My name is Betoul Baz and I'm second-year
PhD student at The University of Queensland
Centre for Clinical Research and I’m sponsored
by King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research
Centre in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. So in the
past two years of my PhD studies I have been
given the chance to speak at National Conferences
and attend a couple of various conferences.
I also won the Graduate School International
Travel Award which I will be using in a couple
of months from now to present my research
data in France and the Netherlands and I will
also be meeting with experts in the field
to take my research to the next level. What
I’m researching in my PhD project is the
genetics of skin wound healing and what I
aim to identify is genes that dictate how
well a person's skin wounds would heal and
I’m also setting a small population of stem
cells that are resident in the skin and I’m
setting how they function to help their skin
wound healing process. Skin wounds are quite
universal and they affect everyone, there
aren't a particular part of the population
that are more susceptible to having skin wounds,
however, the elderly and people with other
co-morbidities such as diabetes have an increased
risk having what we call chronic wounds and
these are wounds that take a very long time
to heal and these people go through a vicious
loop of changing dressing and just support
of treatments and then treatment never works,
so these are the type of people who would
benefit the most from the kind of study that
I am working on. It would be perfect if we
can tailor the therapies to those patients
needs and have more effective therapies developed
afterwards. During the course of my study
at The University of Queensland I have been
so privileged to work under the supervision
of Associate Professor Kiarash Khosrotehrani.
I have learnt so many things from him, I learnt
how to design experiments, how to test hypotheses,
how to interpret scientific data and most
importantly how to communicate them. To me
the supervision is mentorship is quite invaluable
its indispensable and it’s a real asset.
Since 2012 since I have been sponsored by
King Faisal specialist hospital and research
centre in Riyadh back in Saudi Arabia, I have
had continuous support from them and continuous
support from the university to take my research
to the next level, there has been unlimited
resources and unlimited support of which I
have received and which I am very thankful
for. What we are hoping for in The University
of Queensland is find effective therapies
for skin wound healing and skin cancer and
in my opinion with all the efforts of all
the researchers and all the facilities that
we've got, this is becoming a reality.
