I was sitting in a chemistry lab class during my first year of university, nervous about the experiment we were to perform. I grabbed a pipette and, as I feared, my hand started to shake. The experience was disheartening. I was hoping to pursue a career in science, but I started to wonder whether that would be possible. I thought my dreams had crashed to the ground.
I was a boy born with brain damage. My family managed to find good doctors where we lived, in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, and I took part in clinical trials testing new treatments. Shortly after my first birthday, I started walking and it became clear my intelligence function was unaffected. So, in some sense, I was lucky. Still, I couldn't do some things growing up. Both hands shook, especially when I was nervous or embarrassed. My left hand was much worse than my right, so I learned to write and do simple tasks with my right hand, but it wasn't easy to do anything precisely.
As a teenager, I faced a lot of bullying at school. Feeling alone, I joined a study group called "The natural world". I thought that getting into the world of animals would keep me away from people. That's how I came into the field of biology. At university, I enjoyed the lectures in my science classes. Many lab tasks proved impossible, however. As I struggled with my mood, I read a book about depression. From then on, the physiology of mental disorders became my scientific passion. I looked into what was being done locally and was excited to discover a lab that did behavioral experiments in rats to study depression.
At the end of my second year, I approached the professor of the lab to see whether I could work with her. I was afraid to admit I couldn't do some lab tasks. To my relief, she was completely supportive. She set me to work performing behavioral experiments for others in the lab with the help of colleagues. I loved the supportive atmosphere and stayed there to complete my master's and Ph.D.
I've come to realize that my hands aren't the barrier I thought they were. By making use of my abilities and working as part of a team, I've been able to follow my passions. I've also realized that there's much more to being a scientist than performing the physical labor. I may not collect all the data in my papers, but I'm fully capable of designing experiments and interpreting results, which, to me, is the most exciting part of science.
