I consider this section a space for my philosophical reflections on science and on the stream of thoughts that often pile up in my mind. These ideas may not always be practical or grounded in formal fundamentals, but they represent my genuine feelings toward research, and perhaps toward life itself. Some thoughts may offer new perspectives, while others may echo familiar or imperfect stereotypes. I look forward to sharing them, questioning them, and learning along the way.
Am I a Scientist or a Philosopher, or None? – Friday, Dec 19 2025
This morning, I was walking to the lab from my house in the middle of a snowstorm. More than three-fourths of the way through the journey, a random thought originated in my brain, which is not a rare phenomenon. Especially under strange environmental conditions: underwater when I’m out of breath, in the shower when the water is burning hot, or in this case, in a snowstorm with winds that probably froze my brain.
I started thinking about how every person we have interacted with, and every person we have a memory of, has changed the DNA of our cells.
Let me explain this more systematically. I was thinking that if we remember a memory with someone, it’s probably because the neuronal junctions between two cells became more active. Possibly, the levels of neurotransmitter exchange and electrical currents were established and then maintained between those two cells. This must be established either by changes in gene expression, by modulating promoters and hence changing the levels of proteins required to produce these neurotransmitters (something we call epigenetics), or by any other changes required to establish that memory. Or perhaps through post-translational modifications of these proteins.
Neurobiology is not really one of my strengths, but I don’t think anyone’s is strong enough to really comment on this with complete certainty or to disprove this theory. It’s just a beautiful and very new perspective that I acquired. I had never thought about the impact these lovely people around me have on my body, on such a micro scale, on my DNA, perhaps by phosphorylating or dephosphorylating those CpG sites (epigenetics again). I feel so powerful thinking about this. It reminds me of Alexandra Potter’s quote, “We are the sum total of our memories. Memories are the most precious things we have. Good or bad. That’s what makes us who we are“. Today, I see memories as something even more tangible. To me, it is an integration of our CpG sites over all cells for each cell type influenced by people around us.
With this, I want to say that I love these humans, and I love the impact they pose.
The Magic of Dreaming – Wednesday, Oct 15 2025
I felt joy internally but embarrassment externally when someone in the lab said they hoped I’d get a Nature paper out of this idea or observation. I think they were excited for me – or maybe they were being sarcastic, I don’t know. But I was so, so, so excited. Okay, so now I’ve spilled the tea, so you have to listen to the whole story.
Whoops! Got busy, and this is me after 10 days lol. Sorry for getting you riled up, and now I probably only remember 10% of the scenes/drama/dialogues. I’m also going to end this one with a bummer. The moral of this experience was that it’s not that I will find something so fundamental, so novel, so useful for society that it tempts me to do science, but it’s the act itself. It’s the dreaming.
It’s that moment when I see something, when I make an observation, when I think, “What if this is why we see this?” and I propose sometimes clever and mostly stupid ways to test it, I feel joy. And I feel it way before even doing the experiment or testing whether what I proposed is correct or not. As someone wise – or not so wise – said, we suffer more in our imagination than in reality. I want to use the same principle to say that we can enjoy more in our imagination, too. Most of my ideas, perhaps 99.99% of the models I propose, will be wrong (are wrong, or maybe an even greater percentage). Only that 0.01% might lead to a novel, impactful discovery. But I want to promise myself that I will feel joy, and remind myself that I have felt joy in imagining 100% of them.
And that is what matters to me, and this is my story.