Meet the Node correspondents — Shreyasi Mukherjee

Shreyasi Mukherjee is a postdoc at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, using stem cell-derived embryo models to study how epigenetic complexes regulate tissue organization and cell fate decisions during very early embryonic development. Shreyasi is keen to write about the fast-evolving field of stem cell-based embryo models. Having experienced working in India, the UK and the US, she also plans to highlight the scientists and research from the Global South countries on the Node. We chatted to Shreyasi to find out more about her background and her plans as a Node Correspondent.

Congratulations on being selected as one of our new correspondents! What made you decide to apply to become a Node correspondent?

I follow many of The Company of Biologists journals like Development, Journal of Cell Science and Disease Models and Mechanisms. I had recently transitioned from PhD to postdoc and veered into a slightly new field. There is so much literature and it is overwhelming. I was looking for opportunities to write for preLights because I thought that would help me hold myself accountable and stay current in the field. But I also enjoyed the different kind of articles the Node puts out. When I saw the opportunity to become a correspondent, it was a no brainer for me to try and see what happens.

Have you done much science communication/ writing before?

I’ve written my PhD thesis and papers in the last couple of years, but I haven’t really done much other types of science writing. When I was working as research assistant, I would help organise an event where students from high school and undergrads come to the lab and we talked to them about our research. I’ve tried to do similar outreach things throughout my PhD and even now, I still talk to high school and college students back in India. I’m trying to show them what the career trajectory in research looks like. I’m also involved with the Genetics Society of America and doing some science outreach with them. We’re organising Capitol Hill Day, as a part of the upcoming TAGC conference.

Over the past few years, I’ve become more cognizant of the necessity to do science communication, not just for the scientific community, but to get the public and even our families to understand the importance of basic biological research. I really enjoy the science TikToks and podcasts out there, which I think are great ways to give people snapshots of how science actually happens.

What is your background and what is your current research focus?

I grew up and did my undergrad in India, where the education system is very different. You don’t really get a chance to do hands on research as an undergrad. This is true for most places except a few of the more elite institutions. You learn a lot of the concepts but at that point you don’t really know what research looks like as a career.

I wanted to see what research was all about, so I got a scholarship to do my master’s at the University of Edinburgh in neuroscience. That was a valuable experience because I got to do my dissertation in a lab setting. After that, I wanted to get more research experience, so I came back to India and worked as a research assistant for a few years. I worked with flies, looking at chromatin dynamics in early fly development and how perturbations in the environment can cause transgenerational or intergenerational effects in flies. That was my first experience thinking about research questions and executing a research hypothesis.

I did my PhD in developmental biology at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. It was a great experience. I mainly worked with human embryonic stem cell-based differentiation systems, trying to understand the mechanisms that provide transcriptional specificity to the Wnt pathway.

While I was doing my PhD, I knew that I wanted to look more into the interplay of developmental signalling and other processes during early development, like epigenetic regulation and transcription factor activity. I wanted to integrate and study all of that in a 3D model that has more spatial context. I decided to be more invested in the epigenetic field when I transitioned to my postdoc. I’m now using stem cell derived embryo models and studying how epigenetic complexes, especially the Polycomb complexes, regulate tissue organisation and cell fate decisions during very early embryonic events like gastrulation. Even though it wasn’t too much of a field switch, it’s still very intimidating because there is so much literature on chromatin function between the many epigenetic complexes and so much interplay. But there are still many outstanding questions in chromatin regulation that I think are very interesting, especially during the cell fate transitions in development. 

You’ve worked in quite a few different countries. How has that experience shaped you?

There’re a lot of immigrants who have gone to other countries for their PhDs. I think their journeys are all a bit unconventional and unique. I think my experience has helped me become a better scientist. The structure in which science works, the funding for science, the resources that are allocated — all these things are so different back in India. The way you’re viewed on the global level is also different. When I was working in India, I would reach out to people and  rarely get a response. When I started applying to PhD programmes, I got rejected several times because they said that I needed to have research experience in Western countries. That made me very discouraged because I didn’t know how I could change this. Now that I’m in the US, people reply very quickly and nicely when I email. I think there are a lot of perception issues based on where people come from.

Do you have any ideas about what kind of content you will contribute to the Node?

I would like to highlight the research being done in Global south countries. Most research being talked about, even if they’re from countries in the Global South, are normally from elite institutions or projects with a lot of international collaborations. There are a lot of disparities in terms of funding and allocation of resources, even simple things like buying cell culture equipment. Scientists often end up spending a disproportionate amount of funding on publishing and buying consumables due to currency conversions. By writing about the research going on in the Global South, I hope to explore the researchers’ career trajectories and highlight any unique challenges they face in research. There’s also another interesting perspective there because many of those scientists left their country to do a postdoc in a Western country, but then went back home to set up their own labs, which I think is extremely necessary. It will be interesting to get their perspective about how they adjusted to the transition. I hope that writing more about the research in the Global South can create a change in perception when people are judging job applications from candidates.

We look forward to seeing more research from the Global South being highlighted! Is there anything else you want to write for the Node?

I would like to get more up to date on the literature around modelling development with stem cells. There are now so many in vitro embryo models that recapitulate different processes. These models are not all-encompassing, but they’re good in studying many aspects of morphogenesis, tissue organisation, and species-specific developmental processes. This is very exciting because I think in developmental biology, we are at the point where technologies like single cell and spatial transcriptomics allow us to get very high-resolution information into early developmental processes.

I’m also interested in comparing the models derived from conventional versus unconventional organisms. I was recently reading a preprint about spheroids derived from cavefish which was fascinating. I love the idea of a bottom-up approach in making an embryo.

What do you hope to gain from the experience of being a Node correspondent?

I would love to get to know other correspondents and gain a sense of community within the science writing field. I really look forward to learning from other correspondents and from The Company of Biologists team and expand my professional network.  It would be really cool to see what happens behind the scenes in publishing.

The Node is such an international community. I’m hoping to learn how to write in a way that’s more globally accessible to reach an international audience.

Finally, is there anything about you that people find surprising? What do you like to do in your spare time?

Something that really helped me through grad school was getting into comedy. I started taking improv classes, because during the pandemic, I wanted to be involved in something that was the complete opposite of academia.

It was such a great experience for me. I found a community of really funny people. It has helped me develop my public speaking skills and have more perspective on things. It’s also gotten me interested in other forms of comedy. Since then, I’ve also been dabbling in doing sketch writing, stand-up and long-form comedy!

That sounds fun! Do you mix science with comedy or are they separate?

For me, they are completely separate. Although for stand up, I do have a little bit of material about how ridiculous it is to go to grad school. Comedy has really helped me in the past few years because I always know that no matter how bad my day is, in the evenings I get to laugh with a group of people I enjoy spending time with. It also helps put things in perspective — when you have a bad day because your Western blot didn’t work, but your scene partner is a physician, and they had a really bad day but they’re still there being so funny. It’s important to think beyond just being in the lab. I think most beginner improv classes are free so everybody should just go take one. You can be silly and not think about anything else!

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