MIRC’s Trainee of the Month
MIRC's Trainee of the Month: Sudeshna Dhar, PhD candidate from the Larché lab.
Can you describe your research?
I study peptide immunotherapy for the treatment of allergies. Despite the increased prevalence of allergies, there continues to be a lack of practical and safe treatments that address allergic diseases – most allergy treatments exist as rescue interventions, and current immunotherapy regimes come with the risk of fatal adverse side effects. Peptide immunotherapy uses small synthetic peptides derived from allergen proteins. The peptides represent major T cell epitopes and are too short to cross-link antibodies on effector cells, thus, they establish allergen tolerance without the lethal safety concerns of traditional whole allergen immunotherapy. We hope to expand peptide immunotherapy as a safe disease-modifying treatment options for multiple allergies and atopic diseases.
What advice would you give to future scientists?
Don’t let failure get you down! Many scientific innovations came from accidental discoveries and behind every successful experiment are many others that didn’t work. Never stop asking “why” and use mistakes as learning opportunities. Failure is a chance to start again, but this time you can start smarter.
What do you like to do when you’re not in lab?
Despite being a little afraid of heights, I really enjoy hiking, and Hamilton has been such a blessing for offering amazing trails in such close proximity! One day I hope to hike through the Grand Canyon so hopefully I can keep conditioning myself through more and more challenging hikes to eventually gain the skills, courage, and stamina and take on more technical trails in the future.
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