Team:NU Kazakhstan/Team
Who we are
Some of history
NU_KAZAKHSTAN team was created 3 years ago, in the winter of 2013, when five brave and deeply curious in synthetic biology students decided to work out own crazy project and participate in amazingly global competition - iGEM. Starting from that very memorable time our team is growing and getting more experience in dealing with different and interesting aspects of synthetic biology. Thanks to iGEM, the time of useful research experience transformed in the funny and precious moments of life: All of us are a big-big iGEM family!
Meet our team
Instructors
Olena Filchakova
I work as an Instructor in the Biology Department of Nazarbayev Uniersity. This year I supervise students who prepare for iGEM competition.I decided to help students because iGEM is a unique opportunity for them to be real scientists: to propose new idea, test it, analyze results and share findings with other students.The students learn a great deal while preparing to the competition and the experience they get will be useful in their future. I hope that my experience in molecular biology will be of help to them.
Damira Kanayeva
Acting Director of the Interdisciplinary Instrumental Center,
PI «NATIONAL LABORATORY ASTANА», Nazarbayev University
Dr. Damira Kanayeva joined Nazarbayev University in 2011. Since then she has been actively involved in teaching, research, and service as well. Dr. Kanayeva established a research direction in the field of biosensors and biodetection at NU, which represents a promising option for developing reliable, simple, and affordable tools for the effective detection of pathogens. She is an advisor of several undergraduate and graduate students, who are actively pursuing their degrees in the field of biomedical engineering. In a short period of time Dr. Kanayeva and her colleagues managed to establish a high-potential research institute that became home for many bright researchers from various fields. She is also an active member of professional societies (American Society for Microbiology, International Society for Optics and Photonics, and others) and honorary organizations such as Phi Kappa Phi. She received her Ph.D. degree in cell and molecular biology from the University of Arkansas (USA) with biosensors being a primary focus of her studies. Currently, Dr. Kanayeva holds the position of a director of the Interdisciplinary Instrumental Center, National Laboratory Astana and has a joint appointment as an assistant professor at the School of Science and Technology.
Students
Mukhtar Sadykov"
He is the “oldest man” and one of the founders of NU_Kazakhstan team. Finishing BSc in Biological Sciences, he impresses all team members with his energy and ubiquitous involvement in all parts of the project. Currently, he is studying Medicine. Mukhtar’s goal is to increase healthy life expectancy of the country by 10 years until he retires.
Altynay Abdirakhmanova
Altynay is the third year Biology student. If you sum up the lab hours of every team member, except Altynay's one, Altynay will still have the larger number. She is really wonderful person: kind, reliable and responsible. From the very beginning she was completely devoted to this project. She is very hardworking and knows how to engage everyone in the working process.
Askarbek Orakov
Askarbek is not just the youngest member of our Family, but he is one of the smartest guys in our team! He is the silver medalist at International Biology Olympiad and he is always eager for knowledge. He is the second leader in the amount of time spent in the laboratory just the next after Altynay. He is very responsible, devoted to the idea and really good friend. As bright shining light, he always warms up our team with warm colors.
Azhar Zhailauova
She is crazy about research. Her dream is to change the world discovering, understanding and implementing. She loves books, skating, songs, dogs, people and poems. Azhar is brilliant in doing any type of laboratory work both wet and dry.
Luiza Niyazmetova
She has recently obtained BSc degree in Biological Sciences from Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan. iGEM was a great way for Luiza to learn a lot of new skills and to get more knowledge in such fascinating field as Synthetic Biology. Now, she is pursuing her dream to become a doctor, but iGEM will always remain in her heart as a desire for knowledge, as a passion for learning and experiencing novelties. Luiza helped us with all culturing procedures regarding S.mutans, as well as the assembly of light system
Aisha Yesbolatova
She is a third year Biology major student, interested in synthetic biology. Also, she likes cancer and astrobiology, and love writing short stories, ice skating, and basketball. Aisha contributed to the development of CRISPR part of the project, and helped us with general microbiology procedures.
Batyrkhan Saduanov
Robotics and Mechatronics student. He helped us with wiki page development. Also interested in biology but not as much as in robotics and computer science.
Some other photos
