Sendurai Mani: How Monkeys Taught Me About Responsibility and Looking Beyond the Obvious

Sendurai Mani shared on LinkedIn:

“𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐲𝐬 𝐓𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐌𝐞 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐛𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬.

During my PhD days at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), I had a habit of arriving at the lab early in the morning.

One day, I walked into the lab to find out that the lab floor had flooded with water. My PhD mentor, G. Padmanabhan, was there at the same time and was upset. We assumed someone had left the water tap on all night, which led to flooding.

Along with a lab technician, I spent the morning cleaning up the mess.

Frustrated, I told myself I wouldn’t come to the lab early again. But, as science often demands, I found myself back at the lab early another morning, only to discover the floor was flooded once more.

My mentor was upset and called all the students for a meeting and asked everyone to be responsible and close the tab before leaving at the end of the day.

Determined to avoid these early morning mishaps, I resolved not to go in early again. But life had other plans. One morning, I arrived early to the lab and saw a monkey entering the lab through an open window.

To my surprise, the monkey opened the water tap, drank, and simply left. Nearly ten monkeys came in order, each taking their turn to drink water from the tap, and some even opened it more to get more water flow.

My professor and I stood behind a shelf and watched all the monkeys with the hope that the last monkey would close the tap. But guess what? They are monkeys, so they quenched their thirst, left the tap open, and happily left.

While we had found the culprits, the monkeys taught me a lesson about responsibility. We quickly changed the lab rule from ‘Do not leave the tap open when leaving the lab’ to ‘Close the window when leaving the lab.’

This experience was a powerful reminder that sometimes, the real solution requires looking beyond the obvious.”

Source: Sendurai Mani/LinkedIn

Sendurai A. Mani is a distinguished Indian-American oncologist and molecular biologist. Currently holding the Dean’s Chair for Translational Oncology at Brown University Warren Alpert Medical School, Dr. Mani also serves as the Associate Director for Translational Oncology at the Legorreta Cancer Center at Alpert Medical School.

Dr. Mani’s research focuses on finding the mechanisms driving cancer metastasis and therapy resistance, particularly in breast cancer. He is renowned for his discovery of cancer stem cells and their role in tumor progression and treatment resistance.