Hello friends 👋
In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr Amee Amin, who is now a third year Neonatology fellow at Texas Children’s Hospital. Amee talked about her fellowship project on implementing a novel continuous respiratory rate monitor for low- and middle-income countries. She discussed her experience working with her mentors at Texas Children’s on implementing this project. She shared her experience finding the right mentor and how that impacted her career significantly. We dove into discussing how her interest in global health started, where she shared her involvement in various projects in India, Malawi and Sierra Leone, which laid a strong foundation in choosing this pathway of research during her fellowship. Amee shared her experiences visiting global health sites during her fellowship and was excited to describe her experience at the Tiny Feet Big Steps conference held at Aruba last month. Amee also provides some insights and pointers for incoming fellows interested in neonatal global health research!
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Short Bio: Dr. Amee Amin was born in Kenya, and raised in Tanzania, East Africa. She has spent her formative years in UK, India, and now lives in USA where she is a board certified Pediatrician, and is currently completing her Fellowship training in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at Texas Children's Hospital. Her diverse background has led to her passion for Neonatal Global Health, specifically improving newborn outcomes in low resource NICUs. Her academic portfolio thus far includes projects in India, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and she has presented her work at many national and international conferences.
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The transcript of today's episode can be found below 👇
Srirupa (00:01.278)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the fellow series of the incubator podcast. My name is Sri Rupa Hari Gopal, very lovingly and commonly called as Rupa. I will be hosting this particular series of the incubator podcast. And I'm very excited to highlight all of you fellows and your amazing work that you've done in the last three and sometimes in the last two years of your career. This is a platform just for fellows. This is a platform where fellows would take this opportunity to like
pretty much talk about their passions and various aspects of neonatal research. I'm very excited to highlight all of you. And without further ado, I'd like to welcome our first guest of the series, Dr. Ami Amin. Dr. Ami Amin and I go a long way, and we've been fellows back at Texas Children's Hospital, and we are very proud to be associated with TCH. So yay, TCH.
And I'd like to first introduce Ami and then give her the platform to talk about amazing global health research that she's been doing with TCH. So Ami was born in Kenya and she has a very diverse background, which kind of explains why she loves global health research so much. Born in Kenya, raised in Tanzania, East Africa, and she spent a lot of her years in UK, in India, and now in the US where she is currently a board certified.
pediatrician and doing her third year neonatology fellowship at Texas Children's Hospital. She has done some amazing academic projects with global health research and is currently doing a project specifically implementing a novel continuous respiratory rate monitor intended for low and middle income countries, which is a device pilot study. So welcome to our show Ami, how is your life going?
Amee Amin (01:45.87)
Thank you. Thank you so much, Rupa, for that kind welcome. It's going great. Actually just came back from a recent Global Health trip too. So really excited to be featured on your podcast today.
Srirupa (01:55.74)
No, that's wonderful. And we're going to talk a lot about that trip as well. But how about you tell us a little bit more about your project?
Amee Amin (02:02.788)
Absolutely. So as we know, neonatal deaths do account for more than 50 % of under age five mortality. And when we look at these deaths, over 80 % of them occur in low and middle income countries. And most of these are preventable causes. So having this background, was really important for me to see how we could help address these preventable causes and how we could improve neonatal outcomes in these low and middle income countries. One of the NICUs in entire Malawi that I visited, I realized they don't have any form of
vital monitoring. They have spot check, Q4 vital, even for infants on oxygen. And especially with low income countries, there's a very low nurse to lots of high patient number work ratios. And so it's very hard for these nurses to be able to give individual attention. So to address this need, we partnered with our colleagues at Rice 360 at Rice University.
and developed a continuous low cost respiratory rate monitor. It is basically consisting of an inertial measurement unit sensor. And these are very commonly used sensors in our smartwatches, our Fitbits, our cell phones that can easily identify displacement movement. And so we thought, why not use these sensors, place it on a little belt around the infant's abdomen. And through every breath that they take, the sensors are able to make the displacement and actually calculate it.
respiratory rate.
as simple as a silicone belt, two sensors, and a battery-operated device to meet the constraints of a low resource NICU. We created this device and we implemented it for set-taxed children at our home hospital, ensured that it was accurate and it was safe to be used, and then I was able to actually travel to Blantyre, Malawi, where we tried the device out on infants over there. We monitored them on the device and we were actually able to extract data to show its accuracy.
