JOHOR BARU: Gaining a PhD is considered a blue-riband achievement in the field of academics. Attaining it at 26, makes it even more remarkable.
Mogana Darshini Ganggayah first graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Bioinformatics with distinction in Feb 2018 from University of Malaya (UM).
Because of her excellent results, she was offered a fast-track PhD programme in the same field which she completed in three years to become one of the youngest holders of a doctorate in the country.
The Kulai-born lass is currently a data scientist at the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC).
"Since my school days in Kulai, I was interested in science and as I grew up, an interest in computer science developed alongside this," said the second child of an engineer father and a teacher mother.
Her older sister Dr Kanageswary is a doctor at the University Kebangsaan Malaysia Hospital (HUKM) in Kuala Lumpur.
In school, Mogana developed a strong interest in biology. With computers available at home because of her father and elder sister's need for the device, her curiosity for computer science also took hold.
It helped that bioinformatics, the subject she studied at university, is a sub-discipline of biology and computer science.
In recent years, bioinformatics has become a fairly fertile field of enquiry and research, especially in the fight against cancer.
"It's an exciting field of inquiry in the battle against breast cancer, especially as the illness is the most common form of cancer," said Mogana, adding that bioinformatics entails the collation, analysis and application of data about the illness so that insights about the cancer and treatment can be more certain.
Mogana credits her supervisors during her postgraduate study, Associate Professor Dr Sarinder Kaur Dhillon who is a computer scientist, and Professor Dr Nur Aishah Taib, an oncologist, for their guidance during her doctoral journey.
"I'm grateful to them because with their assistance, it was possible for me to become a data scientist at UMMC," she said.
During her postgraduate training, she was fortunate enough to have served as a teaching assistant for Bioinformatics undergraduates in UM.
"The data science department is becoming a key network for the accumulation and dissemination of data not only in the fight against cancer but also as avenues for solutions and management of healthcare problems," she opined.
Aiding Mogana's PhD journey was the opportunity she had to be a trainer and teaching assistant at data science boot camps and workshops where she interfaced with undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals.
"You gain a broad view from these interfaces of how to manage and transfer data at seminars and workshops," she said.
Mogana believes that data analytics – Big Data, the term that is commonly used these days – is going to play a significant role in healthcare planning.
"The subject of bioinformatics is growing in significance. We have to have students taking to the subject because Big Data is going to be the future.
"I would urge students with interest in the subject to not be discouraged by their first forays into the field. In my undergraduate years, I found the going tough in the first two years but after that, I gained more traction as I grasped the computational science theories and the going was smoother after that," she remarked.
Mogana studied in a Tamil primary school in Kulai before transferring to a secondary school where her straight As in the SPM examination gained her a place to do her foundation in science at a matriculation college in Kedah.
"I thank my parents for the support system they provided me in my journey to where I am today. They were simply amazing in the encouragement they gave me," she said.
She previously presented her PhD research work on the "artificial-intelligence enabled pipeline for breast cancer survival analysis" at the World Cancer Congress in Oct 2018 at the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) and also at the International Conference on Bioinformatics in New Delhi, India also in 2018.