Vineeta Sharma

I attribute my success to a very personal experience that changed my life. In 2014, I had a serious accident when my daughter was young, and I had just enrolled for my doctorate. It was a hard time, and mentally and physically, I decided I couldn't move forward because I thought life was gone. But during my PhD, I was doing research on women with reproductive infections and working with HIV-positive patients. When I interacted with them and saw their pain, I realized I wasn't in that bad of a position. They were sick, but they were still standing up, still talking, and still strong. I was physically fit and could do something strong with my life if I wanted to. I got influenced by these women, and then I decided that life is never ended. I saw my daughter and realized I had to complete what I was planning - my aim was to become a very successful scientist, and I think now I'm a good scientist. These women who suffered with HIV influenced me to decide to do something for women. I found a novel biomarker that can be used to treat cervical cancer, and then my journey started with cancer biology. Now I'm focusing on breast cancer, and my dream project is here at Mary Medical College. I established 3D organoid techniques, which mimic real human tumors, and I have expertise in microscopy. My field from the starting has been on women's health, and this is my dream project. I really want every woman to be healthier.

The best career advice I can give is to stay curious and don't be afraid to take up space in your field. Science or any career can be challenging, but I think you have to be persistent and confident in your ability - that makes a huge difference. Also, seek out mentors and support communities, because having the right guidance can really shape your journey. I can say to every woman that during my journey, it was not very easy. It is tough for everyone in the starting. I started in a very hard time, then I got the opportunities to do my doctorate, then I came to the United States for my postdoc at Vanderbilt University where I was exposed to a really very advanced field in cancer biology and so many techniques. Then Mary offered me a scientific position, and here every day I'm learning. Please believe in yourself - so many things are waiting for your success. Please don't lose your patience at a hard time. Move forward, and one day you will get what you really want in your life.

The biggest challenge in my field right now is that the technique I'm doing is very expensive. We need a lot more money because we really want to mimic the human tumor using 3D organoid culture. My planning is to establish a good core facility, and for this, we really need a good amount of money so that we can provide not only in Tennessee, but I really want to make it national. We can generate the organoids and provide them to companies so they can do drug testing, or we can do the drug testing here like I'm doing right now. The main hurdle is that the technique I'm doing is expensive, and I really need some financial support. For this, I'm writing grants, and our Vice Chancellor and research head are helping me to sort out this problem. There are also other challenges - for organoid work, there are very common chances for contamination, and sometimes it's time-taking. What you really want in normal things you'll get in 15 days or maybe in a month, but for more technical and strategic work, it will take months. Sometimes we have time limitations for any project, or if we're working with students who have only 3 years for their PhD, we need to think about how we can do it faster and protect them from any contamination. These things are expensive and they get contaminated very soon, so we are working on that.