{"id":21652,"date":"2016-11-07T15:40:36","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T14:40:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emblog.embl.de\/ells\/?post_type=schoolambassador&#038;p=21652"},"modified":"2021-06-18T16:16:02","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T16:16:02","slug":"embl-school-ambassador-profile-heena-khatter","status":"publish","type":"ambassadors","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/ells\/ambassadors\/embl-school-ambassador-profile-heena-khatter\/","title":{"rendered":"EMBL School Ambassador Heena Khatter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"vf-tabs\"><ul class=\"vf-tabs__list\" data-vf-js-tabs=\"true\"><li class=\"vf-tabs__item\"><a class=\"vf-tabs__link\" href=\"#vf-tabs__section-c670fc08-dca6-40e3-b60f-eeee5e0c4863\">Profile<\/a><\/li><li class=\"vf-tabs__item\"><a class=\"vf-tabs__link\" href=\"#vf-tabs__section-3ba6ede8-aecb-4475-9959-6a89b1124eea\">Diary<\/a><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"vf-tabs-content\" data-vf-js-tabs-content=\"true\">\n<section class=\"vf-tabs__section\" id=\"vf-tabs__section-c670fc08-dca6-40e3-b60f-eeee5e0c4863\"><h2>Profile<\/h2>\n<p>I am Heena Khatter, an interdisciplinary postdoctoral fellow in the groups of Christoph Mueller and Christian Haering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was born and brought up in Delhi, India where I also pursued my bachelors and masters studies in biochemistry. During my studies, I had the chance to be involved in scientific research, which I really enjoyed and motivated me to pursue my PhD. To expand my experience and competitiveness in the global research community, I decided to start a PhD in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I moved from one of the largest metropolitans in India, to a small town in the heart of Europe, Strasbourg. There at the IGBMC, I worked on the translation machinery in a cell, studying the structure-function relationship of the human ribosome. After my doctorate, I stayed for another six months to complete the on-going projects, and then moved to EMBL, Heidelberg, for my postdoc. Here, I am currently studying the structural and functional aspects of the transcription machinery in yeast cells and its link to the chromosome condensation pathway.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n<section class=\"vf-tabs__section\" id=\"vf-tabs__section-3ba6ede8-aecb-4475-9959-6a89b1124eea\"><h2>Diary<\/h2>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>&#8220;The Central Dogma in Biology (The finely orchestrated ballet inside a cell)&#8221;<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe that all of us scientists pursuing basic research also have a duty towards the general public &#8211; make them aware of how our work is important and of relevance to them. And what can be a better start than engaging with an audience of young motivated students?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ELLS gave me the opportunity to do this &#8211; Eva Haas put me in touch with Dr. Ullrich Treubert-Zimmermann, a biology teacher at the AKG Bensheim, who invited me to talk about my work at his school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So in October 2016 I visited the AKG Bensheim for a presentation to the school students and the local audience. I focused on the central dogma in molecular biology, covering my PhD and current work. I started with a general introduction, comparing the functioning of a cell to a city &#8211; with the various compartments in the cell being very much like the different departments in a city. Focusing on the nucleus, I explained the process of transcription and translation in a cell. To make it more visual, I made use of a Youtube video that highlighted how the synchronized activities of the RNA polymerase during transcription and the ribosome during translation lead to the production of every protein in a cell. Despite my initial fears, the students responded really well and wanted to know more! So, I talked about Cryo Electron Microscopy (or cryo-EM for short) &#8211; the major technique I use for visualizing structural details of my protein complexes &#8211; and showed them how I used cryo-EM to determine the structure of the human ribosome during my PhD project. The reaction of the students on seeing the atomic details was awe-inspiring and it really paid off. In the long run, we tend to lose the enthusiasm and the passion we had for research. And this was the spark I saw in the eyes of the students!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/ells\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/DSC05270-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-751\"\/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">Heena introducing the audience to EMBL (image copyright: U. Treubert-Zimmermann)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>At the end of the talk, there were a lot of questions and a very enthusiastic discussion about scientific research. They asked about the biological implementations in the pharmaceutical companies and technical questions about how a microscope works (which meant they did understand what I explained). They were also very curious about some general aspects of how the research environment is, if I work alone on the projects, how is it to work in a group and how to decide which laboratory you want to join. This is the part that I enjoyed the most. It was a highly rewarding experience and I would highly recommend scientists to try an outreach activity, to explain your work without scientific jargons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before the talk, a woman from the audience had asked me \u201cif this would be like a TED talk about the central dogma in molecular biology\u201d. With the questions, and the response from the audience I believe, it indeed was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"vf-figure wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" class=\"vf-figure__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/ells\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/DSC_0935-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-750\"\/><figcaption class=\"vf-figure__caption\">Heena introducing the audience to EMBL (image copyright: U. Treubert-Zimmermann)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":833,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-21652","ambassadors","type-ambassadors","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","country-india"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/ells\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ambassadors\/21652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/ells\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ambassadors"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/ells\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ambassadors"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/ells\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/ells\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}