Established academic, Vikas, spoke to Asian Voice as he prepares to embark on a very novel journey into the current issue of genetics and stem cell research. Currently a Post-Doctoral Researcher and a Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and the Deputy editor for the Royal Microscopy Society’s magazine, infocus, he will soon commence a prestigious leadership role at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Barcelona to begin new work into embryonic stem cell research. The lab is one of several exclusive institutions belonging to national member states, including non-European countries such as Australia and Argentina. Under an expert team of PhD students and post-doctorate researchers, Vikas’ international investigations will help tackle developmental disorders via intervention in the “early patterning processes.” More specifically, Vikas’ probing into stem cell research will involve “understanding how embryos get patterned to form the body axis that lays the foundation for future placement of organs.” Stem cells, found in embryos, can later develop into any type of cell and consequently form tissues and organs and so are incredibly biologically precious. They have the potential to propagate the growth of brain cells to treat those with Parkinson’s disease, repair damaged immune systems and for heart transplants. By defining where a particular organ will be placed in the developing body, the findings of our resident scientist and his team could further contribute by helping in battling major birth defects that are related to this. “About 3 in every 100 live born infants exhibit an obvious congenital anomaly.” Vikas went on to tell us: “coming from an engineering background, my approach is to tinker with parts to build units. We are trying to use stem cells to mimic early events of embryo development where we can also perturb the process to understand ways in which it can go wrong and then see if we can understand the underlying principle behind axis formation.” The axis progression might be interrupted by adding chemicals or introducing mutations, after which solutions in rescuing it are explored. “Head-to-tail axis formation is one of the first decision processes in a developing organism, which before this moment, is a homogenous mass of cells resulting from the fusion of the egg and sperm”.
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Though his lab will be on a similar exploratory pulse with other research facilities who are also experimenting with stem cells in this context worldwide, Vikas’ work with the EMBL also possesses an extra original dimension. “The concept of embryonic axis formation is a universal one, evident in all animal species, and we will be focusing on this too. Axis formation that determines placement of organs is common to worms and insects, to name but a few surprising examples, as well human beings. We will also probe into this aspect in addition to scrutinising mammalian development.” This obviously has vast implications for what can be done with adaptive biological application beyond simple human disability prevention. As well as highlighting similarities, the comparison points would also shed a thorough light on the manufacturing of internal structure in human embryonic formation. “There is something really fundamental about the way early embryonic cells can talk to each other and form a functional baby. Ultimately, the hope is that perhaps we can understand enough about how cells work to be able to instruct them to do what we want them to do.” Finally, but significantly, Vikas’ group is also a unique, interdisciplinary lab “who plan to borrow tools from engineering and physics to pin down what the cells can do.” The approach to their far ranging embryonic stem cell research is then also innovative: “we will be developing imaging systems and mathematical models”. Vikas finished by emphasising a wonderful symbolic nuance: “currently, we have the Darwinian concept that unified the biological world. But we still don’t understand how, while the evolutionary mechanism of development is conserved, we can still have so much diversity within the species: if you take cells and remove them from their embryonic context and organic environment in the lab, these unrealised aggregates from different species appear similar but a fully formed fish embryo looks very different to a mouse embryo. We want to investigate the differentiating strategies that these different organisms adopt.” Natural Science then beautifully demonstrates collaborating and the collective element as important as assertion and individualism. Thus, like the best scholars, Vikas lays out tradition while encouraging the careful challenges that will affect true cultural progress.
Can you tell us a bit more about current organoid research?
Yes, it’s an exciting time where we are creating organoids: mini organs, including brains, guts and livers, which are grown in petri dishes in labs. The labs all over world are investigating into translational potential of such in vitro systems. Understanding human development is still somewhat a mystery and if we can make the extensive breakthroughs, this could unlock incredible prospects for the future.
What is your favourite part of the job?
Interacting with other researchers and brainstorming ideas. I’m also really looking forward to being able to contribute to the development of EMBL Barcelona as a new institution. Currently, we understand a lot about individual cells, but I’m also interested in collective cell communication. It’s a direction I definitely want to go in with regard to tissue modelling.
What grabs you most about the world of engineering and science?
I love the way you can make simple assumptions and predictions and then test them quantitively. That curiosity is also fuelled by the promise of finding concrete solutions. It does require patience but the excitement of knowing what you can achieve is as big. You fail to improve and that is pleasingly constructive.
What have been some past projects that have brought you to this impressive pioneering position?
I’ve been lucky enough to have worked on a range of problems with incredibly talented and generous colleagues. At Caltech, for example, I worked on early heart development: we came up with a novel microscope design and processing algorithm that allowed us to observe every single cell in the beating embryonic heart as it underwent contraction and expansion.
You have been commissioned by a high European scientific body. Do you feel that there is adequate inclusion for different ethnicities in the Scientific Community?
Science is doing very well when it comes to attracting international talent but of course more can be done to represent countries worldwide. More urgent perhaps, is the need to be more conducive towards families, especially for female researchers, who want to have both a family life and career. It is unfair to make them choose.
Finally, what’s one misconception about being researcher or scientist that people have that simply isn’t true?Perhaps that they’re boring, and not as interested in other facets of life. But this is simply not true. Believe it or not, we are humans too!