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Creativity, says Yash Tiwari, is the key to good science and a successful PhD.
He discovered the usefulness of this quality by having to apply genetic analysis techniques so new that only a few people know how to interpret the data.
“It's pretty cool to get your hands on a technique that not many people have used, and that’s what a PhD is often about,” says Yash.
“Sometimes we are the first ones dealing with certain problems, so you have to come up with ways to solve them.”
Working with Prof Peter Schofield, Yash is focussing on the genetics of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, in particular on a susceptibility gene called sialyl transferase.
It’s a gene that’s highly expressed in embryos and is thought to be important in the early development of the brain in utero. Previous studies have shown this gene to be one of the possible causes of the disorder.
“What I’m trying to find out is how the function of this gene is altered in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia,” says Yash. “It could be affecting the normal formation of neural connections in the developing brain, or influencing mental health in some other way. We don’t know yet.”
His PhD project involves sequencing the whole sialyl transferase gene and looking for variations or mutations in the version of the gene carried by people with bipolar disorder.
He is also looking for mistakes in RNA (molecules that are copies of the DNA code that cells use to make proteins), as well as investigating the interaction of sialyl transferase with another gene called NCAM, which is also thought to be important in embryonic neural development.
His PhD may sound like a big project, but with a doctor for a father, Yash is no stranger to the patience that’s required in medical science.
“It can be hard to get results; you certainly don’t discover something every day. If you’re chasing something that no one has found before, it can be a challenge," he says.
“Some people may think it's a never ending process, but you can’t let yourself become demoralised. My technique is if something doesn’t work, read new literature, try a different experiment and then come back and do it again.”
Yash says a lot of his motivation comes from working with Prof Ian Frazer, the award winning scientist who helped develop the cervical cancer vaccine.
“I've seen results come out of good research. All of a sudden, your research is not just in the lab, it's out in the community and people are using it, and that’s pretty amazing.”
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