Amee Amin (03:58.052)
That was a really cool project that I got to be a part of.
Srirupa (04:00.592)
No, that's wonderful. And it seems like you have sort of done a pilot part of it at Texas Children's itself to sort of compare it with the low and middle income countries. How was that experience for you trying to implement that or sort of like trial it at a larger hospital?
Amee Amin (04:16.994)
No, absolutely. It was quite an interesting experience. was really worried that babies in our high resource NICUs already hooked up to many monitors and talking to parents about an additional cord and a new device, something experimental, that I may face some challenges. But all the parents were so kind and so encouraging about the project. They were very excited to hear about the project. And so we actually were ahead of our schedule when it came to patient enrollment.
and recruitment mainly because of the kind and generous families. But the goal was if we were able to compare the respiratory rate signals from our device to the impedance demography monitors that our patients already hooked up to, we'd get a good sense of the accuracy and then we could actually take it to the low resource NICUs where there isn't anything for comparison currently. When we think of comparison in those areas, it's usually manual breath counting. And so to compare it to their standards,
Srirupa (05:09.204)
here.
Srirupa (05:13.886)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (05:16.878)
actually placed a webcam on the infant focused mainly on the abdomen so that it retrospectively go back and manually count the breaths for the time that the baby wore a device. So it was really interesting to have sort of both settings involved in our project.
Srirupa (05:21.022)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (05:30.932)
Yeah, yeah. And it seemed like the respiratory rate mean bias was within the UNICEF target product. How did you feel when you saw that?
Amee Amin (05:41.23)
So that was definitely very exciting. When you're working with a new device, you're always hopeful, but you're not really sure how it's going to turn out. So it was really exciting when we had our initial correlation of 0.97, and we were very excited with how closely our manual breath counting and our device respiratory rate, how closely they were. But then when you look at developing a device, going through the regulatory system, a target device that would be considered ideal needs to be at least with a mean bias within plus or minus five breaths.
Srirupa (05:47.753)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (06:07.678)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (06:11.244)
per minute and a relatively acceptable device would still be within plus or minus two breaths per minute. So we were very excited that we were able to fit those parameters and you know be able to start working towards the regulatory part for our device to be enrolled soon.
Srirupa (06:29.042)
No, that's wonderful. Tell me what stage of your enrollment and what stage of your project you are in right now.
Amee Amin (06:34.658)
Yes, absolutely. So as I'm in my third year, I'm trying to wrap everything up. So we have finished our Texas Children's phase. I was even able to travel to Malawi and spend a week there in Blantyre. So we have also been able to complete our enrollment there. I'm now in the very exciting phase of reviewing hours and hours of footage and signal monitoring. so currently I'm just trying to go through all of our data so I can continue processing it and have it all analyzed and ready for my manuscript prior to graduation. So a lot of the field work has been completed but we're still sifting through all the data that we got out of our field work and we still have very strong ties on site at the NICU in Blantyre, Malawi. So if we needed to increase our enrollment or go back for a second phase, we're very excited to be able to continue that relationship.
Srirupa (07:26.792)
No, that's wonderful. I think it sounds like a long and exhausting but exciting, you know, endeavor to do this. So that's wonderful. And just so you all know, I've seen Ami do this looking through a screen full of different, I guess, bars, like, you know, that's how they look like. And it was very interesting when she presented her research at different platforms as to, you know, what those bars mean. And I wish we could show you a visual of how they looked. But I think that
very exciting things coming up for sure. mean, congratulations on your project. So I think one thing that I'd like to also take this opportunity to sort of ask you is about your mentor, because we all, you know, when we start fellowship, I remember the days that we were like, you know, sort of beginning our first month into fellowship and we were
Amee Amin (07:56.952)
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Srirupa (08:13.862)
sort of wide-eyed, pretty much just trying to take all in and like learn about wins, learn about intubations, learn about like having all of these relationships with people. And then all of a sudden this whole mentorship thing is thrown at us and we're like, okay, who do, who can I make my mentor? like, so tell me a little bit about how your process was and knowing that you were interested in global health, how was your process of finding your mentor, how your relationship with your mentor has been and what advice you'd give to any incoming fellow looking for mentors.
