Atlas, Analysis, and Aims: July
Subtitles are lame (BUT INFORMATIVE!). Just kidding! Hope you have fun reading this :).
Hey!
I was confused as to why my friend, the scarecrow, won an award. Then I realized: he was outstanding in his field.
Welcome back to my newsletter. Hope you had a wonderful and not-too-hot July.
For those who don't know, I'm Nina Khera. You may have met me during a meeting, or at the latest networking event in Boston. I'm a 16-year-old human longevity researcher who's working on projects from topics spanning cellular senescence (zombie cells) to epidermolysis bullosa (skin disease)!
This month I’ve worked on Biotein, went to the Atlas Fellowship summer camp, and worked on many other things, including: my life goals, brain aging, and college stuff!
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Biotein
We’ve almost finished troubleshooting and are intending to restart experiments shortly! We’ve also been doing work on getting IRB approval for our validation study, finishing patent claims with the help of our lawyer, user interviews, and thinking about our next steps re: dementia!
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Mindsets and Philosophy
Here are some thoughts I’ve been having!
Most relationship issues arise from lack of communication about other issues and misgivings. I find that whenever I feel like I’m about to get into a fight with someone or have a tenser relationship with them, it’s always because we haven’t really been talking honestly about our feelings and it seems like we’re both bottling a bunch of things up. I chalk it up to the fact that communication tends to feel very hard in the moment → but it’s one of those things that can prevent more difficulty and suffering later on, so it’s pretty key.
It’s easy to “try to try”. It’s easy to tell yourself that there are X or Y things you tried to do to solve your problem, and consequently, your effort has passed the threshold and you did a good job. It’s not your fault that it didn’t work out. But sometimes we tend to put a minimum of effort in so we can tell ourself we tried and maybe we don’t put more in because the reality of having genuinely failed at something is too scary. I haven’t figured out why we as humans “try to try”. All I know is that we do it and it’s pretty crappy given that we should be taking agency for things in our lives.
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Knowledge Bytes
Here are some recommendations from the month!
- Great card game: We’re not really strangers. Perfect for bonding with others. You may have heard of them, but I do have an additional suggestion to go along with this: the self reflection edition. Using those in a group setting is much more deep and interesting in my opinion than the original card deck! Of course, you do have to be somewhat comfortable with the people you’re with, and skipping questions should be allowed :).
- Most underrated sport: long-distance running. I’ve been doing it for the past ~3.5 months or so and I enjoy it so much. I think the reason most people don’t like it is that they focus on the distance they have yet to achieve and how large it sounds, but I find that if you stay in the moment and remind yourself that every stride makes you stronger, it feels a lot better.
- Best organization tool: Notion. I plug this tool ALL the time, but it’s for a reason. Notion is amazing. If you use it properly (I can send you a template!), it’s the perfect tool to organize your life, your to-do’s, etc.
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Shoutouts
Here are some fun shoutouts:
Thank you to the instructors and team at Atlas for a great program! I learned so much from every single one of you and really appreciate the long one-on-ones and dedication to providing us with awesome content and a really good experience!
Thank you to Ichor (Specifically Dr. Moody, Dr. Wolfe, and Dr. Capucilli) for all your help with our experiments! I am glad to be working with you on these tasks, and have already learned so much from you.
Thank you to my Atlas accountability group for some great discussions and advice + generally keeping me on track!
Thank you to everyone reading this. Even if I didn't mention you this month. you probably helped me a lot. Thank you!
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Next Month
In August, I’ll be working more on Biotein, working on an internship, working on college-related tasks, and figuring out more relating to my life plans!
Reach out to me if you want to talk about human longevity (or just life sciences in general) or anything else honestly!
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-khera-115b5a175/
Personal Website: https://ninakhera.com/
Email: kheranina@gmail.com (or just reply to this email)