As early as high school, Ritu Singh was fascinated by the idea of doing research at the intersection of chemistry and biology. She loved how the subjects were interconnected and, together, how they could explain biochemical pathways in the body. To pursue her dream of becoming a researcher, Singh studied pharmaceutical sciences as an undergraduate at the Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women’s University and as a master’s student at Bombay University. She then moved to the U.S. to attend Rutgers University for her Ph.D., where she studied ways to measure exposure to, and metabolism of, environmental pollutants and carcinogens. Singh began her professional career at Merck, performing bioanalysis of pesticide residues on plants and antibiotic levels in animals, and later joined Merial (acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim) where she used mass spectrometry to study drug metabolism. She then spent several years at companies including Synta Pharmaceuticals, where she worked on early drug discovery, and Corning Life Sciences, where she worked on studies helping companies move drugs into clinical trials.
