Take A Chance

Inna Nechipurenko

My story begins in a small town in southern Russia. I was the only child being raised by a single parent. Fast forward twenty or so years, and I am a postdoc in a premier research university in the US transitioning to a tenure-track faculty position. My trajectory in science has been shaped by many experiences and people I have met along the way. They helped me realize that nothing appealed to me more, as a career choice, than a daily pursuit of knowledge and discovery, which is what being a scientist is all about. They also taught me about the importance of taking chances.

Dr. Inna Nechipurenko

As a student in a linguistics school in Russia, I learned about a competitive exchange program that selected high-school students from Russia to study in the US for a full academic year. I remember telling my mom: I will never win, but I want to give it a try anyway. So I did try, and I also did win. It was during the subsequent year at a Pennsylvania high school that I had my first opportunity to actually do science and not just learn about it in textbooks. I was able to form hypotheses (no matter how simple) and test them right there at the bench. All of a sudden, AP Chemistry was fun and not just tedious memorization of equations and the periodic table of elements, which is what I was accustomed to up to that point.

Despite many protests from my family, who did not consider science a viable career choice, I went to my academic advisor and told him that I wanted to add a Biology major.

My fascination with science followed me to college, although it took me almost three years to realize I wanted nothing else for a career. I ended up returning to the US to attend college. I was majoring in Business with the goal of eventually securing some sort of competitive managerial position in some sort of international company in Russia. I would have had a degree from a reputable US university and fluency in three languages to increase my chances in a tough job market.

I took a few Chemistry and Biology courses as electives along the way. Next thing I knew, I was dreading my business course work while looking forward to spending hours in Biology lab and working on lab reports with my peers. I was absolutely fascinated by genetics, and by how we could trace causes of human diseases such as cystic fibrosis and retinoblastoma to single genes in our genome. I remember learning about different model organisms that scientists use in the lab to understand the way our nervous system functions or to identify genes behind cancer.

Then, one day in my junior year, I finally worked up the courage to give my science dream a chance. Despite many protests from my family, who did not consider science a viable career choice (especially in Russia), I went to my academic advisor and told him that I wanted to add a Biology major. This would have required taking an additional year of 20-21 credits of mostly biology course work per semester and carrying out an independent research project.

Somehow, he let me do it. The following year, I was back in his office asking for advice on graduate school applications. There was no doubt left in my mind that I wanted to get a Ph.D. in Biology. I remember the amused look on my advisor’s face, and a struggle to suppress laughter, when I told him about my plan. After all, I haven’t been studying for GREs, and I had rather limited research experience having added Biology major only in my junior year. It seemed there was a small chance of me getting accepted to grad school.

Nonetheless, the summer after graduating from college, I was thrilled to start a Ph.D. program in Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University. I joined Dr. Heather Broihier’s lab to study mechanisms of microtubule dynamics in motorneurons using the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster. For my postdoctoral work in the lab of Dr. Piali Sengupta at Brandeis University, I switched model organisms and shifted the focus of my research to cilia – microscopic signaling “beacons” of our cells. Specifically, I wanted to understand how they form and function in specialized sensory neurons.

In the course of my graduate and postdoctoral training, there were times when I questioned my career choice to become a scientist. There were times when I got discouraged by rejections, failing experiments, and hyper-competitive academic job market. However, I was also incredibly fortunate to have had amazing mentors at all stages of my academic career thus far. They continue to challenge me and support my growth as a scientist, and I am forever grateful that they also took a chance on me at one point or another.

As I embark on the new stage of my career as an assistant professor, I look forward to exploring new research directions, forging new collaborations, engaging the next generation of scientists in the classroom and at the bench, and taking on new challenges that this career path has in store.  

Cover Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay.