Pooja Patel, 2nd Year, Biomedical Engineering and Pre-Med
When I first arrived at IIT, I knew that the university would offer countless opportunities and experiences for me to work towards my dreams and build off my curiosity. As a premedical student, my passion has always been studying the brain through disease, behavior, and development. Searching for research opportunities similar to my field, I met Dr. Abhinav Bhushan, a biomedical engineering professor that was interested in developing an assay to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease in asymptomatic patients and monitor its progression. In my second month of being on campus, I was to be working with a fourth-year biomedical engineering student, Neha Patel, who knew her way around the lab from previous work and was very willing to share her knowledge.
Since I was entering Dr. Bhushan’s lab in my first semester as a first-year, I had no expectation of what I might be doing to help out or how long the project would last. Regardless of my age and my little background in biology at the time, I was introduced to many lab instruments on my first day in the lab, and I was already completing experiments on my second. When Neha or I did not know a technique, Dr. Bhushan would be sure to come to the lab with us and teach us or have a student from another lab on campus help us out. Now, being in the second semester of my second year, I can say that we have made a significant amount of progress and are still working towards the end goal of the research project. The skills/lab techniques I learned and the methods from class I have been able to apply have made me a better researcher and have brought me one step closer to my ultimate goal of pursuing medicine.
Although the mentors and friends that have been gifted to me from the medical community at my university are still teaching and guiding me along the way, I can feel myself growing as a person as I find myself slowly becoming a mentor to those younger than me as well.
