chemistry

Sharmila Bhattacharya

Sharmila Bhattacharya is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sharmila Bhattacharya rather than just read about it. In short: Sharmila Bhattacharya is an Indian-American scientist who works as the chief scientist for astrobionics and head of the Biomodel Performance and Behavior laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center. She is the subject matter expert of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and the principal investigator for Biomodel Performance Laboratory of Space Biosciences Division of NASA Ames Research Cente…

Key takeaways

Sharmila Bhattacharya belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sharmila Bhattacharya to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sharmila Bhattacharya from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sharmila Bhattacharya is an Indian-American scientist who works as the chief scientist for astrobionics and head of the Biomodel Performance and Behavior laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center. She is the subject matter expert of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and the principal investigator for Biomodel Performance Laboratory of Space Biosciences Division of NASA Ames Research Center. She was part of a project which sent fruit flies into space to study human illnesses and to study the effects of space radiation, both which will help space explorers. She has received the Ames Honor Award the successful launch of the MVP-Fly-01 experiment, 2018, NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, 2018, etc.

Early life and education Sharmila Bhattacharya was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to Bengali Indian parents and grew up Kolkata. She lived on Park Street. Her father, Sukhdeb Bhattacharya, was an Indian Airlines pilot. Sharmila Bhattacharya did her schooling from La Martiniere for Girls and Loreto House. After getting a bachelor's degree in Human Physiology in Presidency College, Kolkata and Biological Chemistry from Wellesley College, she started her career out as an undergraduate research assistant in the biochemistry lab at Princeton University. After that she earned her master's degree and Ph.D. at Princeton University for her research in Molecular Biology, where she studied the signal transduction pathway for the ras oncogene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. She then went on to do her post-doctoral research at Stanford University in Neurobiology.

Career Soon after completing her research at Stanford, she was awarded a job by Lockheed Martin to work at the NASA Ames Research Center. She was the principal investigator for the space shuttle flight experiment, Fungal Pathogenesis, Tumorigenesis, and Effects of Host Immunity in Space (FIT), which flew on STS-121 on July 4, 2006. She was later promoted to the spot of chief scientist for astrobionics at the NASA Ames Research Center. Her research at NASA has involved studying immune system changes during spaceflight and the effects of radiation and altered gravity on living systems. Sharmila was also the lecturer of neurobiology in University of California, Santa Cruz in 1998. She was the lead scientist on several projects of NASA Ames Research Center.

Selected papers S. Bhattacharya, Heavner ME, Ramroop J, Gueguen G, Ramrattan G, Dolios G, Scarpati M, Kwiat J, Wang R, Singh S, Govind S (2017). Novel Organelles with Elements of Bacterial and Eukaryotic Secretion Systems Weaponize Parasites of Drosophila. Current Biology. 2017 Sep 7. Straume T, Slaba T, Bhattacharya S, Braby LA. Radiation Information for Designing and Interpreting Biological Experiments Onboard Missions Beyond Low Earth Orbit (2017). Hosamani R, Leib R, Bhardwaj SR, Adams CM, Bhattacharya S (2016). Elucidating the “Gravome”: Quantitative Proteomic Profiling of the Response to Chronic Hypergravity in Drosophila. Journal of proteome research. 2016 Oct 10;15(12):4165-75. Developing New Habitats for Life Science Experiments on the International Space Station T.Fahlen, M. Sanchez, M.Lera, E.Blazevic, J.Chang, and S.Bhattacharya (2006). A Study of the Effects of Spaceflight on the Immune Response in Drosophila melanogaster. Gravitational and Space Biol. 19(2):133 S. Bhattacharya, B.A. Stewart, B.A. Niemeyer, R.W. Burgess, B.D.McCabe, P.Lin, G.Boulianne, C.J. O’Kane, & T.L. Schwarz (2002). Members of the Synaptobrevin/VAMP family in Drosophila are functionally interchangeable in vivo for neurotransmitter release and cell viability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 99(21):13867-13872. S. Bhattacharya, R.Bowman, F.Donovan, B.Girten, E.Hill, M.Kirven-Brooks, O.Santos (2001). The Space Station Biological Research Project: Habitat Development and Capabilities. Publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, #2001-4984: 1-11. F.S. Neumann-Silberberg, S. Bhattacharya, & J.R. Broach (1995). Nutrient Availability and RAS/cAMP Both Induce Expression of Ribosomal Protein Genes in Saccharomyces but by Different Mechanisms. Molecular and Cellular Biology, 15: 3187-3196. S. Bhattacharya, L. Chen, J.R. Broach, & S. Powers (1995). Ras Membrane Targeting is Essential for Glucose Signaling but not for Viability in Yeast. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 92: 2984-2988

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sharmila Bhattacharya

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sharmila Bhattacharya claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sharmila Bhattacharya before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sharmila Bhattacharya ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sharmila Bhattacharya

In research: Sharmila Bhattacharya appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sharmila Bhattacharya in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sharmila Bhattacharya is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1964 births, 20th-century American biochemists, 20th-century American women biochemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sharmila Bhattacharya outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sharmila Bhattacharya in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sharmila Bhattacharya means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sharmila Bhattacharya out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sharmila Bhattacharya in simple terms?

Why does Sharmila Bhattacharya matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sharmila Bhattacharya?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sharmila Bhattacharya.