Sanzhar Aitbay (ESR9)

Sanzhar Aitbay is a bioscientist from Shymkent, Kazakhstan. In 2018 he obtained his BSc. in Biological Sciences and Environmental Engineering from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), South Korea under guidance of Prof. Dr. Jong Bhak.  He then moved to Jena, the city where Ernst Haeckel made his seminal works in zoology, and Matthias Schleiden co-founded cell theory. There he enrolled in MSc. in Molecular Life Sciences program at Friedrich – Schiller University. After a year at Jena, in 2019, to conduct his master’s thesis, he moved to Heidelberg to join Ana Martin – Villalba’s lab at German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). In his thesis work he focused on genomic instability during acinar – ductal metaplasia, a process that is hypothesized to be at origin of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). It is then, when he developed interest in next generation in vitro systems and biology of PDAC. To further follow these interests, in 2021, he joined Julie Guillermet-Guibert’s team at Toulouse Cancer Research Center (CRCT), Inserm under the PIPGEN network frame to conduct his PhD thesis. During this time, he aims to develop next generation in vitro systems which integrated latest knowledge in the field of cancer mechanobiology, and place the importance of PI3K signaling in mechanotransduction.