Hey!

What eggs did the evil chicken lay? Deviled eggs :). (hehe)

Welcome back to my newsletter. Hope you had a wonderful and relaxing August.

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, made significant progress on college essays, started school again, worked on my internship at the Boyden lab, and researched into brain aging!

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Biotein

We’ve been working on getting IRB approval for our initial and long-term studies. If you want to sign up to donate saliva, we’d love to have you fill out the form (this is an official ‘yes’ to giving saliva): https://forms.gle/A7hzyNSo2mC3B6Pu5. We’ve also gotten some more information about the costs of the studies we’re hoping to do, and are starting to raise $15-30K! If you know of any applicable funding opportunities, please do let us know about them!

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Mindsets and Philosophy

Here are some thoughts I’ve been having!

You are the content you consume. If you watch a bunch of depressing things, you’re not going to be very happy. If you watch a lot of videos about competitive soccer, you’ll think a lot about soccer. Humans absorb their environment and influences, and, in my opinion, it’s hard to be immune. As a result of this realization, I’ve started to make sure I consume positive and helpful content - when I start to watch something, I like to ask myself about how I’d feel about my life if that was all I watched 24/7. Of course, that’s a little harsh, but I think it is helpful.
Consistency is so much better than motivation. Motivation is fleeting, it can escape you easily. But consistency is dedication. You’re not going to like the things you do every single day. But you will like them sometimes. And they’ll make your life better in the long run. That’s why they count :).

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Knowledge Bytes

Here are some recommendations from the month!

- Interesting time-management technique: Pomodoro. I find that each time-management method is geared to a different area of weakness, and I think Pomodoro is perfect for people who procrastinate/find it hard to commit to doing 3h of work upfront. 25 minutes is easy to commit to, and you get breaks as well!

- Interesting Youtube channel #1: 3Blue1Brown. Fascinating videos on linear algebra and the beauty of math overall! Very intuitive explanations.

- Interesting Youtube channel #2: Journey to the Microcosmos! Random, but bacteria are fascinating and the videos they upload are so detailed and cool.

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Shoutouts

Here are some fun shoutouts:

Thank you to St. Lawrence Health for all your help with and advice regarding our upcoming studies!
Thank you to the Biotein team for our interesting ideation sessions re dementia!
Thank you to Gerardo for all your help on our lateral flow specification planning for Biotein!

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 October, I’ll be working more on Biotein, continuing school, and working on college-related tasks!

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

School, Success, and Studying : September