Aigul Sharip

1. Why did you choose biology as your major?

At secondary school I was keen on biological disciplines. I had been constantly thinking about the fact that there are so many tiny processes occurring in a human body that we just don’t notice them. And I wanted to study them, and that’s when I decided to enroll to Biology Department.

2. What was the most difficult in the competition for the internship?

Probably the most difficult thing was to leave the comfort zone, to participate in an interview and in the process of that to prove that I was a worthy candidate for the internship. I’m talking about the second round. It consisted of many different tasks that the applicant should have fulfilled as soon as possible.

3. Tell us more about your internship?

The main purpose of my internship – and here I’m afraid we will not do without scientific language – was to identify interactions between genes in hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia. This is a very rare disease. In the lab we had to identify causes and mechanisms of its development. In three months of the internship, I learned a great number of techniques and methods used in the field of molecular biology.

4. Could you please evaluate the outcomes of the internship?

Through this internship I learned how to conduct experiments in the most advanced scientific laboratories and gained invaluable knowledge in studying the ways to monitor important types of cellular processes. In addition to studies several times a week, I participated in meetings where researchers and students share the results and challenges they face in their projects. At one of such meetings, I had the chance to present the results of our study. The internship also helped me understand that my interest in molecular biology got ever stronger if anything. After returning to Kazakhstan, I will continue to work in labs with professors to study contemporary problems of biological science.