Amee Amin (08:43.972)
Absolutely. So I will start with saying I think I got really lucky and so my search was actually not too difficult but when I first started my fellowship at Baylor within the first few weeks I was just talking to my fellowship director and I happened to mention my interest in global health and so she just very casually mentioned that you know we had an attending in our division who had a lot of experience in global health work and that she'd be a great person to maybe you know start a conversation with just reach out to and so I reached out to
I was attending Dr. Monica Patil. Even though our first meeting was virtual, it was a very short Zoom call just to get to know each other, I think I knew right there she was a perfect mentor for me. Even though was our very first meeting, she came in so excited, so encouraging. She had a very diverse background of global health work in many countries in Africa and in India.
And even though she was meeting me for the first time, she had so many ideas. And so her passion for global health neonatal care was so evident and just anyone who I think talks to her or even spends a few minutes with her leaves that conversation feeling they're capable of doing anything under the sun. And so that was really just the perfect match for me. And I'm so glad she's my mentor. And I think after that, everything just fell into place so well. She's been by my side throughout these three years, just trying to help me navigate through designing the project.
actually implementing the project, being able to fly overseas and you know get things going on the ground, finding opportunities for me to present my work and then also just you know
Srirupa (10:13.32)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (10:18.582)
Knowing that my career goals are aligned in Global Health, she's also been so instrumental in helping me find other connections so that I can continue advancing my career. And so I definitely say, finding a strong mentor-mentee relationship is so instrumental in the success of our research project, as well as advancing our career.
Srirupa (10:40.146)
Yeah, no, I'd 100 % agree. I think it plays such a significant role in laying that foundation of you also being a good mentor in your future too, because you've had such great relationship with your mentors that you want to do that for another person. So I do agree that that's such an important and significant part of our lives. And where else can you do that except your fellowship, right? You tend to enjoy that three years of exploring your interests and not very interested things as well, I suppose.
Amee Amin (11:08.12)
Thank
Srirupa (11:08.756)
Okay, so now kind of like going back further before even fellowship, tell me a little bit about one, what got you interested in global health? Because I feel like as Neonatology fellows, we do sometimes have the tendency to like sort of, you know, differentiate research as like basic sciences and clinical research. But you know, there's like things that are beyond basic sciences and clinical research, which is why I wanted you on the show and like,
talking about your experiences, but I would love for you to kind of like highlight what got you interested in global health research and what background work you had done in global research, global health research prior to starting your fellowship, which kind of laid that foundation for you.
Amee Amin (11:50.852)
Absolutely. As you hinted earlier, I do have a very diverse personal background. so having grown up in East Africa, having done my medical education in India, I had a lot of personal ties with both these regions. And I always wanted to find a way to give back to those communities. In sort of the med school, early residency phases, felt like Doctors Without Borders, know, doctors were able to travel back to these places was possibly one way. But it wasn't until I met my very first mentor in
at school who did a lot of research in neonatology that I realized that there were other avenues through which I'd be able to give back to these communities. And so I always knew I wanted to do pediatrics for my specialty. And then my mentor in medical school, who was a neonatologist, Tom Schaeker-Nembalker, introduced me to my very first research project and essentially laid the foundation for me wanting to pursue neonatology. I trained at a rural tertiary care hospital
in Gujarat, India. And so our NICU, though ahead of its times compared to surrounding NICUs, still had a lot of room for growth. And so my initial projects that I started off as a med student were mainly understanding the basic needs, understanding what our
baseline information that we had and understanding baseline perspectives of nursing staff, families, physicians that are involved in neonatal care. So a lot of those initial projects were survey-based. We assessed sort of the stress and professional quality of life for nurses in a low-risk first NICU when they have one nurse to 10 to 20 patients.
Srirupa (13:27.764)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (13:29.326)
We assessed the presence of physicians who championed kangaroo mother care in the NICU and how that increased or encouraged the hours that each parent was able to provide kangaroo mother care. We then also worked on a medical health application. a device that we use in the rural communities to kind of help connect them to tertiary care hospitals so that they would at least have a very basic but helpful triage system to understand.
