One of the greatest upsides of working in the drug discovery field is the potential to do something that may help patients in the clinic one day.”
Ananya Basu (she/her)
PhD Candidate in the Department of Chemistry
Ananya Basu is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry researching protein degraders, which are promising new therapies that target and destroy disease-causing proteins to expand the treatment possibilities for conditions like cancer. She is a 2024 recipient of the highly-competitive Presidential Fellowship, and a former National Institutes of Health (NIH) T32 Chemistry of Life Processes trainee. Outside the lab, Ananya enjoys caring for plants, a passion influenced by her mother and botanist grandfather.
How would you describe your research and/or work to a non-academic audience?
I work on an emerging class of therapies called protein degraders. These degraders hold great potential to broaden the horizons of treatable human disease. They work by destroying disease-causing proteins within our body’s cells and have applications in treating diseases such as cancer. My work revolves around identifying new protein degraders, as well as streamlining the discovery process used to uncover them.
What is the biggest potential impact or implication of your work?
Protein degraders have shown a lot of promise in treating diseases where other types of therapies have fallen short. One of the greatest upsides of working in the drug discovery field is the potential to do something that may help patients in the clinic one day.
What do you find both rewarding and challenging about your research and/or work?
Biology takes time, and I’m impatient. I try to work on multiple projects at once to help overcome this, with varying degrees of success.
How do you unwind after a long day?
I don’t, but I like growing plants in the windowsill outside my lab and have quite the collection. Maintaining and watching them grow is rewarding for me. My grandfather was a botanist and passed down that interest to my mom, so I grew up around lots of plants and they hold a special place in my heart.
What inspires you?
It’s inspiring to see people put everything on the line to succeed in something they care about. Sometimes these people are scientists, but they don’t have to be! I’m a big fan of the Olympics in part because of how passionate the athletes are. It’s amazing what the human spirit is capable of.
What advice would you give your younger self or someone considering a similar path?
Consider your strengths and pursue something where you can benefit from your existing talent. Have a plan. Compared to many other graduate degrees, I feel that the PhD is pretty freeform and self-directed. You have the best shot at succeeding if you come in knowing what you want out of the degree and how you plan to get there. Finally, don’t doubt yourself. There are times when I’ve probably come across as overly ambitious. The best thing you can do is pleasantly surprise people!
Tell us about a current achievement or something you're working on that excites you.
I recently found out that I received the Pfizer Emergent Leader Award from the Women Chemists Committee of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The award includes travel funding to attend the Spring 2025 ACS National Conference, and I am invited to give a talk about my research, which is cool! The conference is in San Diego and I’ve never been to California (and I also hate the cold) so I’m really excited to go!
What are you most proud of in your career to date?
I am proud of my first paper that was published on the Fourth of July this year in Nature Chemical Biology. I am most proud of how quickly we could get the work done (the field I work in is really fast paced!) and the patent that we filed alongside it. It was also the first research article to come out of my thesis lab, which was cool.
Publish Date: October 22, 2024
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