Graduates of major Indian institutions like IIT are often perceived as individuals capable of achieving success in any field—from scientific research at ISRO to founding startups. Thousands of scientists educated at IIT have already made significant contributions to companies such as Oracle, Intel, and Microsoft, as well as NASA. However, few demonstrate the same enthusiasm for career choices as Nitin Gupta.
Nitin Gupta earned a degree in computer science from the prestigious IIT Kanpur. After that, he moved to the University of California, San Diego, but did not find complete satisfaction there. Seeking to expand his knowledge and satisfy his thirst for learning, he returned to India in 2014 and began working as a professor at the same institution.
Gupta's work is quite unusual: he studies mosquito brains. His goal is to determine how the brain distinguishes what to pursue and what to avoid, even without prior training.
Nitin Gupta's story inspires young people who never want to stop learning. In 2000, he ranked first in the IIT-JEE exam. Following this, he enrolled in IIT Kanpur, where he received a degree in computer science. Upon graduation, numerous career opportunities opened up before him: working in the tech sector, joining a large corporation, or building a career in Silicon Valley. Nevertheless, he chose a different path.
During his studies, his interest gradually shifted towards biology. This interest led him to the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego), where he obtained a Ph.D. in bioinformatics and systems biology in 2009. His research focused on studying genomes and proteins, combining computational methods with biology.
After completing his postgraduate studies, Gupta took another step in his career by working in the cognitive neuroscience laboratory at UC San Diego. There, he researched what changes occur in the human body before an action is taken driven by the desire for food or money.
His pursuit of learning did not cease. From 2010 to 2014, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institutes of Health, where he began studying electrophysiology—the process of understanding electrical activity in nerve cells of the brain. Meanwhile, computer science specialists were gradually transitioning into the field of neuroscience.
Gupta cited the film 'Swades' as the reason for deciding to return to India. He noted that this film prompted him to think about returning to his homeland. After arriving in India, he faced two paths—industry or science. He chose science and continued his work at IIT Kanpur.
His laboratory studies how the brain recognizes smells and how this affects the behavior of living creatures. Insects such as locusts, flies, and mosquitoes are studied for these purposes.
The mosquito is a particularly valuable subject for this research because it not only recognizes smells but also learns from them. The human body emits various chemical signals, some of which help the mosquito reach a human, while others may repel it. This is where the key question in Gupta's research arises.
How does the mosquito's nervous system function when it senses a specific chemical or odor? Gupta's lab has studied a specific area of the mosquito brain—the antennal ganglion. This is the zone where information related to smells is processed.
In a study published in Nature Communications in 2023, Gupta and his colleagues investigated the neurons of the *Aedes aegypti* mosquito's antennal ganglion. They sought to understand how these neurons identify different odors. To do this, the researchers analyzed the electrical activity of the neurons and used various scientific methodologies to understand their connections, including intracellular electrophysiology, neuronal structure analysis, and immunohistochemistry.