Hey!

I wasn’t sure how to open my banana the other day… but then I realized that all I needed was a mon-key!

Welcome back to my newsletter. Hope you had a fantastic February.

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 done work on Biotein, school, and a cool Alzheimer’s lab project.

——

Biotein

This month, we began making our study happen (there are many more details than just this but right now we’re keeping things confidential)! We also worked on fleshing out our algorithm plan for our test and applying to different funding + incubator opportunities.

——

Mindsets and Philosophy

Here are some thoughts I’ve been having!

As I learn how to drive, I’m having a bunch of weirdly philosophical thoughts related to driving. One of those is that you’re constantly adjusting your pace in life - no pace is constant. For a while, I didn’t understand why you wouldn’t do cruise control anywhere but a highway, but now I understand it both mechanically and philosophically. Mechanically, that’s dangerous. And philosophically, it makes no sense not to adjust your pace and thoughts. Society itself is always changing. It swings from viewpoint to viewpoint like a pendulum (but this is a pendulum that loses energy and gets less extreme over time). And we as humans do too. We swing from priority to priority, from friend to friend, from doctrine to doctrine. And that’s all part of getting older and figuring out who we are. We’re constantly adjusting our pace — our viewpoint on life, our priorities, our goals, and that’s a part of growing up.
Stop anticipating and start doing. If you’re always thinking about what’s going to happen, how will you ever appreciate what you have now? I’ve gone through phases of my life where I keep thinking about how I could lose what I have now — which makes me not enjoy the fruits of the moment at all! Enjoy your life in the moment.
Small habits can make a real difference long term. If you consistently stretch pre-run, you’ll feel a lot better. If you sleep well normally, your brain will work a lot better. However, you shouldn’t overthink them on the micro level. This is something I’ve thought a lot about, and it’s a balance that’s hard to strike, but I think in life that it’s critical to find a balance between prioritizing the small things and not completely being overwhelmed when you can’t prioritize them all the time. If you get one or two bad nights of sleep, don’t freak out. If you can’t stretch pre-run once, nothing will happen. Habits took a long time to build and so they will take a long time to break/have the effect on your life that breaking would have.

——

Knowledge Bytes

Here are some recommendations from the month!

- Website to examine what charities to donate to: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ (useful for the Turkey earthquakes!)

- Fun fact Website: https://www.beagreatteacher.com/daily-fun-fact/ (They update this every single day! I admire the dedication)

- Awesome blog: https://ava.substack.com/about (Genuinely interesting reflections on life and philosophy).

——

Shoutouts

Here are some fun shoutouts:

Thank you to Dr. Moody, Dan, Dr. Ewald, and Dr. Wolfe for all your advice and help re Biotein’s initial study!
Thank you to the Biotein team for quick replies and being able to pivot quickly when needed.
Thank you Zak for your feedback and connections made for Biotein’s various problems + solutions :).
Thank you Ravi for all your help with the Alzheimer’s project (especially with debugging)!

Thank you to everyone reading this. Even if I didn't mention you this month. you probably helped me a lot. Thank you!

——

Next Month

In March, I’ll be working even more on Biotein, school, my work with the lab on Alzheimer’s, and brain aging ideation! I’ll also be going on a hiking-filled vacation :).

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)

Nina’s Monthly Update

Coding, Calculating, and Concentrating: My…