"I’ve never had a neuroscience or biology course in my life," says Mriganka Sur, head of the department of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Despite that, Sur, who came to the US in 1974 at the age of 20, is a leader in the field.
Sur, a Bengali who grew up in Allahabad, did his engineering at IIT, Kanpur and went on to Vanderbilt University where he combined his love for biology and engineering by exploring the brain using electrical engineering principles.
The big question in biology is how an organism develops. "The interaction between nature and nurture is one of the foundational questions. I am privileged to have made a contribution to this question," says Sur.
Sur is most famous for swinging the debate firmly into the nurture...

THIS ARTICLE IS PRICELESS...
To read this piece, and more such stories in India's most exciting and exacting magazine, plus get access to our 25-year archives goldmine, please subscribe.