"My name is Kishore Rughupathi, and we are in UMass Amherst.
I'm a grad student in chemistry department.
So, my field of study is drug delivery.
We are trying to develop nanoparticle systems which are capable of delivering drugs to the
cancers and then eventually treat them.
And my specific area of interest is delivering drugs - I mean just one molecule drugs, which
is synthetic drugs.
And, also, therapeutic proteins and nucleic acids, which are nowadays very much used in
treating these different diseases.
I'm from India, and I did my schooling back in India until my Masters, and then came over
here for the PhD.
So, it was after my high school, there was a pre-medical exam back in India.
I quickly realized that it's not for me, because looking at what happens after you get into
the actual medical college.
So there's a lot of facts that you have to like memorize.
But still, it's a great profession to be.
But I think that doing research is equally more challenging and rewarding.
So, the ultimate goal will be treating cancers.
But there are different types and forms of cancers.
So we are actually looking at a platform which can be used not only for treating cancers,
but also would be helpful in like diagnosting different types of diseases.
So, we use a lot of synthesis.
So we use an MR mass spec and confocal microscopy for imaging cells and try to see if our drugs
are really going into the cells.
Yeah, so initially as I said, I was trying to get into becoming a medical doctor, But
as I realized there's a lot of things that goes on to understand a disease and like try
to discover new medicines to treat that disease.
So it actually came down to like trying to memorize the facts and actually finding all
the facts.
So, research is all about like finding ' following your curiosity.
So I was a little more curious towards like what actually happens in the disease.
So, I was more bias towards research than actually trying to become a doctor.
You come up with an idea.
You get to do a lot of creative ways to solve a problem.
And when you find out that your idea is working, that is very rewarding."