I Am a Researcher
Aarushi Gupta
Pronouns: She/Her
Major(s): Biochemistry/Chemistry with a Minor in Political Science
College: Eleanor Roosevelt
UC San Diego graduation year: 2015
Which research programs/experiences have you been a part of?
- Amgen Scholar, 2014
What is your research about?
Currently, I work on advancing the next-generation of mRNAs and LNPs in my role as Principal Scientist at Moderna. During my time at UCSD as an undergraduate researcher in the Burkart Lab, I made chemical probes to understand key protein-protein interactions in the machinery that make crucial fatty acids in our cells. During my Ph.D, I made lipid-based probes to visualize endosomes and measure their motility in disease and healthy models. My scientific career is unified by hydrophobic molecules!
Why and how did you decide to get involved in undergraduate research?
In my freshman year, I broke my foot during dance practice for a UCSD dance team and found myself looking for on-campus activities that would be conducive to my active recovery. I was in CHEM6C and my TA mentioned to the class that if anyone was interested in seeing what a research lab was like, she was happy to show them around. I emailed her and got to tour the PChem labs in Urey Hall, where they were extracting elemental O2 from lunar rock samples. I immediately asked if there was any room for me to help, and that's how I got to work in the Thiemens group for a quarter! That experience got me hooked on research and searching for answers that hadn't been found yet; I just realized I wanted to focus on more biological questions. I then moved to the Burkart lab, where I worked until graduating. I still love to dance, don't worry!
What has been the most exciting/interesting thing you've discovered through your research?
It sounds simple, but being able to provide a clear mechanistic answer to a big scientific question is a huge success for me. Often times, an experiment leads to more questions and more hypotheses, but once in a while, you actually get an answer that can define an entire area of research, and those moments are thrilling.
What did you gain from this program/experience?
Undergraduate Research programs at UCSD gave me an opportunity to really embed myself in the frontier of exciting science. As an undergraduate, I was spending every spare moment between classes and lab sections in the research lab. There is something thrilling about diving into the unknown and re-writing the textbooks, and the opportunity to be completely absorbed by the research process and participate in summer research programs gave me a taste of what academic research looked like and prepared me for my Ph.D program the following year.
What advice would you give to students starting research?
Try your best to understand the reasoning behind every experiment you do, and your hypothesis for doing it. Building that muscle to ask those questions from the start of your research experience will really help when you progress on to your own research projects and become more independent! And for those continuing research: continue being curious and doing hard things!
What are your future plans?
I love thinking about how cutting-edge science can be used to help everyone in their everyday lives - it's what makes working at Moderna an amazing experience. I want to continue living at the edge of scientific discovery and spearhead efforts to bridge those exciting findings into therapies or treatments.