Our Team
Our team consists of five enthusiastic undergraduate students, who manifest genuine interest in the sphere of Synthetic Biology. We became familiar with IGEM competition in summer 2012 and asked our faculty to organize special Synthetic Biology course in order to learn more about this exciting sphere of biology. Fortunately, our professors also became interested in this competition and were glad to organize two wonderful courses of Synthetic Biology. These courses gave us a great background in many different topics, but the most interesting topic for us was the application of aptamers in diagnosis, treatment and research. Then, in April 2013 we asked Dr. Damira, our mentor, who has been working with aptamers in our University research center, to join her team in lab.
Undergraduates
Alexandr Pak
"What can be more interesting than studying life, and what can be more important than learning the art of healing."
Alexandr is a junior student at NU majoring in Biomedical sciences. He plans to pursue MD/PhD degree and conduct cool research experiments. He likes listening music, doing sport and explore new things.
Antonina Malozemova
"Decide yourself. Do what makes you happy. We all live one time."
Tonya is cool and bright ))
Music is my life, i write poems and novels. I am hippie inside. My dream is to play on the same stage with Breaking Benjamin.
Luiza Niyazmetova
"In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it"
Luiza is a Junior student at Nazarbayev University majoring in Biological Sciences. She is sincerely excited about being a part of such big competition as IGEM, that is why she is trying to contribute as much as possible in this project. In the future, Luiza plans to become a very good physician-scientist.
Mukhtar Sadykov
"Feel the energy in the air"
I am a 2nd year biology student at NU. My areas of interest are synthetic biology, bioinformatics and immunology. Briefly about one, I took introduciton into immunology course last year; since then I have plunged into the fascinating science of permanent war within our bodies. My favourite players in this war are the complement system and cell-mediated immunity.
In my free time I like running and doing tai chi. Also, books and friends are among my best companions.
Zeinaf Muradova
"Never give up!"
Zeinaf is 3rd year undergraduate students, majoring in Biomedical Sciences. She is planning to take MD and work on the field of Maternal and Childhood Health Care. She sees herself as a physician-scientist, working on improving this field in Kazakhstan. First time in IGEM, and she really enjoys it!
Advisors
Dr. Damira Kanayeva
Dr. Damira Kanayeva currently is the Assistant Professor at Nazarbayev University and Senior Research Scientist at Nazarbayev University Research and Innovation System, Nazarbayev University. She was one of those who organized Synthetic Biology course for us, and guided our team during the whole project.
Dr. Kenneth Alibek
Professor Kenneth Alibek is currently the CEO of the National Medical Holding and Vice Dean for Research of the School of Science and Technology at Nazarbayev University. Dr. Ken established Synthetic Biology course for us, and he also supported all our ideas for IGEM.
Acknowledgements
Samal Zhussupbekova
Samal combined her research work with being a teaching and laboratory assistant for biology and chemistry classes at Nazarbayev University, through which I became involved in iGEM project of our wonderful team of students and had a pleasure to be helpful. She got her BSc in Biotechnology with Honors and Chemistry minor from Indiana University, Bloomington. During her undergraduate years she did a research on gene alternative splicing events in plants and their role in herbicide resistance. Through her work at Nazarbayev University she became interested in cancer and immunology, and currently she is doing masters in Molecular Biology and working on differential gene expression project using RNA-seq to understand effects of oncoprotein of interest on immune system components. Samal loves science and research, and enjoys the fact that she doesn’t have to make distinction between her work and passion. Her life credo is “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were live forever” (M.Gandhi)
Marzhan Sypabekova
My name is Marzhan and I work as a research assistant at NURIS under the project which deals with devising biosensors of different type. Currently I am interested in physical concept of various biological processes. At the moment I am studying how DNA, protein and cell biochips are build, what kind of light matter interactions exist in molecular media. I am also interested in Bio-nano-photonics such as how we can orchestrate fluorescence processes in biological objects.
I have completed my bachelor degree in Biotechnology and undertaking my master's in Molecular photonics for Telecommunications and Biology. I am glad to be a part of NU iGEM team as I think it is an excellent place for sharing and gaining knowledge, experience and interesting ideas.
My goal is to be an expert who doesn’t think but knows, but I know that I have to think infinitely to become such an expert. So good luck to me! =)
Madina Akan
Madina Akan works as research assistant in Department of Biosensors and Bioinstrument at Nazarbayev University Research and Innovation System. She has studied in Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology program at Fatih University (Istanbul, Turkey). She is involved in selection and characterization of aptamers against ECPKA proteins.
Her credo is: "I believe that tomorrow is another day and I think that you have to be better than you ever thought you could be."
Aliya Bekmurzayeva
Aliya Bekmurzayeva works as a junior researcher in Department of Biosensors and Bioinstruments at Nazarbayev University Research and Innovation System. She has studied in Master of Biotechnology program at McGill University (Montreal, Canada) and Bachelor of Ecology program in Kazakh National University named after al-Farabi (Astana, Kazakhstan). She is involved in selection and characterization of aptamers for diagnosis of tuberculosis and breast cancer.
Aigerim Soltabayeva
Aigerim helped our team with laboratory facilities and reagents. She is very smart geneticist, so she also helped us in our gene construction. Now, Aigerim have won a grant for the PhD program of the University Ben-Gurion (Israel, Sede Boqer). We are all proud of her. Her life credo is: "Fear of the possibility of mistakes should not deter us from seeking the truth".
Nargis Karatayeva
Nargis received her BS in genetics at The University of Manchester. Now she is at doing her PhD at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. When she worked as Teaching Assistant in Biology at Nazarbayev University, Nargis helped our team to work with yeast expression system.
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