seshu

CPS Grad Spotlight - Seshu Iyengar

Name: Seshu Iyengar

MSc or PhD Candidate: PhD Candidate

Location of Undergraduate Education: 

BA Honours in Philosophy/BSc Honours in Biology-Physics, University of New Brunswick

Name of the Lab at CPS: Hilfinger Lab

Selected Awards:

NSERC CGS Vanier Scholarship

University of Toronto C. David Naylor Fellowship

Watler C. Sumner Memorial Fellowship

Lachlan Gilchrist Fellowship 

 

Selected Research Contributions:

  • Ceryl Tan, Miriam B. Ginzberg, Rachel Webster, Seshu Iyengar, Shixuan Liu, David Papadopoli, John Concannon, Yuan Wang, Douglas S. Auld, Jeremy L. Jenkins, Hannes Rost, Ivan Topisirovic, Andreas Hilfinger, W. Brent Derry, Nish Patel, & Ran Kafri. (2021). Cell size homeostasis is maintained by CDK4-dependent activation of p38 MAPK. Developmental Cell, 56(12), 1756-1769.
  • Jason Bell & Seshu Iyengar (2020). Pure and Applied Trope Theory: Towards an Analytic, Phenomenological, Pragmatic, and Process Philosophy. Discipline filosofiche (2020-1): Realismo, pragmatismo, naturalismo. Le trasformazioni della fenomenologia in Nord America, 39.

  • Magdalen Normandeau, Seshu Iyengar & Ben Newling (2017). The Presence of Gender Disparity on the Force Concept Inventory in a Sample of Canadian Undergraduate Students. Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(1), 9.

 

Seshu, please tell us about yourself and your journey as a PhD Candidate!

 

How did you come to UTM? What interested you to join a lab here?

My first experience with UTM was at a tour organized by biophysics faculty members for the Department of Physics graduate recruitment weekend. Leaving undergrad, I was fairly confident I wanted to study biophysics, but wasn’t sure what environment and research project would be best. Immediately the environment of UTM really captured me: I was really impressed that the campus and departmental culture had the same ‘small university’ feel I enjoyed in undergraduate while giving me access to the rich research culture and opportunities in a bigger place. My conversations with Dr. Hilfinger also showed a way of studying biological systems I was unfamiliar with; namely how we can exploit the intrinsic variability in biological systems to develop ways to understand how they work. These factors drew me in and made me decide to pursue graduate studies here.

 

When did you realize that you wanted to pursue a graduate study?

Going into undergraduate I knew I wanted a research-focused career; I’ve always had a keen interest in science and its history and always imagined myself contributing to that story in whatever way I could. Physics was a very natural fit for me, as uncovering underlying principles of how things worked was always a satisfying process. It was during my first year that I really started to understand biology as a field that held a lot of opportunities for this type of study. While in high school it was often portrayed as a “memorization” type subject my undergraduate professors really highlighted the interesting areas of research that had open, quantitative questions that physicists could contribute to.

 

What are your research interests? Tell us few exciting things about your research.

My research interests are in using mathematical analysis of modeling biological systems to identify measurable quantities in those systems that can distinguish between physical interactions in them. Specifically, I’m interested in using these techniques to develop ‘maps’ of signal transduction pathways, which are the networks of molecules in cells that allow cells to take in cues from the environment to actually do things like grow and divide. This is spurred by a recent experiment done by collaborators that showed that in human cancer cells a wide range of signaling pathways were highly correlated in their activity—this implies that even though there are dozens of proteins these cells could use to interpret signals and act, their combined network acts like a one-dimensional system instead.

Currently the approach I’m taking is by comparing the correlations in the levels of molecules in biological networks when they’re perturbed by drugs to the correlations in how those molecular levels fluctuate in unperturbed states. These correlations are always the same for systems at thermodynamic equilibrium, but living cells are free from this constraint due to the energy they produce and use ‘pushing’ them out of that state. I want to discover whether specific patterns of interactions in networks cause specific violations of this theorem that can be measured in the lab, using thermodynamics to inspire tools that can be used to interpret real data like the aforementioned experiment.

 

What is your goal when you finish your degree?

After my degree I’d like to continue in research, however I’m also interested in exploring how scientific knowledge can be used more broadly in the public sphere and in other disciplines. I’d also like to revisit philosophy of science more seriously.

 

What are some of your achievements you'd like to share?

I’m very proud of being a part of a team with fellow CPS graduate students Katie Maloney and Matthew Tung in developing U-R-CPS (Unlearning Racism in CPS) based off the URGE (Unlearning Racism in the Geosciences) program. We developed a two-month reading group that gathered about a dozen graduate students to do readings on a series of topics related to racism in academia and STEM fields and prepare recommendations for the department on how to address the problem. The program was a success, and we hope to run a future iteration very soon!

 

Do you have any advice for students considering to pursue graduate studies in research?

Graduate school is an incredibly rewarding experience and doesn’t just have to be the route to a faculty position at a university. If you look at a body of knowledge and want an environment where you can learn the skills to contribute to that body, it’s one of the best routes available. My advice before entry is to look at a wider range of departments than just the same ‘type’ as your undergraduate degree: your skills or interests might find the right match in anything from math, to immunology, or to physics. E-mail professors whose research interests you, and you might find that they’re looking for someone like you! And once you get to graduate school make sure you treat it like a job: find a work-life balance that fits you best. While it’s a great privilege to get to do the work we do, the ultimate purpose here is for you to live a fulfilling life for yourself.