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colors="#aed2af,#c6e0c7"/> <o:colormenu v:ext="edit" fillcolor="#333"/> </o:shapedefaults></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:shapelayout v:ext="edit"> <o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/> </o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--> </head> <body bgcolor="#333333" lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='tab-interval: 36.0pt'> <div class=Section1> <p class=MsoNormal align=right style='text-align:right;line-height:150%'><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><i><span style='color:silver'><a href="http://tifrweb.tifr.res.in/%7Eroop"><span style='color:silver'>MALLIK&nbsp;&nbsp; LAB&nbsp;&nbsp; HOMEPAGE</span></a></span></i><span style='color:silver'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%'><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><span style='font-size:18.0pt;line-height: 150%;font-family:"Microsoft Sans Serif","sans-serif";color:silver'>Non-Fermi Liquids to <span class=SpellE>Endosomes</span>, via pH Jumps<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;line-height:150%'><i style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'><span style='font-family:"Microsoft Sans Serif","sans-serif"; color:silver'>A short piece I wrote in 2009 for the TIFR magazine</span></i><span style='font-family:"Microsoft Sans Serif","sans-serif";color:silver'><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Microsoft Sans Serif","sans-serif";color:silver'><br> Fifteen years ago was a time when I was not exactly sure what to do with myself. I had just completed a Masters in Physics, and unlike others I knew, did not have a role model or burning ambition. All I knew about Research was that nobody else around me wanted to do that one thing. So, I waited for something to happen to me& and that something was the TIFR graduate school advertisement mailed to me by a concerned uncle in Kolkata (which, as you all know, is the happening place for young scientists-to-be). <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Microsoft Sans Serif","sans-serif";color:silver'><br> Two rounds of interviews, a cup of tea at the corner table of West canteen on a rainy afternoon and a walk along the seaside left an indelible impression on the mind. I managed to get selected, and in a few months was back again in TIFR. It was special to sit in the TIFR bus and go out into the city, to feel different from those outside for the first time. And then, the fun started. <span class=GramE>Long hours of sitting through classes and longer nights in the company of Jackson and Goldstein.</span> I have never been more envious of anybody in my life than the dogs that would always laze around in the colonnade as I trudged wearily to class. Their grandchildren still continue that lazy tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Microsoft Sans Serif","sans-serif";color:silver'><br> I finally joined <span class=SpellE>Sampath s</span> Lab in the Department of Condensed Matter Physics and took the first tottering steps of my PhD under his watchful guidance. Being the only student in the Laboratory in a remote corner of the TIFR basement was intimidating to begin with, but I quickly learnt to enjoy being independent. I soon knew what to do when the superconducting magnet threatened to quench at 2:30 in the night. I mixed metals in precise ratio s to coax strange magnetism out of the resulting alloys. I wrote software so that the experiments could be run on autopilot, so that I could browse the net while simultaneously discovering non-Fermi liquid <span class=SpellE>behaviour</span> in the mixtures I had made. My early life at TIFR prepared me to stand on my own feet. I learnt science, but more importantly, I discovered my own little way of doing science. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Microsoft Sans Serif","sans-serif";color:silver'><br> I had more than my share of friends; those from late-night tea in East Canteen, friends from playing cricket for hostel day, friends from hiking around in the hills and so on. We were all struggling through grad school, and everybody had a story to tell over tea. Somebody would be worried about when a naked singularity might collapse, others would be trying to align an errant laser, while yet others checked if flies could walk straight after smelling butane. I soon knew that there was much more Matter outside Condensed Matter. The sediments of all those stories and the belief that I had found my way of doing science led me to other pastures after my Ph.D. I soon found myself shooting lasers to induce pH jumps, and then measuring how fast the released protons found their way into the core of a protein. My new colleagues in Chemical Sciences watched with amusement as the new <span class=SpellE>postdoc</span> blundered around trying to <span class=SpellE><span class=GramE>dialyse</span></span> proteins. But for their kindness and good will, I would not have gone too far on this new path.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Microsoft Sans Serif","sans-serif";color:silver'><br> Soon, I crossed the seas to start a second <span class=SpellE>postdoc</span> with Steve Gross in California. I enjoyed <span class=GramE>Steve s <span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>mentorship</span>, and gradually found my feet in biology. Strangely, I was never too concerned about how little I knew. I decided that there was no easy way to change this & so I would try hard to learn, but on the way I would also enjoy my ignorance. One thing followed another and somewhere along the way I became a  proper biologist, so much so that the Biology department in TIFR offered me a job!! I had never taken a course in biology all my life. What on earth was I going to do now? What does one need to run a Biology Lab? Who in their right minds would join the Lab? As I look back over these years of being an official biologist, nobody is more surprised than me at having a Lab that actually runs. In these years I have had the unwavering support of colleagues within Biology and outside. Equally satisfying is how little memories from the past have helped in setting up the Lab. Now, we worry about how <span class=SpellE>endosomes</span> in cells get pulled around by Motor proteins. To do this, we have gone down to the old basement Lab to get GE varnish to stick down a laser head. An old Faraday balance has inspired us to make a much smaller version and exert magnetic force on things that move inside cells. The enthusiasm and interest of colleagues across these borders of science has been reassuring.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;text-align:justify;line-height: 150%'><span style='font-family:"Microsoft Sans Serif","sans-serif";color:silver'><br> Slowly but surely, I have gone far away from where I started in science. That being said, what I learnt during those formative years in TIFR has allowed me to do so. If you asked me what exactly was learnt, I would be clueless. I can only remember some strange stories about weird experiments. <o:p></o:p></span></p> </div> </body> </html>