Srirupa (13:34.452)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (13:40.371)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (13:46.644)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (13:57.843)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (13:58.424)
the child dehydrated? When is the child in respiratory distress? How quickly do they need to come to a larger hospital? And so a lot of these projects were really focused on making the most of the environment that I was in. And then through my mentors, Extensive Connections, we were able to even test out what was my first device-based project.
Srirupa (14:01.427)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (14:18.632)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (14:19.426)
which was a foot-operated resuscitation device. And it was essentially able to be used in EMS vehicles and in rural settings where you only have one provider. so being a foot-operated resuscitator through a pedal, your hands were freed up to improve your bag mask skill and maybe allow yourself to be able to bag while assessing for the heart rate, et cetera. And so...
Srirupa (14:23.796)
It's awesome.
Srirupa (14:28.18)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (14:41.684)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (14:43.544)
Just having this variety of projects in medical school and going into residency was really exciting to just know what was kind of out there. From a personal standpoint, I have a lot of respect for people who do bench research because I knew I was never going to be one these individuals.
Srirupa (14:49.651)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (15:01.484)
I'm just not a personality that can sit in a lab for hours and dedicate that time, which is why I have so much respect for people who do clinical science and basic science research. I need to be able to see the changes happening in front of me, and I need to be able to see my project achieving results or making strides, which is why I enjoy more organizational research. And so that really was my journey into finding projects towards global health.
Srirupa (15:15.944)
Hehe.
Srirupa (15:23.145)
Mm.
Amee Amin (15:31.857)
coming to Baylor meeting with Dr. Patil, you know, she showed me that even as a fellow, even though you're on service for seven and a half months in the year, there's still opportunities for collaboration. There's a lot of work that can be done while you're at your home institute and then of course being able to carve out time to travel to these low resource NICUs. that's kind of been my journey and I will say both my mentors in India and in
Srirupa (15:48.318)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (15:58.766)
Texas Children's have been instrumental in helping me find this path.
Srirupa (16:02.292)
That's wonderful. Now you bring up another important point that as fellows, most of us have a very busy schedule. Trying to balance that with your research work can be challenging. And I think one of the biggest things to also keep in mind is, you know, trying to, especially for global health, like trying to find time to visit all of these like global health sites. I know that you've traveled to these global health sites because I was a fellow with you when that happened. But I would love to hear your perspectives and your experience.
while visiting these sites.
Amee Amin (16:34.103)
Absolutely.
I think one of the first things I'll share regarding global health projects in general, they are not quick or rapid projects. They take a lot of time. And it's primarily because while you may be in some high resource center, we have to first form these relations with the low resource NICUs and the team on site at those countries. We have to identify what they have on hand and what we are able to help collaborate with.
We need to identify team members. need to develop a team because it's not us going to these countries doing our project and leaving. Our whole goal of Global Health Collaboration is to empower these teams on site and to leave them with a project that they are able to continue developing and nurturing. And so oftentimes it can take years developing these relationships. It's not always limited to just a specific hospital or an attendant department. Oftentimes these relationships are developed with
Srirupa (17:16.04)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (17:25.042)
Yeah.
Amee Amin (17:34.788)
the Ministry of Health or government officials. And so it can take a lot of time to see progress in these global health projects before you're actually able to book those tickets and you more of that flight to actually get on site.
Srirupa (17:36.18)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (17:44.628)
Hehe.
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (17:48.438)
And that's where being at a large institute or being partnered up with faculty who have a background in global health work or have these connections is very helpful because it can help you save time to navigate these steps, especially when we are limited to a two or three year fellowship time duration. So that was definitely one of the first things. And then.
Srirupa (18:04.83)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (18:10.048)
Knowing that my first year of fellowship was going to be more service heavy, I realistically set a goal of being able to travel in my second year. And so during that first year, a lot of the project work that I tried to accomplish was writing my IRB, really just a detailed description of the project, identifying which center I wanted to go, starting to reach out to them in my first year, a year in advance that I would actually collect data in my second year.
