logical or historical, but I knew that would leave me unsatisfied in ways that could only be fulfilled by staying my path. Although my love for math and history never subsided, I found a way to incorporate them into my life by taking advanced engineering math classes, tutoring for advanced math and auditing history classes, my love for science took the cake when it came to deciding which way to go in college. But of course, it wasn’t that simple. There were so many majors that would help me reach my ultimate goal of getting a cancer biology PhD, which led to many sleepless nights trying to figure out what I should get my undergraduate degree in. “Should I go the biomedical engineering route?” “Should I do pharmacy?” “Should I do Biology?” …
I decided to go to Purdue University and get my degree in Pharmaceutical Science, a four-year degree that focuses on drug discovery, drug mechanisms and drug action. It was here that I first got a chance to experience hands on research and refine my interests further. Until this point I believed that it would be as simple as me walking through the doors of my university, figuring out a lab doing breast cancer research, proclaim loudly in the hallway that I will be joining them and then proceed to look like those really cool scientists running the colorful experiments we see when we look at research brochures. As you may have guessed, it wasn’t that easy. The first semester of freshman year involved a lot of getting used to the routine and atmosphere of college. Newfound freedom coupled with a young adult who wanted to experience every aspect of college life led to a very fun yet exhausting semester. Having got a lot of that excitement out of my system during that semester, the second semester I joined my first lab.
Lab Experience, More Lab Experience and Important Realizations
During the course of my time at Purdue I was part of 6 different labs; 5 at Purdue and 1 at Harvard Medical School. I wanted to take my time during my undergrad to really experience different facets of biomedical research. I did this by engaging in research in an academic teaching lab designing experiments related to material taught in class to help students learn in labs. I also got involved in bioinformatics research where most of my work was coding and working with human genome sequences. I later worked in a breast cancer lab, which was my dream, where I helped understand mechanisms of metastasis. Another lab experience led to working in a medicinal chemistry lab creating drug constructs and purifying proteins, again for triple negative breast cancer. While I got a lot of different experience it also meant that I didn’t get any publications at this time since I never stayed on a project for long enough to ensure that my name made it to one (publications in research journals are like currency in the science world). However, I never regretted it because the whole experience helped me solidify the path I wanted to take in my PhD. My classes at Purdue also taught me much by introducing me to genetics and immunology amongst other topics that really set the stage to help me venture into those topics in research. A class that was really fun and informative was the Drug Discovery class I had to take. We got to design a drug from start to finish and propose experiments at each stage of the drug discovery pipeline. I designed a bispecific drug conjugated antibody for prostate cancer and wouldn’t have known any of those words if I hadn’t taken this class and done the research.
The summer between junior and senior year of college, I got accepted to go to Harvard for a research program. That summer was the most important time of my undergraduate career in terms of helping me determine my path of study in my PhD and the different requirements I wanted in my school of study. I was matched with a lab working on Pancreatic Cancer and had pioneered the field of pancreatic organoids, a 3D cell culture method more representative of how cells are in our body rather than as a 2D culture we usually use in labs. It was the first time I was working in a translational lab, one that works directly with the hospital and patient samples and it was also the first time I was exposed to immunology in the context of cancer, although I didn’t get to work on any immunology projects. I really made the most of my time in Boston, working hard at the lab, overcoming adversity in the high paced environment such as Harvard where I had to be a whistleblower on some malpractices in the lab space, and networking with professionals across the city while also getting to know the other 20 students in my cohort and exploring Boston.
Graduate School and the Not So Easy, But Rewarding Path and Involvement
Picking the University of Miami was also not an easy decision since all the schools I got into had their own unique selling points. Making the choice led to many sleepless nights, but now that I am here, I am glad I picked UM. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I am working with pancreatic cancer on a translational project that involves developing an immunotherapy, which is a therapy that uses your body’s own immune system (army), which is enriched in some way, to fight cancer. It sounds fancy but now that you know the path I took to get here I hope you know it isn’t straightforward. There were many nights when I wanted to quit, to do something else, when research didn’t make sense or the barrier to entry seemed to high, but perseverance, patience and trust in the process are virtues that you gain along the way on this path to becoming a STEM researcher.
Now that I am here, at UM, I make sure that I involve myself in as many aspects of the graduate experience as I can. In undergrad I was on the leadership team of 3 organizations that hosted large scale events and created a strong sense of community for me. I love being involved and taking on responsibilities and therefore did the same at UM. Alongside Chloe, I helped found a Book Club (check us out @volume305 on Instagram) to help us researchers unwind and read some non-scientific literature. I am also the Public Relations Officer with the Graduate Student Organization where we use our platform to create change for the graduate community at the university level. I also love connecting with my Indian heritage and am also on the VP of finance for a Bollywood fusion dance competition called Dance Ke Deewane.
Advice and Platforms of Outreach
I could say that I am blessed to have traveled down this path, but that would be undermining my effort and as a woman in the field of science, we have to own up to our efforts and make sure our voices are heard. To all the other aspiring women, and men, I want to say that don’t give up and more importantly don’t pull each other down. I would have never made it here if there weren’t incredible mentors, friends and family supporting me throughout this process. There will always be someone to help you and guide you if you just ask when you need it!
If you have made it this far and would like to chat my email is amb601@miami.edu. I would love to hear from you about anything and am available if you have specific questions as well! I have also started a science Instagram and twitter that focus on busting science myths in today’s fake news and pseudoscience-based world. Follow me @SueDoughScience and share with a friend to help provide a platform for all science-based questions to be answered with hard facts!
