Well hello there!
We started the day off strong with a delicious breakfast from our lovely hosts at Inspiration house. The bananas are becoming a crowd favorite and we’re starting to adjust to the local cuisine. Then we made our way over to the LAICO building to hear the last of the undergraduate presentations. Alex kicked off this morning’s session with his talk on mesenchymal stem cells that inspired a great deal of discussion from the panelists and observing faculty, which he fielded expertly. Harsh followed this up spectacularly with a similar expertise in his proposal on Vitamin A deficiency. Emma presented on sex differences in Leber’s disease and impressed both the students and experts with her knowledge of such a novel topic and her pronunciation of LHONS (roar).
After a quick coffee and tea break (we’ve mostly all become tea converts) it was my (Aila’s) turn to present on TUBGCP4, a very niche and understudied topic leaving many without questions. Everyone, including the Aravind students, agreed the overall experience thus far has been incredibly educational during the whole group discussion period. Each student was invited to speak about their feelings on the event, what they have learned, and were invited to share any future changes to improve the (already fantastic) program. This time also included a lovely comment by Professor Carey that we were “the best the United States had to offer,” which we won’t say we necessarily agree with, but certainly won’t be arguing against either.
After a lunch break we were off to tour the varying research labs Aravind has to offer ranging from microbiology to pharmaceuticals to bioinformatics. We got to see many familiar faces from the panels and Aravind student poster session last night! It was amazing to see the depth of the work being carried out at Aravind with the goal of improving the lives of their patients. This research center focuses on research topics that can have direct and immediate impacts on their patient populations. We were also all incredibly impressed by their in-house Sanger sequencing machine and poster of the entire human genome. Not to be upstaged, Mirelle got shouted out by Dr. P. Sundaresan for being a young Whoopy Golberg look alike. Before the last lab visit we got the chance to see a beautiful sunset across the Madurai skyline and had a peak of the Meenakshi temple which we will be visiting tomorrow so look forward to hearing about that from Alex and Caitlin 😉
Then to close off this remarkable two-day event, we hopped in a bus and drove across town to the Banyan restaurant which held, “more food than I’ve ever seen in one place,” according to Caitlin. We had the privilege of eating alongside Dr. Prajna and Dr. Chidambaranathan who shared with us wonderful stories about the Indian education system and meeting the Queen of England! The food was delicious, but to Harsh, the best part of dinner was the ice cream, for which he really took “all you can eat” to heart. (See image). With Dawn’s suggestion, we got a great picture in front of the Banyan house and saw the stunning pool and ancient tree for which the hotel and restaurant are named.
On the way home, we realized our bus was no ordinary bus. It was, in fact, a party bus! So we felt it was only right to take full advantage of all this bus had to offer. We had the lights and disco ball rollin’ and Katie on aux playing some American classics. She kicked us off strong with Party in the USA which we now all know choreographed dance moves to, so we did the seated version. We then moved into cult classics such as Chicken Fried by Zac Brown Band, Firework by Katy Perry, Timber by Pitbull, Drop It Like It’s Hot by Snoop Dogg, and, of course, All I Want for Christmas by Mariah Carey. Mirelle graced us with some… interesting vocals, to which Alex responded, “It’s a good thing you’re going to medical school.” However, that didn’t stop Dr. Zegans from proclaiming us the best class thus far. (Double wins from the professors today). This concluded our lovely night after a little reflection, and we’re looking forward to some sightseeing tomorrow as well as Dr. Zegans’ and Katie’s talks!
Signing off!
Kidist and Aila