POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 27, 2022 BY ARIEL BARREIRO
An Interview with Dr. Aditi Gurkar
– Written by Ariel Barreiro
Introduction
Stunning in a red sari, Dr. Aditi Gurkar showcases her M.S. in Indian Dance at a Diwali celebration. There with her family and friends to enjoy a bit of downtime, on this day she was not the principal investigator of Gurkar Labs at the University of Pittsburgh, but a mom and a friend enjoying the festival of lights in an intimate setting.
Gurkar says that is not the norm for her, and her work-life balance has become more like work-life integration. Her balance is getting into the lab at 3 or 4 a.m. on the weekends and making it home in time for the kids around 9 a.m. – there are no weekends off. “I maintain by not sleeping, I’ll sleep in my next life!” She says jokingly. She recognizes that it may not be a sustainable method, but it seems to be working for now.
It has been a long journey from a little girl who dreamt of owning her own microscope to the woman who came to run a full academic lab; nearly 20 years of study. Gurkar admits she was lucky and had support from her parents, who helped her come to the US to do her undergrad at the age of 17. There was internal pressure to take it further than a bachelor’s degree due to them using their life savings to put her through school. She was also able to get into research while in her undergrad, and that was pivotal to realizing this was the path she wanted to take. “Everything I thought it meant to be a scientist and the way I pictured it – that is exactly how it was for me.”
Gurkar then went on to do her PhD at Boston University and two post-docs’, one at Harvard Medical and the other at the Broad Institute. Her husband was moved to Florida during her time at the Broad Institute, but there was a lab that was focused on aging at Scripps Research Institute and she was able to continue her own pursuits.
Diagnosis and Research
Gurkar knew she was destined for scientific study at a young age when her grandfather was diagnosed with advanced stage cancer at the age of 83. He passed quickly after the diagnosis, but she says he was completely fine until the end, climbing stairs, picking her up from school and helping with homework. Conversely her grandmother, who was 20 years younger, after a few years without her husband began to give up her will to live. She was diagnosed with cancer as well, but the dementia was really what took the toll. They both passed at the same age, 83. This struck a chord with Dr. Gurkar; how could two people have such wildly different endings?
The focus of her research involves looking at DNA damage and LOP’s, the process of biological aging and how to prolong it. Each cell has about 10,000 lesions of damage every hour, and the question her lab is asking is, how is this making us age? Some DNA damage we do to ourselves, but it is unavoidable. For example, being out in the sun and absorbing any kind of UV light damages DNA.
LOP, or lipid peroxidation, is the process in which free radicals “steal” electrons from the lipids in cell membranes. ROS are reactive oxidation species that are produced by a mitochondrial release, and begin attacking everything around them. In Gurkar’s Lab, they began with the model of DNA damage. When an animal has increased levels of DNA damage, they create a lot more ROS. The question that arose from this research was if you could solve having pure LOP, would it rescue aging? “We don’t know. But it looks like if we could stop the process of LOP by improving DNA repair, and (thusly) removing ROS, we could delay aging.”
Gurkar is clear that there isn’t one magic fix-all to solve aging. She also stresses that delaying aging is referring strictly to biological aging, not chronological aging – meaning delaying the incidence of comorbidities and having healthier, longer lives. “A quality of life, not an extension of it. I don’t want to keep writing grants until I’m 200!”
Each day starts with waking up excited and thinking “Today is the day we’re going to see something in the lab! Then it all goes downhill – I’m kidding.” Gurkar says her greatest love is still bench science, or performing experiments, but there’s a lot of pressure to make sure the lab stays financially supported. She goes into the lab, meets with her incredibly talented team at Pitt, and tries to do at least one experiment. Then she moves on to planning and trying to tackle her never-ending task list. She says it’s important to prioritize every day because some days will just be putting out fires. “Science is one good day and many bad months.”
The Struggle of Women in STEM
Mentors were heavily emphasized as a reason for her success. “What I’ve noticed is I have to reach out and find mentors for the things I’m looking for.” She uses the metaphor of personal relationships to explain the importance of having multiple mentors – we don’t rely on one person for all of our needs in our personal lives, we shouldn’t do so in our education either. We may have a partner, but we still need our friends.
When considering the biggest challenges facing women entering STEM fields, of course children have to be a talking point. Gurkar had a lot of help between her parents, in-laws and husband. She says her mother-in-law and mother would trade off coming to stay for 4 and 5 months at a time to give her the support she needed during post doc. “I have friends much more talented than I am, but without a network, they had to leave science to raise their families.”
Gurkar thinks this is complicated for women for a couple reasons. Women and men react differently to certain things, like raising children. “We carry the guilt of motherhood with us when we choose work over family.” She thinks a solution to this is learning to teach ourselves that it is ok to sometimes be away from the family to favor our career, the same as fathers do. This also sets an example for the children when they grow up – if they want to do something, they can do it.
Gurkar says that all minorities have their own specific challenges, and we need to cater to these groups individually. She says as little as 5-10 years ago, in a room full of scientists, no women would admit to having kids. She says this remained true until she arrived at Pitt and would never talk about her personal life for fear of being treated differently.
This is an established catch 22 for women – if you don’t choose the kids, you’re a bad mom, and if you don’t choose science, you’re a bad scientist.
It isn’t all bad when it comes to being a woman in science, however. Gurkar says we have unique perspectives, like her drive because of her personal story. She says because we know we’re not on the same playing field, we overcompensate. We mentor, we try to make a fair world for the next generation. “We want to make it better for others, not just ourselves.”
The biggest change to help even this playing field is representation. Gurkar says never doubt if you belong in the room. We must bring equal representation. Conferences are still 70-80% male unless specifically made for women. The other change would be providing opportunities early in life – at the elementary or middle school level, allowing a chance for children without access to see how much they might enjoy science.
It’s a long, arduous road to begin to achieve as a woman in science. With the right help and proper motivation – whatever that may be for you – you can get there, and at CCL, our mission is to support high impact experiential learning experiences for undergraduate students, especially from under-represented groups, to prepare them for twenty-first century research and develop careers in STEM disciplines.
CCL Announcements
- Oct 2022: CCL-US launches WeConnect STEM Conversation Series aimed at creating regional network for undergraduate research students. Click here for details
- Oct 2022 : American Physical Society (APS) selects CCL’s Dr. Rama Bala to their Career Mentoring (CM) Fellows Program
- Sept 2022: CCL supported interdisciplinary collaborative research work wins 2022-23 Catalyst Award by the National Academy of Medicine.