Dariya Yestekbayeva

"I am a passionate girl who loves science, books and music. I am a girl who is dreaming to save millions of people with my knowledge and work, and who is driven to do baby steps to achieve this goal. I am not afraid of learning from my own mistakes and love talking to people and learn something new. I will also happy to teach other young girls (and our allies boys) the skills and knowledge to get to the position on STEM they want. That's why I believe I am a good manager, coordinator and influencer."

"Being a clinical scientist undergrad, I help my manager with leading clinical trials. It's very universal role that basically can combine medical writing (or people who writes scientific articles for journals), people management (we talk to a lot of other important science in roles and lead them), working with data and a lot of presentation of data as well (you can even go to the conference!). I do enjoy my job because I have an opportunity to learn from different people, help them as well and make my little and big contributions! Also, I just do science - the area I love the most, so I'm very happy."

"I believe, as soon as you have a passion for something you want to do, you will succeed everywhere. My role model was a woman who invented CRISPR-CAS technology and her name is Jennifer Doudna. I was so inspired by her after reading her book that I decided to take her path and become her \"little replica\". That's why I became a nerd in science, who volunteered in teachers' labs, did science projects and presented them, and volunteered in the hospital as well. Then in the Uni, I volunteered in the lab for cancer research and learnt more about genetics and pharmacology. I also went to the research exchange program where I worked on my scientific project on cancer bioengineering. And all of these were just because I was curious about science and wanted to be like Jennifer. In her book, she joined industry and worked for it for several years, so I followed her path and chose the job that was resonating me which is CS undergrad. I don't regret now because I enjoy what I'm doing now :)"

"In my spare time I usually enjoy discovering new places and new food. I like culture and history, so enjoy visiting museums and galleries as well. I am also a very huge fan of cinemas and theatres so every weekend I watch something new and go to either of them. "

"Currently I am working on 2 teams - Lyme disease vaccine team and COVID/RSV/Flu vaccines. Most of the time I have a lot of meetings with teams from different countries and even companies because I work with partners from AstraZeneca, J&J, Moderna and GSK. During these meetings I do notetaking and help with building the slides. I also help with writing protocols, manuscripts and similar important documents that are usually later published in the big science journals and presented in the conferences. Then I finish my day at 5 pm and commute on train back home and watch my favourite movies or read books :)"

"University of Portsmouth - BSc (Hons) Biomedical sciences,Course rep - university,Volunteering the lab (research on polyphenols effect on Colorectal cancer) - university,Writing and publishing systematic review (Effect of polyphenols on CRC) - university,Student Voice Assistant of school of Medicine, Pharmacy, Pharmacology and Biomedical sciences - part time - university student union,Research exchange program project on engineering of hydrogels from cancer tissue - University of Navarra , Spain,Clinical Scientist Undergraduate - Pfizer UK."