Rohini Balakrishan - Session 02

OH-002-1-2

(00:00:00) Visit to Madurai Kamaraj University

Rohini says that from a very young age she wanted to study animals. After completing a bachelor’s degree, the only option that seemed available was a master’s in Zoology. Came to know of the work of MK Chandrashekaran, bat biologist at Madurai Kamaraj University, wanted to study animal behaviour under him. Says that Bangalore University released marks very late and she missed cut-off date for admissions at many universities, including at Madurai Kamaraj University.

(00:06:41) Doing a Masters

Rohini went to University of Pune’s Zoology department, met its head Sohan Modak, a developmental and molecular biologist who had recently returned from Switzerland. Missed the deadline for admissions, but he got her admission to the master’s course.

First year – studied invertebrate zoology, genetics and other courses that were standard at the time. Second year – had to choose a specialisation. There was no course on ecology evolution, ended up picking molecular and developmental biology.

That year (Archivist’s Note: 1985) Biotechnology as a course was first introduced in India and hers was one of the first few universities to offer it – this brought in more young students from outside Pune, and Rohini made close friends among them.

(00:12:36) Modak as a mentor

While studying molecular and developmental biology, Rohini says she learned how to do DNA extraction. Did her dissertation on chick embryology with Modak as her mentor. Describes Modak as a brilliant, unorthodox teacher with a scary style of mentoring and who could be sexist and verbally inappropriate – says, “In those days, that was the way things were”.

Second year of second semester, contracted a bad case of hepatitis and had to go home. Ended up missing three months of class, thought she would lose the year, but decided to attempt writing the exams as she “really wanted to get out”. Says she was burned out, stressed out, and didn’t enjoy what she was studying. Says Modak made it possible for her to write the exams, even though she didn’t have the required attendance, and she received a first class.

(00:16:22) Visit to IISc

Rohini wondered what to do next – a PhD wasn’t really on her mind as she was still ill, but knew she wanted to go back to doing behaviour and ecology. She came to Bangalore to the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES) at IISc, to attend a summer workshop conducted by her mentor Raghavendra Gadagkar.

Says her one saving grace during her final year of undergrad was the weekends, when she would climb over the wall of Mount Carmel College at 5.30 am when the nuns were at Mass, and walk to IISc. She would join Gadagkar, who had finished a PhD and had just started working at IISc’s Centre for Theoretical Studies, on the IISc campus to go bird-watching. Says he introduced her to the things he worked on – insect and bird diversity, and wasp behaviour.

(00:22:39) Applying to TIFR

Rohini applied to CES, IISc and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) on her father’s urging. Says that though TIFR asked for a recommendation letter, she had had a falling out of sorts with Modak and didn’t ask him for one. Was upset that she didn’t get into CES, where Gadagkar, Madhav Gadgil and Father Saldana worked at the time, but attended the interview for TIFR. Says M M Johri and P K Maitra asked her why she didn’t have a recommendation letter and asked her to arrange for one – to which she said she would not. Says she was quite rude in the interview, was sure she didn’t want to go to TIFR, but she got offered admission.

Before that, while working on her Masters, she says she tried to see if she could do a PhD from the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), but she believes that they didn’t encourage her to do so because she was a woman. Wildlife Institute of India (WII) was just starting at the time but didn’t have actual programs – there was a gharial project in the Chambal Valley but her parents didn’t want her to take it up as they felt it was unsafe.

The only door that seemed open was TIFR, and she says her father and Gadagkar encouraged her to join. She says the only labs she could have thought of working in were Obaid Siddiqui’s and Veronica Rodrigues’, because they were the only ones working on anything connected to behaviour.

(00:31:05) Working with Veronica Rodrigues

Joined Rodrigues’ lab without much interest in genetics and without having met Rodrigues. Says she sparred with Rodrigues on “just about everything”, because of a difference in personalities and because both were young and inexperienced. Describes Rodrigues as someone who worked very hard, was deeply passionate about science, ambitious, and expected the same from her students. Says she was also “a bit of a slave-driver”, impatient, though very hands-on. Rohini says that when she became a mentor herself, she decided “I will never do this”.

After two years they didn’t have results – Rodrigues had used techniques to map the olfactory system in drosophila, and Rohini was trying to do brain mapping of the taste [gustatory system] coding using similar techniques that were “state-of-the-art” at the time but also “very iffy” as the two systems were organised in different ways. A thesis committee was instituted and Rohini says at the meeting they were “so horrid” to her. Says she was fed up, told herself she would quit her PhD, stopped going to the lab for a week.

According to Rohini, K VijayRaghavan had just joined TIFR, Rodrigues sent him to speak to her and convince her to continue. Says she decided to give it another try on one condition – no more thesis committees, she was going to formulate her own project and do it her way.

[00:38:55 - 00:39:12 – Restricted access. Contact archives@ncbs.res.in]

(00:41:31) Reworking her thesis to focus on pleiotropic effects in drosophila

Says she started working on something slightly different from what others were doing, which VijayRaghavan mentioned years later in a talk as being ahead of its time – pleiotropic effects in Drosophila.

