How did a National Institutes of Health grant help a Stanford bioengineer get back into research after a break? In a recent story in Inside Stanford Medicine, my colleague Kris Newby tells the story of Anandi Krishnan, PhD:
In 2011, Krishnan was on the fast track to a promising academic research career.
A research fellow at Duke University, she had earned a PhD in bioengineering from Penn State in less than four years and was the lead author of 11 scientific papers. But a complicated pregnancy, an illness in her family and time off to care for her newborn child derailed her plans.
After a break and a cross-country move, Krishnan took a staff position at Stanford -- but, she said, she found herself missing lab work. Then she heard about a new career re-entry program funded by the NIH’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program:
She applied in 2016, and six months later, she had the funding to start again.
Called a 're-entry supplement,' the program funds the salary of investigators whose careers have been interrupted for one to eight years for unavoidable reasons. Examples of qualifying interruptions could include child-rearing, an incapacitating personal or family illness, a spouse relocation or military service.
'It was like the grant had been written specifically for my situation,' Krishnan said.
As Newby outlines in her piece, Krishnan is now back in action and working in the lab of James Zehnder, MD, where she studies blood platelet gene markers in patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms.
Previously: Women of Stanford Neurosurgery: "If there's something that you want to do, you do it", FemInEm blog facilitates conversations about women in emergency medicine and Women of Stanford Neurosurgery: "There's always a way to make it work for you"
Photo by Kris Newby
