Curiosity-Driven Science: Q & A With Saad Bhamla

What do worm blobs and insect pee have to do with human health? We talked to Saad Bhamla, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, to find out. Q: What did your path to becoming a scientist look like? Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech. A: I grew up in Dubai and did my undergraduate work in India, which is where I was first introduced to science. The science faculty members seemed to be having so much fun and would say things like “for the love of science,” but I couldn’t figure out what joy they were getting until I got a taste of it myself—then I was hooked. I like the idea that you can create a legacy doing science because someone can come along 100 years later and build on your work. After undergrad, I went to Stanford University and earned my Ph.D. in the lab of Gerald Fuller, Ph.D., and then stayed at Stanford for postdoctoral work (postdoc) in the lab of Manu Prakash, Ph.D. In 2017, I joined the faculty at Georgia Tech. On paper, I’m a chemical engineer, but I describe myself as more of a biophysicist. Q: What are you researching in your lab? A: The work in my lab falls into two thematic focuses under the umbrella of what I describe as curiosity-driven science. The first focus is on the physics of living systems and the second is frugal science—which may seem very different from one another, but they both require us to be curious but also to be comforta...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Being a Scientist Tools and Techniques Cool Tools/Techniques Profiles Research Organisms Source Type: blogs