Ashutosh Kumar is a classically skilled supplies engineer. Having grown up with a ardour for making issues, he has explored metal design and studied stress fractures in alloys.
All through Kumar’s schooling, nonetheless, he was additionally drawn to biology and medication. When he was accepted into an undergraduate metallurgical engineering and supplies science program at Indian Institute of Know-how (IIT) Bombay, the native of Jamshedpur was very excited — and “a little bit dissatisfied, since I couldn’t do biology anymore.”
Now a PhD candidate and a MathWorks Fellow in MIT’s Division of Supplies Science and Engineering, and a researcher for the Koch Institute, Kumar can merge his wide-ranging pursuits. He research the impact of sure micro organism which have been noticed encouraging the unfold of ovarian most cancers and presumably decreasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy and immunotherapy.
“Some microbes have an affinity towards infecting ovarian most cancers cells, which might result in adjustments within the mobile construction and reprogramming cells to outlive in worrying circumstances,” Kumar says. “Which means cells can migrate to completely different websites and will have a mechanism to develop chemoresistance. This opens an avenue to develop therapies to see if we are able to begin to undo a few of these adjustments.”
Kumar’s analysis combines microbiology, bioengineering, synthetic intelligence, massive knowledge, and supplies science. Utilizing microbiome sequencing and AI, he goals to outline microbiome adjustments which will correlate with poor affected person outcomes. In the end, his aim is to engineer bacteriophage viruses to reprogram micro organism to work therapeutically.
Kumar began inching towards work within the well being sciences simply months into incomes his bachelor’s diploma at IIT Bombay.
“I noticed engineering is so versatile that its purposes lengthen to any area,” he says, including that he began working with biomaterials “to respect each my diploma program and my pursuits.”
“I beloved it a lot that I made a decision to go to graduate faculty,” he provides.
Beginning his PhD program at MIT, he says, “was a implausible alternative to change gears and work on extra interdisciplinary or ‘MIT-type’ work.”
Kumar says he and Angela Belcher, the James Mason Crafts Professor of organic engineering, supplies science and of the Koch Institute of Integrative Most cancers Analysis, started discussing the affect of the microbiome on ovarian most cancers when he first arrived at MIT.
“I shared my enthusiasm about human well being and biology, and we began brainstorming,” he says. “We realized that there’s an unmet want to grasp a number of gynecological cancers. Ovarian most cancers is an aggressive most cancers, which is often recognized when it’s too late and has already unfold.”
In 2022, Kumar was awarded a MathWorks Fellowship. The fellowships are awarded to Faculty of Engineering graduate college students, ideally those that use MATLAB or Simulink — which have been developed by the mathematical laptop software program firm MathWorks — of their analysis. The philanthropic help fueled Kumar’s full transition into well being science analysis.
“The work we’re doing now was initially not funded by conventional sources, and the MathWorks Fellowship gave us the pliability to pursue this area,” Kumar says. “It supplied me with alternatives to be taught new abilities and ask questions on this subject. MathWorks gave me an opportunity to discover my pursuits and helped me navigate from being a metal engineer to a most cancers scientist.”
Kumar’s work on the connection between micro organism and ovarian most cancers began with learning which micro organism are integrated into tumors in mouse fashions.
“We began trying carefully at adjustments in cell construction and the way these adjustments affect most cancers development,” he says, including that MATLAB picture processing helps him and his collaborators monitor tumor metastasis.
The analysis group additionally makes use of RNA sequencing and MATLAB algorithms to assemble a taxonomy of the micro organism.
“As soon as we’ve got recognized the microbiome composition,” Kumar says, “we need to see how the microbiome adjustments as most cancers progresses and determine adjustments in, let’s say, sufferers who develop chemoresistance.”
He says current findings that ovarian most cancers could originate within the fallopian tubes are promising as a result of detecting cancer-related biomarkers or lesions earlier than most cancers spreads to the ovaries may result in higher prognoses.
As he pursues his analysis, Kumar says he’s extraordinarily grateful to Belcher “for believing in me to work on this undertaking.
“She trusted me and my ardour for making an affect on human well being — despite the fact that I come from a supplies engineering background — and supported me all through. It was her ardour to tackle new challenges that made it doable for me to work on this concept. She has been an incredible mentor and motivated me to proceed transferring ahead.”
For her half, Belcher is equally enthralled.
“It has been superb to work with Ashutosh on this ovarian most cancers microbiome undertaking,” she says. “He has been so passionate and devoted to searching for less-conventional approaches to unravel this debilitating illness. His improvements round searching for very early adjustments within the microenvironment of this illness might be important in interception and prevention of ovarian most cancers. We began this undertaking with little or no preliminary knowledge, so his MathWorks fellowship was important within the initiation of the undertaking.”
Kumar, who has been very lively in pupil authorities and community-building actions, believes it is extremely essential for college kids to really feel included and at dwelling at their establishments to allow them to develop in methods exterior of lecturers. He says that his personal involvement helps him take time without work from work.
“Science can by no means cease, and there’ll all the time be one thing to do,” he says, explaining that he intentionally schedules time without work and that social engagement helps him to expertise downtime. “Partaking with group members via occasions on campus or on the dorm helps set a psychological boundary with work.”
Concerning his uncommon route via supplies science to most cancers analysis, Kumar regards it as one thing that occurred organically.
“I’ve noticed that life may be very dynamic,” he says. “What we predict we’d do versus what we find yourself doing is rarely constant. 5 years again, I had no concept I might be at MIT working with such wonderful scientific mentors round me.”