For millions of families across India, an IIT is more than a college. It’s a dream that starts in Class 9 or as soon as the parents realise their child’s potential in science and mathematics.People burn the midnight oil with late-night study sessions and coaching classes, while parents quietly sacrifice so their child gets a fair shot. Getting in feels like the finish line.Being called an IIT alumnus opens doors almost anywhere, and people assume that whatever comes next will be a reputed name to bank on, be successful, and the driving force behind work that is well paid.While any IIT alumnus would be the first to grab an opportunity to settle and build a name abroad, there are some who take the unpopular choice and come back to serve their nation.One such IIT alumnus is Nitin Gupta, who secured All India Rank 1 in the IIT-JEE in 2000 and now works as a prof. researching mosquito brains!Let’s dig in to know more
Meet Nitin Gupta: The IIT-JEE topper who chose to study mosquito brains
In 2000, Nitin Gupta secured All India Rank 1 in the IIT-JEE. According to IIT Kanpur’s website, he joined the institute in 2000, finished his B.Tech in computer science in 2004, and later developed an interest in biology during his student years.He did a PhD in bioinformatics and systems biology at the University of California, San Diego, finishing in 2009. After a few months in a cognitive neuroscience lab, he moved to the National Institutes of Health as a postdoc to learn electrophysiology, and came back to the country, joining IIT Kanpur’s faculty in July 2014. The institute’s own profile calls him a “computer engineer-turned-neuroscientist.”Why did he choose to come back to India even after having a sprawling research career abroad?According to India Today, his decision was partly inspired by the Shah Rukh Khan film Swades, and Gupta himself has said the film played a role; coming back also meant changing his field.
He studies neural circuits of mosquito brains today
His lab studies how neural circuits encode innate behavioural preferences, using the insect sense of smell as a model, looking at a mosquito’s brain responses to the attractive smell of a human versus a repellent cream. Additionally, the lab also works with grasshoppers and flies, using methods like electrophysiology, behavioural experiments, and computational modelling.The lab’s best-known recent result is a 2023 Nature Communications paper, “Combinatorial encoding of odors in the mosquito antennal lobe”. The team built a way to record the smell-processing region of the Aedes aegypti mosquito’s brain from individual neurons in the antennal lobe.They found that one odour can activate many neurons, and both the odour’s identity and whether the mosquito likes it can be observed in the group’s overall activity. So, the brain doesn’t seem to keep one dedicated wire for every smell. It uses combinations, a bit like letters forming words.Thus, a mosquito hunting for a host and a person struggling with low mood look like very different subjects. Thus, it all comes down to the same question that how does a nervous system take in information and turn it into action?