A childhood fascination with the image of a scientist led Budhaditya Mukherjee , an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur) and an EMBO Global Investigator Network (EMBO GIN) awardee, to a career studying one of the world’s most adaptable parasites, Leishmania . In this profile, he reflects on research, resilience, mentorship, genome plasticity, and how understanding pathogen evolution may help address drug resistance and chronic infections.