PhD| Scicomm. Consultant @IAVI Past: @Sci_Rio @igibsocial @IITKgp @MohandasCollege @KVS_HQ
India 🇮🇳
Joined February 2024
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Glad to have been the project lead on putting together this report, which gave me the feel of how to look at country wide data and tell a compelling story with a cascading impact.
Thanks to the @Sci_Rio team, especially @ChampakSuchitha and @smarter_INDIANS for closing this 🎉
Dedicated the #UMMID (Unique Methods of Management of Inherited Disorders) Programme for Rare Genetic Disorders/ Diseases to the Nation. Possibly the first of it's kind, the programme has been designed by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science & Technology.
My Address Takeaways:
"India is steadily entering an era where healthcare, diagnosis and treatment will increasingly become genome-based, precision-driven and individualized according to the genetic profile of every patient.
Inherited Rare Genetic Disorders or Diseases remained neglected for decades because diagnosis itself was difficult, treatment inaccessible and medicines either unavailable or prohibitively expensive, making it essential to build a coordinated national mechanism to make diagnosis and management feasible, affordable and accessible for all families.
Rare Genetic Disorders represent a silent but deeply challenging public health burden, where families often spend years moving from one hospital to another in search of diagnosis and treatment. Despite affecting comparatively smaller populations, these disorders impose enormous emotional, social and financial hardship on affected families.
UMMID is a major step towards mitigation of the ordeal of families affected by Rare Genetic Disorders , and in general also towards the future of precision medicine in India, the Minister said the initiative would also prepare the country’s healthcare ecosystem for the next generation of gene and genome-based medical care".
It was quite a horizon-expanding workshop on "Regulatory Pathways, Strategies & Experiential Learning for Development of Therapeutics & Vaccine Technologies" held today at the @Nams_India, put together by the teams of Dr. Suchita Markan and Dr. Taruna Madan Gupta.
The workshop was held under the banner of Medtech Mitra, a joint initiative of @NITIAayog, @ICMRDELHI and @CDSCO_INDIA_INF.
Addresses by Dr. Rajeev Raghuvanshi (DCGI CDSCO), Dr. Rajiv Bahl (Sec DHR & DG ICMR) and Aman Sharma (Joint Sec DoP) set the stage for event.
Special mention to sessions by Dr. Mukesh Gupta and Dr. Nivedita Gupta which opened up practical aspects of vaccine evaluation and approval.
Glad to have attended the sessions with stellar colleagues Dr Shweta Chatrath and Jessy Joseph, MD from @IAVI India.
Our team at @IAVI India is looking for a pair of watchful and discerning eyes 👀
Check out this ad for Research Associate, Discovery R&D: recruiting.ultipro.com/INT10…
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
"Do your own research," they said.
So I did
28 years, a medical degree, a PhD, and three postgraduate diplomas in infectious diseases later, I conclude that vaccines save millions of lives and do not cause autism.
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
We underestimate how much human potential gets crushed by the struggle to survive. Somewhere, there’s a genius working double shifts who hasn’t had the energy to create anything in months because they’re too fucking exhausted just trying to stay afloat.
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
Very bad news for the international PhD students in the US:
A new Proposed Rule requires $70,000 in fees for an OPT application.
Let’s say you’re a PhD graduate. If you want to stay in the US after graduation, the New Rule will require you to pay $70,000 if you want to work as a postdoc or in industry.
Technically, OPT extends your ‘educational’ status.
Normally, as a PhD student, you’re on a J-1 or F-1 visa.
After defense, you often apply for an Optional Practical Training (OPT) to continue your visa status. It allows you to be hired in a company or university (e.g. as a postdoc) for several years before you can get a green card or another status (like H1B).
📍 If the proposed rule is enacted:
- The vast majority of international PhD students will leave the country after graduation.
- Far fewer international students will be signing up for PhD programs in the US from abroad.
Personally, I don’t understand it.
Why paying so much for top-tier education & training, and then WASTING it all by not letting people stay and build technologies for the country?
These barriers will deter so many bright talents... Very sad.
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
Ok. I’ve spent a whole day celebrating Karl Deisseroth’s very deserved Nobel (with every other brain enthusiast!). Now let’s talk about the brilliance of Dr. Michelle Monje, his wife.
A Stanford physician, neuroscientist and recipient of a MacArthur Genius grant, Michelle has helped pioneer cancer neuroscience, revealing how brain activity can fuel tumor growth and opening new possibilities for treatment.
