Meet Shiva: CRISPR, T-Cells, and the Art of Science

Lets meet Shiva! This episode was created for the purpose of the Haapaniemi lab website (https://haapaniemilab.org/). Kick back, relax, and let the waves of wisdom wash over you in this podcast episode – where learning meets laughter, and knowledge is served with a side of chill vibes. 

Embark on an intellectual journey with the brilliant Shiva Dahal-Koirala, the T-cell crusader from Haapaniemi Lab, as she unravels the complexities of celiac disease and the transformative potential of CRISPR editing in immunology. With her profound expertise in T-cell behavior and autoimmune disorders, she offers a rare glimpse into the intricacies of the immune response, and how a targeted approach might lead to revolutionary treatment methods. As we converse, you'll grasp the magnitude of her work in mentoring the next generation of scientists and the meticulous process of developing functional assays post-CRISPR editing, a cornerstone in the advancement of clinical applications.

All music clips were used from the song "Jukka Tukka" after agreement with amazing band and friends 2+1 Jam band.
This podcast episode was created under the technical and official support of University of Oslo, Norway.

Transcript

Shiva: 0:01

. My name is Sivadahal Kweyala. I'm currently working in Ha Nemi Lab as a senior scientist. I have a PhD in immunology and I've done my postdoc also in several aspects of T-cell-related immunology and here I'm working with T-cells in CRISPR editing. So during my PhD I worked with celiac disease and I investigated the T-cells that are relevant in celiac disease. So I was working with isolating T-cells from patient biopsy samples, blood samples, and also doing T-cell receptor sequencing. I was also doing some antigen essays. So treat the T-cell proliferation essays yeah, so basically investigating T-cells in celiac disease. I think celiac disease is a really good model for autoimmune disorders. The good thing is that we know the antigen, so we can mimic a disease situation by doing something called gluten challenge, where volunteers ingest gluten and we can then see what happens in a disease state. So I think this is a very unique model system where we can investigate what happens in an autoimmune disorder. T-cells are I think these are very versatile. They're also very specific, but they're also very versatile. So that's what I like about them. They can do several different things, especially when you think of all the subsets that we see. I think I'm the immunologist in the group, so my role is to work with the functional essays that we now need to develop for all the T-cell-related T-cell editing. So I'm currently working with some PhD students and a master's student to sort of develop a pipeline for the functional essays after the CRISPR editing and I think we will continue to invest more in that because we need to understand what's happening to these T-cells after we edit them, before we go into the clinic or when we think about going into the clinic. So that's very important. So that's my main role currently to working in the direction of functional essays.

Shiva: 2:56

Supervising is like an adventure. You always learn something new. You always learn something about yourself, something about the other person. So I really like supervising. It also reminds you what you know and what you don't know, because sometimes a student will ask you a question and you'll be like, oh, I should think about it, and sometimes you can help the students a lot majority of the times. So it's a good. I think I really like it because of that.

Shiva: 3:27

The lab part I really like the optimization work, like when things are a little bit unknown so you have to play around with things and explore in order to make things right. So, and when you don't know what kind of results you're expecting and you do experiment and it's a bit exciting. So that part I really like. So beginning part of where things are a little bit uncertain, that's actually more interesting. I do a bit of crocheting and that's actually something I do a lot, and then I like to go for a walk or go out with my friends for dinner yeah, read, watch movies, those things. Cooking, yeah, yeah, I also take a swing during practice, but sometimes it's a lot of fun. And then I do a lot of free time.