As a Biotechnology major with a minor in Law and Public Policy, Maya Nivarthi (B.S. ’24) has been determined to explore challenges and opportunities in the biotech field since she was a freshman.
Nivarthi’s passion for science was established at her science fair presentations in middle school and continued in the following years as she taught science-based activities for children.
Combining her love of science with an interest in public policy, Nivarthi knew that a Biotechnology degree within the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington was what she was looking for. She chose IU in part because it gave her a chance to major solely in a biotech program.
“I loved that biotechnology was offered as a major,” she said, “allowing me to translate my passion for science into an applicable and life-changing field.”
Nivarthi was also intrigued by the Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Experience (ASURE), a program designed to grant freshmen and sophomores access to labs and get hands-on experience with research across a range of fields and disciplines. She joined a biotechnology lab led by Professor Ankur Dalia and learned first-hand how to work on creating a transposon mutant library of amino acid auxotrophs.
“We then used those auxotrophs as bio-reporters,” she said, “to quantify the amino acid content in various solutions and medias by performing growth assays. My group specifically determined the concentrations of methionine, arginine, asparagine, and threonine in apple and orange juice.”
As part of the Tuli Lab, led by Professor Tuli Mukhopadhyay in the Department of Biology, Nivarthi gained experience in a lab setting, assisting in Dr. Tuli’s research on the stages of alphavirus assembly and spread.
All students who assist in Dr. Tuli’s lab have the opportunity to pursue research and projects that align with their own scientific interests; Nivarthi’s favorite research project was investigating second-site revertants of a Sindbis virus as she tried to understand what parts of a genome are involved with viral growth and infection.
“Throughout my time in [Dr. Tuli’s] lab,” she said, “I learned many wet lab skills including RNA isolation, cDNA synthesis, PCR amplification, and DNA sequencing and analysis.”
This semester, she looks forward to training on how to use the transmission electron microscope as she images viruses.
“My time in the Tuli Lab has set me up to be a better scientist and learner by emphasizing the importance of asking questions about the science and to really think deeply about why different things are happening, even when experiments seem to not work as expected,” Nivarthi said.
As a recipient of the Lawrence M. Blatt Biotechnology Internship Fund, she had the opportunity to be a science communication intern for the National Park Service and Environment for the Americas, part of the Mosaics in Science program.
Stationed in Harrison, Nebraska at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Nivarthi was given the freedom to pursue multiple projects over the course of the summer. She developed a herbarium collection, providing a snapshot of the biodiversity present throughout the national monument site, created a Nature Observations Field Journal for children visiting Agate, and added botany related interpretive materials to the various trails nearby.
Nivarthi’s internship culminated in a presentation, “Developing an Herbarium Collection with a Focus on Ethnobotany and Scientific Communication,” that she gave to peers from different parks sites and Department of the Interior employees. The herbarium – a collection of dried plants that are carefully labeled, providing a record of the biodiversity in a certain location – was her main research focus and was made available to visitors.
“Since one of my focuses was scientific communication,” said Nivarthi, “each herbarium slide had a written description of the the scientific plant morphology of each specimen, geographical identification of where the specimen was found, and the ethnobotanical significance to the Oglala Lakota indigenous peoples. Ethnobotany is basically the study of how people have special uses for plants that are often culturally significant and include uses such as medicines, dyes, building materials, and food.”
Her herbarium collection has been digitized and is available online.
Nivarthi took this internship knowing it would move her temporarily out of her comfort zone of biotechnology research.
“If it sounds a little different than my biotechnology coursework and other research and internship experiences, it’s because it is!” she explained. “I wanted to explore another field of science that I hadn’t had the chance to yet, and I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors and appreciated conservation efforts.”
“I also believe that scientific communication is valuable because it allows people from non-science backgrounds to interact with science and the world in new ways, and that’s something that made me want to pursue this opportunity.”
Graduating this spring, Nivarthi will be joining Eli Lilly and Company after graduation as a Scientist I in the Manufacturing and Quality Department.
“I’m looking forward to learning a lot and contributing to the amazing scientific innovation happening there.”