Ishan Agrawal
Email: agrawal.5@iitj.ac.in
From the day I started reading about them, I have been in love with microglia. Their role in shaping and maintaining the central nervous system sounds almost like a wonderful mystery novel; you never know what you will hear next. My interest in immunology brought me to the fascinating place called Inflammation Immunity & Tumour Biology Lab at the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur, India. Here I explored neuroimmunology under the guidance of my captain Dr Sushmita Jha. The tools I was provided and eventually trained to master to navigate the uncharted terrain were intense reading and discussion, careful planning, hard work, and lots of fantastic food and laughter. The place was incredible, and so were my partners in crime (Experiments, of course). Along with my captain, I explored the effect of dopamine on microglia, which led to some exciting discoveries; read the captain’s log for more information (Papers, of course). As the journey (PhD) came to a happy and emotional end, I started on a new adventure as a postdoctoral research fellow at Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford, England. Here I am studying the role of inflammation in Parkinson’s Disease.