It takes a lot of courage to choose a different path in life when the rest of the world is telling you to walk in a particular direction. When the path you choose for yourself is something you are interested, it inspires you to work hard and achieve your goal. With such an interest at heart, Daphne Norma Crasta had taken up Biology as her field. Her hard work and motivation led her to be selected as one among the 26 students in India chosen for the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship (2020-21).
Daphne is a PhD candidate at the Department of Clinical Embryology, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal. She is a recipient of the INSPIRE fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, and of the Summer Research Fellowship sponsored by three of India’s premier science institutions. She topped the M.Sc. Biosciences program of Mangalore University, Mangalagangothri, and has cleared competitive exams like the CSIR-National Eligibility Test Lectureship (2016) and Karnataka State Eligibility Test (2015).
This fellowship is sponsored by the US Department of State in collaboration with the Institute of International education (IIE) and United States- India Educational Foundation (USIEF). She was chosen for the grant after passing through a very tough selection process which included four stages.
“The entire process of selection was a very tedious work,” recalls Daphne. “Drafting the application, passing the interview, everything involved a lot of hard work and am indeed very glad that I received this opportunity,” she said.
As a Fulbright-Nehru doctoral research fellow, Daphne is doing part of her PhD work in Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, on understanding the reason for the difference in the abnormal first-cleavage pattern in haploid and diploid parthenotes, and then compare it with the developmental dynamics of normally fertilized embryos using the time-lapse and live-cell imaging system. Mayo Clinic is one of the leading hospitals and research centres in the world, and Daphne will be supervised by Dr. Nagarajan Kannan, Head, Stem Cell and Cancer Biology Lab, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.
Explaining about her project at Mayo clinic, Daphne said, “We want to study the importance of paternal factors in the early embryo development and this topic was an area which does not have much research done on it.”
This grant which starts from March 2021 will extend for a period of nine months.
Daphne expressed her gratitude towards her guide Dr Guruprasad Kalthur, Professor, Dept. of Clinical Embryology, KMC, MAHE, Manipal, under whose guidance, she is conducting her PhD work.
She talked about the various fields that are available today for the young generation to explore. She said, “every area has a scope and if you are interested in it then you should definitely go for it.”
