Sharmelee Selvaraji was on the verge of accepting a position at another university in 2022 when a friend who worked in Polina Anikeeva's lab at the McGovern Institute encouraged her to apply for a postdoctoral position there.

“It was meant to be,” Selvaraji says. “I was applying to only pure biology and neuroscience labs. This is a bioelectronics lab with materials science and engineering involved which was not on my radar, but when I spoke to the lab members here during the interview, I realized the huge potential. There is an infusion of many different perspectives here, and it is a very unique setting.”

In Anikeeva’s lab, Selvaraji joins researchers from across materials science, electronics, and neurobiology in pursuit of a deeper understanding of neurodegenerative diseases, and in search of opportunities for early intervention.

What was the journey that brought you to MIT?

I’m from Singapore, I grew up there and I received all my education there. I completed my PhD in 2022, and joined MIT in November 2022.

I am a molecular neuroscientist, I mainly have a background in biology. From my experience in Singapore, under many circumstances, you see two different labs collaborating to integrate and innovate perspectives. Here, it is all under one roof. We have physicists, chemists, engineers, materials scientists all in the same lab.

Initially, I was struggling to understand the research works of others in my lab, and contextualizing my research in this setting, but eventually, we came to an understanding of how we can work together, where our respective expertise fits in to answer research questions. It's a very nice fusion and definitely an eye-opener. People are very willing to help each other.

What is the focus of your research?

I've always been interested in neuroscience, specifically neurodegenerative diseases. I have worked on Parkinson's, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular dementia. My postdoctoral work is on Parkinson's disease, looking specifically at the gut-brain axis – essentially, how our brain and gut interact in the case of neurodegenerative diseases. In the lab, I develop mouse models of Parkinson’s disease and aim to perform surgeries to input devices developed by my colleagues inside the mice and measure the output in terms of behavioral outcomes, neural activity, pathology and protein expression.

Why the gut? What is the significance?

When we think of Parkinson's, we think of it as a disease of the brain. Even though Parkinson’s was discovered over 200 years ago, it was only about 20 years ago that the potential role of the gut was speculated. Patients consistently experienced gut health issues many decades before the onset of Parkinson's itself. The protein aggregates found in Parkinson’s patients’ brains were also found to be present in the gut of some of these patients. This led to a theory that perhaps the disease propagates from the gut to the brain. This is what we call the gut-brain axis. It's a bi-directional communication between the brain and the gut.

We  refer to the gut as the second brain because it has neurons and neurotransmitters just like the brain, and it sends ‘messages’ from gut to the brain, just like the brain does to other parts of the body. This relationship between the gut and the brain is what I am investigating. How does this communication happen? At what point does a trigger happen? Where does it convert to Parkinson's disease? Where can we intervene to modulate the disease so that we can at least slow it down?

How is your experience now preparing you for the future?

My ambition is to continue my research in an academic setting. Everywhere you look here, there are brilliant minds. It can feel overwhelming, but it is also motivating at times, and the atmosphere is very encouraging. Professors are open to talk to you. They want to share their ideas, and give advice. This healthy research environment has helped me as a person and is preparing me for the next step ahead.

Selvaraji was among the presenters at Brains on Brains, the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences' biennial symposium.