Reading, Ruminating, and Running: May
Subtitles are lame (BUT INFORMATIVE!). Just kidding! Hope you have fun reading this :).
Hey!
What do you call a karate-doing pig’s signature move? A pork chop.
Welcome back to my newsletter. Hope you had a great May.
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, Youth STEM Matters, brain aging, college stuff, and finishing up school!
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Biotein
For our glitched experiments: We have redone some methods optimization with our CRO and realized it didn’t get to the root of the issue. Consequently, we are troubleshooting some more (with the help of Ichor Therapeutics) this coming month! We have also prepped our IRB submission for our validation study and confirmed a hospital. And we’ve been working on our biological age equation + our patent submission!
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Mindsets and Philosophy
Here are some thoughts I’ve been having!
There is a certain fear of growing up that hits you around 16 or 17. Maybe earlier, maybe later. Either way, growing up becomes terrifying around that time. Maybe it’s because adulthood seems to come with looming responsibilities and responsibility-free lives just seem objectively better. Or maybe it’s just because all the intricacies of being an adult seem extremely scary. I think the thing that helps the most is remembering that you don’t have to change the way you think about life. You can still be happy, you can still be carefree, you just have different responsibilities. It’s not like you don’t already have responsibility. You do. It just feels less consequential. Life will change, but it’ll be more minor than you think.
I’ve been thinking about nature vs nurture. There’s this saying by Victor Hugo (creator of Les Misérables) that there are no bad people or bad plants, just bad growers. And it makes sense inherently. Nobody is born reckless or bad. They adapt to their environment, which can sometimes create non-ideal traits. But one has to wonder what makes someone a bad grower. How do you raise a kid badly and how do you raise them well? I’ve never met someone I can confirm has no issues, and finding someone with no issues whatsoever seems rather difficult. So maybe it’s about raising your kid not to have no issues but to have the most optimal issues. But what are the most optimal issues? The easiest ones to get rid of in adulthood? The least-obvious ones? I just wonder what makes someone an inherently bad grower, but I guess that wondering comes with the binary classification-component of bad vs good.
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Knowledge Bytes
Here are some recommendations from the month!
- Great recipe: Make lemonade. Add 5-6 raspberries to the cup. Smash them with a spoon. Stir the lemonade. Delicious.
- Great blog: bookbear express by noampomsky. So thoughtful and interesting. I 100% recommend it.
- Good activity: Running is underrated and so mind-clearing. Just began training for cross-country and I love it!
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Shoutouts
Here are some fun shoutouts:
Thank you Dr. Wolfe for all your help with Biotein’s experiments - the advice and the troubleshooting help have been INSANELY valuable! Thank you.
Thank you 1517 for helping us with raising money and making time out of your day to speak to prospective investors!
Thank you Ben Nashman for all your help with troubleshooting experiments - your mental models and thought-process-help was so helpful!
I repeat: I am obsessed with Biotein hahaha.
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 June, I’ll be working on Biotein, going to a cool 2-week sleepaway program in Pennsylvania, beginning an internship, and more!
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)