Srirupa (18:13.672)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (18:34.184)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (18:38.948)
Oftentimes these places need a PLA set up, at least some sort of a memorandum of union or at least an agreement of how we are going to participate, who is going to be our on-site. And so lot of the paperwork and the early channels of forming this relationship were all started in my first year.
Srirupa (18:46.58)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (18:51.955)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (19:01.31)
Mm.
Amee Amin (19:01.91)
And that really helped me transition in second year where we initially had a target of traveling in the fall and then I ended up going in the early spring. So again, plans can change. And that's another thing about global health research, know.
whether it's the local climate at the place that the country is about to visit, or if there is an infectious disease breakout, or there are any kind of delays in your paperwork, there's a lot of things that can change your travel plans. And just being able to be flexible with that, understanding that it's part of global health research.
Srirupa (19:21.672)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (19:37.294)
But it was definitely rewarding because by the time I was able to go in the spring of my second year, we had already finished our phase one in Texas Children's. And so I was very familiar with the device. I was very comfortable with it. We had identified things that the device needed troubleshooting with. So having all that knowledge was valuable for me to optimize my very short one week stay in Malawi and rolling as soon as we got there.
Srirupa (19:49.332)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (19:53.214)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (20:00.308)
Mm-hmm.
How was your experience sort of introducing or sort of like explaining about the device to the personnel there? And not when I say personnel, not just the physicians, but also like the nursing staff and the parents there.
Amee Amin (20:16.548)
Yeah, absolutely. And so one thing that worked to our advantage was the Rice 360 department has an extensive background of device work in many countries in Africa. They have several partnering countries. And they actually had a conference right before I was leaving to go to Malawi, where all these partnering physicians and nurses were invited from their countries to Houston, Texas. So they were all able to come here. They got a tour of our NICU and the team that I was specifically going to work with.
Srirupa (20:25.94)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (20:43.86)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (20:46.454)
within Malawi was able to join me here and actually watch me recruit on the device here. So being able to see me do that I think definitely was helpful because seeing something happen live in action is worth a thousand words of an explanation or an email. So that was very helpful. And then when we travel to Blantyre, Malawi, again, a culture in the low resource NICU is when they don't have all these devices, if they see their child hooked up to these devices,
Srirupa (20:47.528)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (20:51.326)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (21:02.323)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (21:16.37)
automatically think something's wrong with the baby. The baby is acutely got very sick, there's something wrong. And so we had made handouts, we had taken with us mannequin dolls that we showed them what the device would look like when the baby wears the device. And our local team, know, our nurse and engineer at the home hospital, through the local language, was able to counsel the families and explain to them that this is purely educational.
Srirupa (21:18.046)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (21:29.886)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (21:40.915)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (21:44.13)
He was no sicker than they were the day before. And because of our project, we wanted the baby to wear this device and that we would be there monitoring the entire.
Srirupa (21:47.059)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (21:52.68)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (21:54.492)
And so I think that was definitely reassuring. I was there every day while the babies were wearing the device. And so I got to spend a lot of time with these moms. And while there was a language barrier, you could still see they were very excited. They were very interested. They would sort of start looking for me once they were a couple of days into the project to try to see if maybe their baby met the qualifications or if their baby would get enrolled in the project. A lot of them asked about sort of the vision
Srirupa (21:56.723)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (22:01.566)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (22:15.016)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (22:20.532)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (22:24.446)
monitoring as they would see us. There's a lot of interest and it was very encouraging to know that you know we were hopefully developing something that would help these families out.
Srirupa (22:27.443)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (22:31.177)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (22:36.402)
Yeah, no, that's wonderful. And recently you were at a conference at Arusha. Can you tell us a little bit more about that conference and your experience there?
Amee Amin (22:44.458)
Absolutely. think that has been the highlight of my fellowship and has been the most rewarding experience. So I was raised in Tanzania and this was my trip back after 18 years of having left Tanzania. And so to be able to go back as a almost neonatologist was just very special indeed. So in Arusha, Tanzania, there is a NICU that is being currently led by and cared for by Dr. Steven Swanson, who is an American physician who moved to Arusha about
Srirupa (23:13.982)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (23:14.674)
to 10 years ago. And both him and his wife, their main goal is just to help improve neonatal outcomes throughout Africa and of course, locally in the NICU that they're working in. And so about four or five years ago, Dr. Swanson started what was a small regional conference that has now grown to become an international conference called Tiny Feet Big Steps. And the goal of this conference is to empower African physicians and nurses
Srirupa (23:23.08)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (23:44.2)
enhance their training through lectures but also skill-based workshops. Gather every year all these trained professionals at this conference and then disseminate this knowledge where they can take it back to their home.
