Cover picture credit: Aastha Vatsyayan

Interview by Jeyashri Rengaraju and Mercy Rophina

“There is no one correct way to do a PhD”

As a PhD student, we all dream of a rewarding career, knowingly or unknowingly we often tend to think that what most of our colleagues do defines the ideal success. But, the truth is, we all fear the risk of choosing a less travelled route, we carry loads of doubts questioning our own ability to do something new out of the crowd. Here we bring to you an interesting story saying, “it’s never too late to pursue your dream” from one of our alumni, Dr. Deeksha Bhartiya, the founder of Genomiki Solutions Private Limited. Dr. Deeksha briefly talks about her journey from her PhD days to being the founder of a company through a list of questions we had for her. 

“Thanks a lot for inviting me and I am so excited to be a part of this interview as an IGIB alumni.”

  • To start with, what were all the options you were considering post PhD? 

So I was exploring several options in academia itself. As any other PhD student, I was looking for postdoc positions abroad and/or scientist positions in India. Even before getting my thesis submitted, I got a position as Project Scientist C at National Institute of Cancer Prevention and Research (ICMR). My PI, Dr Scaria supported me and I joined this position and submitted my thesis after that.

After 3 and half years of this position, I moved to Sweden for my postdoc at Karolinska Institute. I wanted to do extensive analysis involving various omics datasets and this motivated me to shift my base and move to Sweden. 

  • What motivated you to enter entrepreneurship?

Well, even during my PhD days I always wanted to build my own company. At that time, it was a kind of fantasy. While I was in Sweden, I got an opportunity to know about companies who were commercializing bioinformatics. As a bioinformatician, I also wanted to develop and build solutions and bring this model to India. I am lucky to have supportive bosses and my Postdoc boss supported me immensely. She asked me to continue working with her when I came to India just before the pandemic and simultaneously start working on my idea of setting up a company.

  • What were the major challenges you faced initially when you decided to venture entrepreneurship?

When I first thought of starting a company, to be very honest, I had zero idea how and where to begin. We are trained in our subjects but we don’t know how to build a business. So I started by registering as a partnership firm. My family has been my backbone in this journey. My brother sorted most of the legal stuff for me and my husband became my first investor. My sister in law and eventually my mother became the directors in my company. 

While I started building my scientific network by conducting events/workshops, I wanted to know the nitty gritties of entrepreneurship. I found a page on social media regarding incubation at NSRCEL @ IIMB and I randomly applied to the program. After five weeks of sessions, I was successful in completing the first stage and I found it extremely exciting to learn so much about the basics of marketing, management and basically everything. Also as a part of the Women Startup program, I found over 11000 women in the cohort. I started to learn how to pitch and subsequently got selected in the launchpad and finally incubation where there were 210 women. Then I got selected in the Top 100 and then final Top 20. That actually gave me a lot of momentum and understanding. By the time I completed my incubation, I also got incubated at DBT-BIRAC Bioincubator at Institute of Life Sciences, Bhbhneshwar. I got immense support from the mentors and eventually I got Genomiki registered as a Private limited company. 

This is how it all started.

  • Ph.D. is a whole package. It develops our scientific skills and we also grow tremendously on the personal front. As entrepreneurial aspects require management skills and creative thinking, how did Ph.D. help you with acquiring the capabilities to pursue your interests?

My venture is about commercializing bioinformatics and I am able to do it only because I have my entire training in bioinformatics. Of course I am still learning a lot of new things but I got my ground during my Phd itself. I am just building my dream over that ground.

  • Being in academia during your PhD and Postdoctoral days and now being a founder of your own company, how different do you find the work environment and the kind of pressure that is there in both fields ?

I was the first student of Dr Scaria and was one of the first genomics scientists at NICPR. So I have the experience of building things from scratch. Of course, as a founder, you just don’t have to focus on science. I have constantly struggled to find customers, worry about revenue, build my team, be efficient to be able to pay my team. Scientifically I find it similar but yes at least at this stage I am multitasking to get things running.

I believe that if I will be able to motivate at least one PhD student to build their own venture, I will feel  I have succeeded.

Progressing forward is not an easy job. We all go through our share of experiences, learnings, successes and failures. But these uncertainties and courage is what make our dream lively and our path unique. Let’s keep our dreams alive and become our own leaders! 

Dr. Deeksha Bhartiya

Dr. Deeksha is the founder of Genomiki Solutions Private Limited, who has got over a decade of experience in computational genomics and is now trying to create paths and inspire people in commercializing bioinformatic knowledge

By Dr. Deeksha Bhartiya

Dr. Deeksha is the founder of Genomiki Solutions Private Limited, who has got over a decade of experience in computational genomics and is now trying to create paths and inspire people in commercializing bioinformatic knowledge

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