Says Siddiqi was her formal guide as Rodrigues was not yet registered as a guide, though they wrote the papers together.

The way Siddiqi and Rodrigues approached sensory processing of taste and smell was to use a chemical mutagen, hit a random molecule, and try to see if it causes a defect in smell or taste and try to figure out physiological implications. Rohini’s argument was that in sensory processing, it was possible to look at mutations in molecules in other sensory systems which had not so far been shown to have an effect on smell or taste. Because there were ‘building blocks’ – components that are likely to be common and reused across different sensory systems and pathways – many other kinds of mutants could be involved in these pathways [related to smell and taste] as well.

She enjoyed the work and found it intellectually challenging, learnt several things on her own including neurobiology and Mendelian genetics. Says she typed her thesis on Jayant B Udgaonkar’s computer, took and developed her own photographs, and submitted her PhD on time – in five years.

(00:54:57) Switching fields and looking for a postdoc position

Rohini says she was looking to move fields – no more chemosensory work – and two things really excited her, animal navigation and animal communication. Started to look for people who worked in these fields and wrote to them. Was taken up with Rüdiger Wehner’s work on ant navigation. Got the chance to go to a workshop in Trieste at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). Wehner paid for her to go from Italy to Switzerland, she gave a talk on genetics in Zurich, met Wehner, who she describes as someone who remains inspiring and encouraging. He didn’t have the money for a position for her, they wrote a grant proposal together for a postdoc fellowship, but didn’t get it. She visited a couple of labs in Germany as well. Spent the year after her PhD writing proposals but nothing worked out. Looked through ads in Nature and Science and saw an ad for a position in Gerry Pollack’s [Archivist’s Note: Gerald S Pollack] lab at McGill, Montreal to do neurobiology – electrophysiology. Acoustics in crickets, but on a neural basis. Says she wrote a letter saying her background was in genetics, the position was for an electrophysiologist, but her interest was in communication and behaviour. She got the position.

(01:07:08) Working with Gerry Pollack in Montreal

Says Pollack taught her how to mentor someone and be “really really nice” doing it. After the hierarchical structure at TIFR it was a different feeling. Had to adjust to living in a new country, cold weather, not everyone spoke English. “Felt very looked after” for the next three years, describes Pollack as a very affectionate and caring person.

Says Gerry was fine with her doing work that he wasn’t doing or interested in – which was “quite unusual”. She worked on behaviour, looked at courtship and courtship songs in crickets. She learned about acoustics, how to do behavioural experiments, animal communication. Not yet out in the field, but more in line with what she wanted to do.

When leaving Montreal she asked Pollack why he picked her for the position. Says he told her that he received over 60 applications, picked her because she had good recommendations and because of her letter – it was honest. Says he told her he didn’t regret picking her, but wanted to tell her two things: one that she was a first-rate behaviourist and a third-rate electrophysiologist. He saw that she didn’t have enough passion for the latter, and encouraged her to stick to behaviour. And second, he thought she wouldn’t be happy in the academic world in North America.

(01:17:15) Meeting Dagmar von Helversen

When reading up on acoustics in insects, she saw papers by a woman named Dagmar von Helverson – “they were just something apart”, clever and elegant but also hard. Says Pollack told her that Von Helversen was one of the finest neurorethologists in the entire field but didn’t have a formal position – her husband, Otto was a professor at Erlangen, they had three children so she worked when she could, was productive but didn’t get the recognition she should have. Rohini wanted to meet her, Pollack invited Von Helversen to McGill on a three-month fellowship and she accepted. Rohini says meeting, talking to, arguing with her, watching her work was “amazing”. Describes her as attentive to detail, polite and humane. Says they hit it off as people and as scientists. Von Helversen encouraged her to work with her in Germany.

Rohini began applying in different places for a second postdoc position hoping to go to Germany. Says she applied to 30-40 labs, was rejected by all of them, her visa was about to run out. Decided to go home to her parents in Bombay and figure out what to do next, booked her ticket home and emailed Von Helversen to let her know.

Says that ten days before she was to leave she got a reply from Von Helversen – “and honestly that email changed my life”. It was one sentence, saying that Von Helversen was sorry nothing had worked out but since Rohini was flying home through Germany, if she decided to get off that plane in Germany, she wouldn’t let her starve.

(01:27:12) Working in Germany with the Von Helversens

Rohini got off the plane in Frankfurt with two suitcases, took a train to Nuremberg, von Helversen picked her up at the station. Von Helversen found her a small room to stay in temporarily. Says there was no talk of positions or money. Otto’s was a large lab with 20-25 students, all German, most didn’t speak English, but – “The whole lab got together to keep me afloat.” Otto didn’t have a formal position for her, paid the equivalent of a daily wage. Rohini was fine with it. Says the two years in Germany were the best of her life. “If I really learned where to do science well, it was with Otto and Dagmar.” Says every last point would be dissected and argued, but without rancour. “That’s something I carry with me, and that’s something I hope I pass on.”

2020-08-21

Oral History: History of Science

Rohini Balakrishan

Rohini Balakrishan - Session 02