And I say all this because I’ve been lucky to see her work firsthand and have been awe struck since the moment I met her. What makes Michelle extraordinary is the combination of scientific brilliance and her absolute unwavering commitment to children with devastating brain cancers. She is pushing the science forward because those children and their families cannot afford to wait.
Everybody deserves to know @michelle_monje.
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
Excited to share my publication LncRNA TAAL Regulates TIE1-Mediated Vascular Remodeling and Is Associated With Diabetic Retinopathy in ATVB ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/… @MotianiRaj1 @sridharsivasubb @vinodscaria @ikaurs2009 @unescorcb #lncRNA #zebrafish #Retinopathy
Super happy to be featured on a website for @mukerjim which was a Teacher's Day gift from her students at @iitjodhpur with an all-science-capturing logo ❤️
Quite lovely to see the creative cake and the card too 🤩
Check out the website here: sites.google.com/iitj.ac.in/…
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
Lalremsiami from Mizoram.
Salman Khan from Uttar Pradesh.
Ancy Sojan from Kerala.
Gurvindervir Singh from Punjab.
Yashvir Singh from Haryana.
So many more stories.
India - in all her glory - stood on the podium. 😍🇮🇳
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
150K visits on my first vibe project in 24hrs.
💀This is crazy, look at the feature death list requests:
1. The Death Clock: Prediction of "Runway Remaining" based on burn rate and last funding date.
2. Mass Exodus Tracker: Alerts when headcount drops >15% in a single month (The "Sinking Ship" signal).
3. The Pivot Detector: Flags desperate business model shifts (e.g., changing bio from "Crypto" to "AI").
4. Silence Watch: Identifies "Zombie" companies: site is up, but zero blog posts or tweets for >6 months.
5. Bubble Heatmap: Visualizes sectors with massive funding inflow but low revenue/traffic metrics.
6. The Ratio of Doom: High Valuation vs. Low Employee count anomalies (The "Paper Unicorn" detector).
7. VC Widowmakers: Tracks which Venture Capital firms have the highest portfolio failure rates.
8. Clone Wars Casualties: A catalog of failed "Uber for X" clones in fragmented markets (Asia/Africa).
9. Crypto Graveyard: Dedicated archive for the thousands of dead Web3, NFT, and DAO projects.
10. Talent Auction: A feed of engineering teams currently being laid off from collapsing firms.
11. IP & Domain Sale: Marketplace for the assets of liquidated companies (The true "Loot Drop").
12. Deadware Index: Catalog of open-source tools and libraries abandoned by failed startups.
13. Autopsy Reports: Verified founders anonymously submit "Why we actually failed" stories.
14. Short Seller Leaderboard: Users vote/bet on which "Hype" startup will fold next.
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
Reaching a century on this planet is a momentous milestone, but filling those 100 years with pioneering science, visionary institution-building, and relentless curiosity makes it truly extraordinary. Dr G P Talwar is a legend. I write here about him in @the_hindu
Since joining the founding faculty of AIIMS New Delhi, G.P. Talwar has never stopped working at the bench. Along the way, he developed the world’s first leprosy vaccine, a hormonal birth control vaccine, founded India’s first immunology institution, mentored hundreds of students, and continues his research as he begins his second century.
✍️ @dineshcsharma
thehindu.com/sci-tech/health…
The fact that I have met Dr. Nivedita Gupta for official purpose (and probably will again) and could have known about her personal sacrifices only through this movie is a reminder that we don't celebrate our scientists enough and that science story telling needs to happen better.
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
We have Brahmins who have dominated all institutions of science & tech for 80 years tell you that India lags behind in tech because of reservations, and Baniyas who have done the same for trade and industry tell you that India is poor because of democracy and welfare schemes.
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
For any athlete or fan, nothing is more satisfying than seeing your country’s flag on top! 🇮🇳
- Just look at the raw emotions of India’s 4x400m Gold-winning team! 🥹🥇
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
Vithya Ramraj just broke PT Usha’s 42-year-old national record in the 400m hurdles: 54.75 seconds. The record had stood since the 1984 LA Olympics.
The real story is her twin sister, Nithya Ramraj. Nithya works at the Income Tax Department. When Vithya had no national camp support, Nithya quietly paid for all her training from her own salary.
Maybe that’s the beautiful thing about siblings: your dream can become their dream too.
Samatha Mathew (She/her) retweeted
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt