{"id":1080,"date":"2013-02-13T05:10:12","date_gmt":"2013-02-13T05:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/?p=1080"},"modified":"2013-02-13T06:16:40","modified_gmt":"2013-02-13T06:16:40","slug":"away-from-home-industrial-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/2013\/02\/away-from-home-industrial-research.html","title":{"rendered":"Away from home: Industrial research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every Wednesday,\u00a0our \u2018Away from home\u2019 blog series features\u00a0one Indian postdoc working in a foreign lab recounting his\/her experience of working there, the triumphs and challenges, the cultural differences,\u00a0what they miss about India, as well as some top tips for postdocs headed abroad. You can join in\u00a0the online conversation using the\u00a0#postdochat<\/a>\u00a0hashtag.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>In our first blog from a postdoc working in industrial research, Shubhra Chaudhuri tells us why industry is a\u00a0great place to do research and some “serious science”. Shubhra, who did a masters\u00a0from the University of Delhi, India is currently a postdoc in the\u00a0toxicology division of The Dow Chemical Company, Michigan, USA.<\/p>\n

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Shubhra Chaudhuri in her lab in Michigan.<\/p><\/div>\n

Drenched in science<\/h4>\n

I grew up in a very academic\/science oriented family. My father was a mechanical engineer and my mother is a professor of chemistry. Most of my extended family is into science and just to complete the science loop, I am also married to a scientist! So I guess it was not a very conscious decision; I loved science as such growing up, whereas a fascination for the wonderful discoveries in medicine was the real motivation for becoming a researcher along this avenue. I still remember my mother taking me to a symposium where Prof. Deisenhofer, a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry was holding a seminar. How special did I feel to be able to see a Nobel Laureate in person!<\/p>\n

Science and industry<\/h4>\n

After a Masters degree from the University of Delhi in India, I did a Ph.D. in Toxicology at the University of Arkansas in Medical Sciences. During my graduate school, I started developing an active interest towards application-oriented research. My goal was to work in industrial R&D. Dow Chemical has one of the best toxicology laboratories in the chemical industry, with excellent scientists. Industrial postdocs are fewer and harder to come by and I am happy to have get an opportunity here.<\/p>\n

I work as a postdoc in the biotransformation\/toxicokinetics \u00a0group in the toxicology division of The Dow Chemical Company. I currently work to insure products are researched in a responsible and effective manner. More specifically, my focus is to develop and use approaches that enhance the company\u2019s ability to make safety assessment decisions about new products, and their eventual commercial viability.<\/p>\n

The science is really good and there is a lot of focus on getting external publications (this is a rarity in industry and not many companies do this).The technical leaders are excellent scientists and are great mentors for the younger scientists.\u00a0 Safety and ethics are of the utmost importance here; it is as important as the science itself. The work environment is also very congenial and friendly and my colleagues are great people.<\/p>\n

Smooth switch<\/h4>\n

Back, in India we grew up learning to speak English with a British accent and it just takes a bit to get used to the accent here. Once you get over that, this is a great country to be in with lots of opportunities if you are willing to work hard.<\/p>\n

Industry is a great place to do research as well. Some people have a wrong notion that only academia is associated with \u201cserious science.\u201d This is not true at all. Here, in industry it is not only enough to do good science and publish papers, scientists here also shoulder the additional responsibility for the decisions they make, since these\u00a0 are going to affect people worldwide who will use our products.<\/p>\n

My tip for postdocs: publish or perish<\/h4>\n

That is always the mantra. Look at labs that publish consistently and have good funding sources. The \u201cReporter\u201d database is a good website to find information on NIH sponsored academic funding in the U.S. It is a public domain and is accessible to all. It is also good to choose a mentor who is somewhat experienced in his\/her career, since as a postdoc you are trying to make career decisions and someone experienced will be able to guide you better than someone who is a junior faculty. Networking is extremely important and being proactive always helps.<\/p>\n

One more important thing regarding choosing a post doc lab is that, it is worthwhile to do something that is different from your graduate research expertise but will complement your existing skill sets. This is an opportunity to develop yourself as a more complete scientist, so make full use of that. Whereas, pursuing research in the same area may have the advantage of a quicker turnover in terms of productivity and publications, it is worthwhile to try and do something a little different, because in the long run, that will help you develop yourself as a better independent researcher.<\/p>\n

Durga puja festivities tug at heartstrings<\/h4>\n

I miss my family the most, especially during the festivals. The street food and pandal hopping during the Durga Pujas are the other things that I really miss. I am at a relatively early stage in my career and haven\u2019t really had much opportunity to think about getting back to India.<\/p>\n

Shubhra Chaudhuri is our first postdoc from the industrial research stream. Stay tuned as we add more Indian postdocs from around the world every Wednesday to the interactive\u00a0Away from home<\/a>\u00a0map pictured below. Please feel free to suggest names of postdocs from unusual places and disciplines we haven\u2019t covered yet.<\/em><\/h3>\n

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Every Wednesday,\u00a0our \u2018Away from home\u2019 blog series features\u00a0one Indian postdoc working in a foreign lab recounting his\/her experience of working there, the triumphs and challenges, the cultural differences,\u00a0what they miss about India, as well as some top tips for postdocs headed abroad. You can join in\u00a0the online conversation using the\u00a0#postdochat\u00a0hashtag.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,108,11],"tags":[109],"class_list":["post-1080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academics","category-away-from-home","category-careers","tag-postdoc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}