Shohista Kadirzhankyzy, a Doctor of Medicine (MD) from the School of Medicine at Nazarbayev University represented Kazakhstan in the FameLab final, which was held in an online format this year. She kindly shared her experience with us.
“The FameLab - Cheltenham Festivals was a perfect platform to communicate and share my ideas and knowledge with the world at large. More importantly, I feel delighted to be connected to a diverse network of other international FameLabbers, who are just incredibly talented and passionate people, where I found friends, supporters, and collaborators. I do, value that so many of the international finalists have a proven track record of distinguished work and come from "literally" any field of endeavour and are doing something interesting. Indeed, for me - this experience is for a lifetime. “Once a Famelabber– always a Famelabber” as the Director of the programme points out”.
According to Shokhista, preparing her final talk was an intense and incredibly rewarding process.
“Usually it takes months, not to mention multiple revisions to prepare for such a competitive and highly selective global programme. I had an extremely brief time-frame to come up with my final talk! Honestly, I never expected that I’d make it that far. In fact, I was 99% sure that I wouldn’t go further than the Semi-Finals). I was quite excited as well as thrilled when they invited me to join top 10 finalists. I had moments of “I don’t think I can actually do this any further". However, the Global Finalist's Team was greatly supportive. I had no other choice, but to give my absolute best!”.
She added, that appreciate being part of this remarkable team, where an explosion of new ideas, knowledge and research across various disciplines takes place.
“Joining the FameLab International community enabled me to connect with global scientists who became my close friends, colleagues, and even research collaborators. This event definitely made me colossally inspired, bolder, with the feeling that anything is possible”.
For now, Shokhista continues to revolve her values and passion around medicine and scientific research.
“Throughout my degree, I gained research experience in multiple labs and have built a competency in cancer biology. Currently, I am completing my clinical rotations as well as working on a project on colon cancer research to further strengthen my knowledge and skills. I am an active learner and doer, as there is never enough to know about medicine”.
We congratulate our participant and wish her further achievements in her professional life!
You may watch Shokhista's presentation here.