How I rebuilt my shattered academic career brick by brick

I am writing this as an example of how a shattered career could be rebuilt through hard work, dedication and planning. My career had hit a traumatic low due to a family emergency and I had to rebuild it brick by brick to stand up as a research scholar. I hope that my story will inspire those who are facing hardships to gain confidence and build up their career profiles.

I did my PhD at a premier research institute in India, the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD). I had two publications in respected international journals and one review in an Indian journal. These enabled me to get my PhD and acquire a postdoc position with one of the greatest biophysicists in the world, Prof. Lila Gierasch, at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), USA. With supportive guidance from Prof. Gierasch, I was able to bring our project up to the launching pad. We were expecting to observe fascinating never-before visualized evidence for protein folding. The cannons were ready to fire, but a tragedy in my personal life changed everything. My father passed away. As the eldest son, I had to shoulder my share of the responsibility and consequently move back to India.

Understandably, I was shattered when I reached India. I was jobless. Apart from dealing with the family trauma, at this juncture, I could sense that my career had met with a huge setback. My scientific profile only had publications from my PhD. Publications from my postdoc work at UMass were unforeseeable and distant due to this abrupt end. This consequently resulted in a big gap in my publication profile. Factually, my career was unstable and tumultuous. I only had two options to consider: I could either take-up a clerical or teaching job in my native town (which many of my distant family members encouraged) or continue with research in premier research institutes located in big far-off cities. Clearly, the former option would lead to a calm and financially stable life, while the latter would lead to a challenging life, but with an option to build my scientific career. My zeal and passion for science drove me to choose the latter. I will never be able to thank my wife enough for standing by me and supporting my decision during this phase.

Out of all the trauma that I was going through, I had one ray of hope. A few months before this, my PhD supervisor moved from CDFD to the National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune, and was looking for research associates (a formal term for postdocs in India). This seemed an apt option to help me bring my career back on track. My PhD supervisor, Dr. Shekhar Mande, kindly offered me the position and allowed me to work on my PhD findings. Pune being one of the expensive cities in India, our initial days were tough with the fellowship those days. Although my lab members were friendly and supportive, some of them doubted my abilities due to rumours around my exit from my postdoc lab at UMass. Therefore, there was an immediate requirement to prove myself and gain visibility.

Considering my research status then, I framed a plan of action. Publishing research articles was a distant possibility since my work at UMass ended abruptly and to bring out publishable stories from the projects at NCCS would take at least a couple of years. I realized that I needed something else to kick start the process of rebuilding my career. I introspected on what else I was capable of. I knew that I had a comprehensive understanding of the current literature on my topic of interest, molecular chaperones, which I believed could be presented as review(s). Therefore, I approached several journal publishers to get my review published. Although several journals could not honour my request, one journal, Cell Stress and Chaperones, which is part of the prestigious Springer Nature publishing group, gave me an encouraging response. Boosted by this, I wrote a comprehensive review summarising the current findings and potential future directions. The review was published and was appreciated very well in the field, with substantial readership. I was on cloud nine when all my colleagues congratulated me!

The publisher was impressed with the way the review progressed and invited me to write a book on the research topic. As a research associate, who is a beginner in the field, this was a great opportunity for me, which I, needless to say, readily took up. Since this is a book with different chapters, I thought, instead of me writing the entire book, it will be tremendous if eminent scientists, who are experts on the topics I planned to cover in different chapters of the book, could write the respective chapters themselves. But approaching established scientists to contribute chapters to my book required mettle. Nonetheless, I reached out to some world-class scientists, explained my idea to them, and requested them to contribute book chapters. A lot of responses I received were positive. Many prominent scientists contributed and the book was released. As an editor of the book, I have no hesitation in accepting that the eminent contributions of these great scientists made the book one of the most well-read and appreciated books on the topic, as reflected by the metrics.

(That's me holding up my book "Prokaryotic Chaperonins!")

In the meantime, I could publish a few more research articles in respected journals and one of them was highlighted on the cover page of the journal. These publications contributed in bringing my career on track. While working on these research articles I had a few research ideas. Thanks to my work on the book, I was able to discuss these ideas with the world-class scientists I had connected with. Interestingly, discussions with Dr. Peter Lund, an eminent scientist, led to long term research plans for working together.

Consequently, I applied and was selected for the prestigious Newton International Fellowship (NIF), sponsored by the Royal Society, UK, to work with Dr. Lund, at the University of Birmingham (UoB), UK. Further, the research findings during the NIF were appreciated at several scientific platforms. This encouraged Dr. Lund and me to continue our work together and delve deeper into our common topic of interest. Consequently, we were awarded a responsive-mode grant by a prestigious funding agency in the UK, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). I am now working as a researcher and co-investigator on a BBSRC-sponsored project at the UoB. Incidentally, while I was writing this story, I learned that I have been chosen to join a UK delegation for an Indo-UK meet in Pune. I was elated! I could not wait to visit Pune, the city that first gave me the flavour of success! Overall, I am really happy, but not relaxed, about what I have achieved. I find that my zeal for curiosity and discovery is never ending.

Looking back, I fondly remember all the incidents and people that enabled me to gain courage and rebuild my shattered career. In this journey, importantly, I never deviated from my path and focus, and that would have to be my success mantra. I continued to work on molecular chaperones and this persistence helped me gain a thorough understanding of and expertise in the field as well as form associations with eminent scientists. My story might inspire aspiring scientists who are going through rough or tough life-changing situations. Therefore, I would advise them to never lose hope or focus, identify their inner strengths (which in modern terminology are known as unique selling points, which define one’s unique abilities) and work with them; success will, I can’t stress this enough, embrace you. I would like to end with my motto, a quote by Frank Ocean — “Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.”