Mogana Darshini Ganggayah distinguished herself at an early age. It’s hard to fully know what you want at this age, especially if you’re still pretty much finding yourself and discovering characteristics you never knew about yourself.
Yet, one young lass knew what she desired very young. Tell us about living the dream? Don’t we all desire it? And if we want it bad enough, we make it happen. Mogana did just that, the Universiti Malaya’s (UM) graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Bioinformatics. Upon graduation, the young prodigy was offered a fast-track doctorate degree in Philosophy in the same field and has become one of the youngest to earn a PhD in the country.
Working as a data scientist at the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC), Mogana began to develop a strong interest in biology at school. According to Perdana University, her interest in computer science grew as a result of having computers at home and it helped that bioinformatics, the subject she studied at university, is a sub-discipline of biology and computer science.
Bioinformatics has been a rather productive subject of inquiry and study particularly in the battle against cancer.
“It’s an exciting field of inquiry in the fight against breast cancer, being the most common form of cancer,” said Mogana.
Additionally, bioinformatics entails the vast collection, analysis, and application of data about the disease in order to gain more precise insights into cancer and the treatment required.
Hailing from Kulai, Johor, Mogana’s PhD journey was not an easy feat. In the midst if getting her PhD, she became a trainer and teaching assistant at various data science boot camps and workshops where she had directly worked with undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals. Prior to this, she also served as a teaching assistant to Bioinformatics undergraduates in University Malaya (UM).
Among some of her accomplishments include a presentation of her PhD research work on the “artificial-intelligence enabled pipeline for breast cancer survival analysis” at the World Cancer Congress in 2018 at the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) and also at the International Conference on Bioinformatics in New Delhi, India, the same year.
If nothing else, Mogana Priyadharshini has proven that hard work and focus can lead one to a successful– and hopefully happy – academic life.
Source: NST