Srirupa (23:44.244)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (23:49.396)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (23:59.217)
and so it was my first time being able to attend this conference but it was so rewarding. was six days filled with lots of presentations, lots of lectures, lots of skill-based workshops. I was mainly with the physician curriculum but we were able to run through advanced resuscitation. We were able to go through skill-based workshops for intubation and laryngeal mask airway implementation.
Srirupa (24:03.219)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (24:16.201)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (24:22.11)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (24:23.42)
surfactant administration. Again, a lot of these in IQs, the highest amount of care that they're able to provide from a respiratory standpoint is CPAP. So being able to put together CPAP with very minimal supplies, trying to work together to interpret blood gas and how that can help advance the care. And so much knowledge, so much learning even for us as coming from these high resource settings, because it is a different type of medicine when you are admitted with what you have and just trying to
Srirupa (24:31.016)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (24:35.24)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (24:39.39)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (24:50.452)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (24:53.093)
creative and innovative. So I really enjoyed the connections that I made. There were about 50 instructors from America, doctors and nurses, but getting a chance to meet with all these pioneering physicians in global health who I'd only heard of or seen in emails, to meet them in person and spend six days with them, it was an incredible learning opportunity for me. So I'm very.
Srirupa (25:01.288)
Mm-hmm.
Srirupa (25:14.216)
Yeah, no, sounds like it. think Twitter was all not Twitter. I'm sorry. The X was all over that. And I think I love to see all the pictures. think what really warmed my heart was all the people dancing together. I think there was a session when everyone was having a little bit of like lighter, you know, a little bit of fun. And I think I really appreciated that. Like it was so nice to see all these global, you know, physicians who are all dedicated to global health, just being there and like,
Amee Amin (25:18.909)
Yes.
Srirupa (25:41.384)
you know, enjoying that moment. That was really, really wonderful to look at. So I'm so happy that you got to do that experience. And I think you definitely have achieved so much in the last three years of your fellowship and have been a stellar fellow all in all. The one last thing that I'd like to ask you is if you were to talk to an incoming fellow who would be interested in global health neonatology research, what is the one big advice you would give this person?
Amee Amin (26:08.708)
will say when you enter any institute, you might find yourself surrounded by people who may not share a common interest that you're interested in. And at times, it can be very easy to just feel like, you know, maybe I should just change and kind of develop a project or go with sort of the many research opportunities that are available. If you're passionate about something, stick with it. You will find a mentor who can at least help you navigate through and develop your project.
because you find a niche that not everyone...
is really interested in doesn't mean that your work is going to be any less impactful. And so I really do believe that research work in general, whether it's basic sciences, whether it's translational, whether it's device based, research in general is a very long drawn out and tedious process. And if you really aren't passionate about it and you don't absolutely love what you're doing, it's going to make that journey way harder than it needs to be. so stick with what you're interested in and just find a mentor that you can help develop a project with.
Srirupa (26:46.324)
Mm-hmm.
Amee Amin (27:12.55)
together. And so yes, would say finding a mentor is probably the most important step in anything that you're going to try to accomplish in fellowship.
Srirupa (27:19.209)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, no golden words. think they are very important. I think two big things that if I look back in my career that made a played a big role are one having that niche and irrespective of how tiny that niche is just taking out taking it up and of course having that fantastic mentor in your background support you through your interest as well. But this was wonderful Ami I'm so glad that you were able to become a part of this and I'm hoping that
the incoming fellows, take inspiration and take lessons from the things that you've done in the last three years of your fellowship. Congratulations and good luck with everything beautiful that you're going to achieve in your life.
Amee Amin (27:57.656)
Thank you, thank you so much and thank you for having me on.
Srirupa (28:00.488)
Yeah, thank you guys.
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