HILS Home > Biological Sciences In Dental Medicine Feature
Praveen Arany arrived in Cambridge from his home in Bangalore, India, one year ago to embark on a unique program in the life sciences – one made possible only by the flexibility of Harvard’s graduate programs.
He took a basic degree in dental surgery and earned a masters degree in oral and maxillofacial pathology in India. After that, he had additional training at the Indian Institute of Science and the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.
Now at Harvard, Praveen is enrolled in three programs: the PhD program in Biological Sciences in Dental Medicine, the Leder Medical Sciences Program and a residency training program in Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology all focused on providing formal training in biological sciences for HILS students.
Says Praveen: “I believe I am doing a unique - probably the first of its kind in Harvard - program.” He credits Bjorn Olsen, professor of developmental biology and of cell biology, and Connie Cepko, professor of genetics, with being instrumental in helping to pull together his academic program.
He was drawn to the Graduate School’s program in dental medicine for its flexibility – Praveen’s interdisciplinary “Residency-PhD” combined program is certainly an original pathway to medicine.
He also appreciated the quality of its faculty, many of whom are pioneers in their fields and have written textbooks that have become standards in the field. “To interact with researchers who write these very texts and essentially set the bar is a truly humbling and exciting experience,” he says.
Interdisciplinary clinical research training has been the highlight of Praveen’s graduate career. “What attracted me most to the basic sciences was the ability to get definitive answers, but I learned quickly they too (like medicine) had many limitations,” he says.
His present situation draws from “the best in both worlds,” he says. “Only in a place like Harvard is such an interdisciplinary program logistically feasible, where there seems to be truly no limits to resources or possibilities.”
Praveen works most closely with two scientists: David Mooney, the Gordon McKay professor of bioengineering, and his clinical mentor, Sook-Bin Woo, an assistant professor in the School of Dental Medicine’s Department of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity and at Boston’s prestigious Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Professor Mooney’s lab addresses a range of projects that attempt to bioengineer stem cells for use in regenerative medicine. “My basic research focus in the Mooney lab is to understand how a cell ‘perceives’ and ‘interprets’ external cues,” says Praveen.
“My major aim is to analyze this ‘interface’ and the signaling pathways initiated in embryonic development and malignancies,” he says. His hope is to initiate research projects to study these phenomena in a clinical setting.
Praveen has played an integral role in the still-young HILS program. In the last year, he has helped organize two student-run symposia, one on publishing in the biological sciences and another on current research in tissue healing and regeneration.
He’s also the Harvard Dental School representative for the HILS Student Advisory Group, which consults on policy-making decisions.
Last term, Praveen joined the Mentoring for Science program, organized by the Harvard Office of Diversity and Community Outreach. The program assigns young Harvard scientists to work with local high school students.
For Praveen, it was a learning and rewarding experience. “My student, Nathaly, had loads of questions that challenged my very basics,” says Praveen.
This young scientist isn’t all work though: joining the Harvard badminton team last year “was a great way to ‘de-stress’ from the rigorous academic curriculum,” he says.
Good friends and his family also help keep Praveen grounded. “Having my wife and baby join me – they were in India for a year while I started grad school – this [past] summer has been fantastic,” he says, “and has added greatly to my quality of life.”
As for his more distant professional future, Praveen hopes to lead a clinical lab to pursue translational research with a focus on biological mechanisms.
“I read someplace [that] scientists are basically little girls and boys with toys,” he says. “To figure out how things work is pretty much a basic instinct – until we get ‘educated’ and are ‘told so.’ But the real scientists seem to always keep this fascination alive.”
