“If not me, then who? If not now, then when?”
Personally, I am an introverted person, still, I would like to share my journey with the world today.
I feel proud to introduce myself as a cancer researcher. My schooling was in VNSC, followed by a Bachelor of Pharmacy and a Master of Clinical Pharmacy & Pharmacology from the University of Dhaka. Despite having an impressive trend of academic achievements, I wasn’t sure about the best course career path. Looking back- I can see people envisioning me taking up a career in the corporate world following the path of a business leader like my dad, or a dynamic corporate engineer like my sister. During my Bachelor year III, I was chosen to represent Bangladesh at an international platform (Novartis BioCamp, Tokyo). Being one of the youngest participants in that event, I had the opportunity to meet and listen to successful global leaders in the biotech industry and academia. I was inspired to take up research as my career and continued my preparation accordingly. During my M. Pharm at DU, I worked in Incepta Pharma as a marketing executive and prepared for my studies overseas. I knew this corporate job is for an interim period, and glad that I didn’t have to take up Pharmaceutical marketing as a career option. I moved to Sydney for M.Phil at the faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney followed by Ph.D. in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Macquarie University. Since then, I am working as an expert in Cancer Proteomics at the Children’s Medical Research Institute, University of Sydney. Anyone interested in my area of work can follow these links to explore.
However, like any other girl from our background, my journey wasn’t smooth all along. The struggle over the past 12 years has turned me into a mature, confident, and resilient individual. I strongly believe this journey would have been impossible without my better half on my side. I am fortunate to have a strongly supportive and dependable partner. We started our partnership under challenging circumstances and continued to fight together just not for a successful marriage, but also for individual accomplishments.
Like any other job, research is stressful and wet lab tasks don’t maintain specific hours of operation. Sometimes the experiments need to be monitored under strict intervals, sometimes an error occurs that can’t be fixed remotely. This means the responsible person ends up in the lab at unexpectedly late hours. I have the experience of rushing to the lab after social dinners even the night before eid. Years ago, when we didn’t have a car- my husband would travel hours to accompany me from the lab on freezing winter nights. I still remember the day we had to spend a night at ER with my sick child- I was in the final year of my Ph.D. and a crucial experiment was underway. I went straight to the lab once the hospital discharged him in the morning, while my husband took him home and looked after him till I returned in the evening. Many times, after spending spend months on a project, the experiments don’t work out and the whole hypothesis ends up with a negative outcome. I am lucky to have a shoulder waiting for me to cry out and carry on. Alhamdulillah for everything, this person is a blessing in my life from the Almighty Himself.
Anyone who has an idea about the life of an international student abroad would be able to feel the struggle of this young pair. I don’t want to continue explaining how difficult those circumstances were only Allah is the witness to our hardship. Looking back at those days, I am thankful for those experiences that trained me to cook from scratch and taught me how to distribute care for a newborn between work and study. Despite my pregnancy and childbirth during my Ph.D., Allah helped me to finish the degree right on time- with 3 publications and a provisional patent. This was a crucial episode as international students are liable to pay for any additional days needed for submission- which was not a small amount for us.
I am grateful to my Ph.D. supervisor who provided complete flexibility and support to a foreign girl who is culturally completely different from him. He is widely reputed in the research community as a perfectionist- who doesn’t stop to scrutinize and criticizing until the outcome is flawless. To my surprise, he continued to arrange funds for me to present at international conferences and overseas training- which was an added stress for us as we had to arrange funds for my husband and child to accompany me. Thankfully I ignored all the negative comments from my close ones and decided to travel as a family. Three of us traveled throughout Europe and US under a strict budget, eating dried and canned foods that we carried from Sydney. I can’t stop smiling when thinking about those priceless moments. Our struggle continued until we got permanent residency and white-collar jobs straight after. I won’t go into detail about those battles, as I hate to seek sympathy.
Alhamdulillah time has changed now- but I don’t want to forget those difficult years and how people reacted to our troubles. I learned to embrace reality and handle every crisis throughout this roller coaster ride.
“When life throws a lemon at you, make lemonade out of it”
Some of the studies by Sadia Mahboob:
- https://www.cmri.org.au/Research/Supporting-Research/Sadia-Mahboob
- https://www.mq.edu.au/research-impact/2015/10/12/early-stage-colorectal-cancer-biosignatures/#.Xvu6MygzZaQ
- https://freshscience.org.au/2016/blood-test-for-bowel-cancer
Some of the studies by Sadia Mahboob:
- https://www.cmri.org.au/Research/Supporting-Research/Sadia-Mahboob
- https://www.mq.edu.au/research-impact/2015/10/12/early-stage-colorectal-cancer-biosignatures/#.Xvu6MygzZaQ
- https://freshscience.org.au/2016/blood-test-for-bowel-cancer
