Hey!

Did you hear about the man who stole the advent calendar? He got 25 days.

Welcome back to my newsletter. Hope you had a great December.

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, worked on school, and made future brain aging plans.

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Biotein

This month, we focused on coordinating controls and plans for our upcoming study. It’s been taking longer than we hoped, but luckily some milestones are rapidly approaching! We also fleshed out our core algorithm and spoke to more potential users. We also wrote a submission to a longevity prize competition. Next month, we hope to submit our study plan for IRB approval and continue fleshing out our algorithm and product plans.

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Mindsets and Philosophy

Here are some thoughts I’ve been having!

I am fortunate to share that I’ve committed to university (Harvard ‘27). However, after receiving my decision, I’ve realized a few crucial things. Once the initial relief of I got in died down, I realized that a big reason I was so nervous about getting my result back was because I didn't want to let the people around me down (another was that I wanted to go there, of course!). I wanted the people around me to be proud of me. I, like most other humans, seek validation and praise. It’s funny, because praise sounds so attractive until it’s over and done. And then you just want more. If the reason you want a good outcome is because of the praise you might get, think again about why you do what you do. I’m still glad about this, of course: I want to take advantage of this opportunity to make a real impact on the world. The praise I’ve gotten isn’t enough, and I have very much internalized that now - I want to change the world, and praise doesn’t really play into that all that much :-).
Hobbies. Jobs. They’re so different, but what happens if one becomes the other? Much like your passion for ceramics that you turned into a side hustle, this kind of happens pretty often (it’s happened to me too → coding for fun has turned into late night projects due the next morning to bosses). I’ve realized that this fundamentally changes the way the activity feels - it’s no longer a stress-reliever but a stress-creator. You don’t just do it to pass time but now you’re pressed for time while doing it. Of course, just keeping it a hobby completely ignores the fact that many peoples’ livelihoods depend on hobby-jobs. So, I thought about it some more. If you try to differentiate (with different settings/environments, tools, etc) between your hobby and your job it could potentially help your brain distinguish the two? For example, I use Eclipse to code for fun and RStudio/Google Colab to code for work. It makes them feel fundamentally different.

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Knowledge Bytes

Here are some recommendations from the month!

- Great productivity tool: Notion. I have to plug it again! I swear. It’s a productivity tool that has CHANGED my life. It’s perfect for flexible to-do lists and organizing team work.

- Awesome note-writing platform: FutureMe. A cool platform to write a note to your future self. If you do it, then don’t be like my ninth grade self: write more than 100 words, please! It’s a favor to your future self:). And despite your *cough* my *cough* best efforts, I cannot access the ones that aren’t to be delivered yet! Which is probably for the best :-).

- A fall-smelling candle: Mrs. Meyer’s Orange Clove Soy Candle. Weird recommendation but it smells like apple cider (not orange cloves, weirdly enough) and fall. I like it.

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Shoutouts

Here are some fun shoutouts:

Thank you to Dr. Ewald, Ben, Andressa, and Dan for all your help planning Biotein’s study.
Thank you to Zak for all your advice on Biotein’s timeline.
Thank you to the Biotein team for long and interesting discussions about brain aging and our goals + priorities.
Thank you to Mr. Sternberg for all your life advice and for reading my long emails about everything and nothing.

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 January, I’ll be working even more on Biotein, school, and brain aging ideation!

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)

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