MENTEE Somayyeh Heidary

Somayyeh, completed her bachelor’s degree in medical laboratory science in Iran and she obtained her master’s degree in Microbial Biotechnology from Malaysia. After graduation she returned back to her home country and worked for a Central Pathology lab. She worked as a Medical Laboratory scientist in all different departments for 2 years which helped her gain valuable experience in all fields but she showed strong enthusiasm for Hematology and Leukemia diagnostic and applying cutting-edge methods such as Flow cytometry and Molecular test to help cancer patients. By participating workshops and courses, she became a flow cytometry specialist and worked in this field for 5 years. Besides that, she was teaching Microbiology and Parasitology subjects at University for 3 years both theoretical and practical classes. She mostly enjoyed practical classes since it enabled her to teach methods and techniques to the new students. Her eagerness to learn more lead her to a PhD program in Molecular Medicine field at Deakin University in Australia. She received a Deakin University post graduate research scholarship and has been started her PhD since 2019.

Her PhD project focuses on generating a Human disease mutation in the JAK/STAT signalling pathway in an Animal Model (Zebrafish) and try to characterize and deeply understand the molecular mechanism underlying this disease. This Human mutation clinically represents several phenotypes such as severe Immune deficiency and somatic growth retardation. This require applying variety of cellular and molecular techniques such as cell and tissue histology, Imaging (Fluorescent Microscopy), Genome editing (Crisper-Cas9), PCR, qRT-PCR and Flow cytometry. She enjoys doing new tests and experiments in the lab and supervising honour students in their projects. She believes this mentoring program will help her to take the best steps through her future career in industry.