By: Abolfazl Amjadipour

Salam. My name is Abolfazl Amjadipour. I am a PhD student at ANU, College of Health and Medicine. I started my PhD on a winter day in 2022.

The journey of my PhD began during a lecture by one of my professors at med school. He talked about a disease that no one knows the cause of or how to treat exactly. It is quite common and imposes a huge burden on countries. It is called multiple sclerosis. He discussed the possibility that he and his colleagues are on the correct path in their research on the cause of multiple sclerosis. Sitting there and listening to his talk felt like walking on the edge of science, or at least witnessing pioneers extending the boundaries of science. Since then, I have been following in those footsteps to discover more facts about this disorder, hoping for a breakthrough for people living with MS.

Sometimes I wonder about the point of all this—spending lots of time reading, even more planning experiments, and enduring stress for some numbers that might favour an idea or may not. Helping people living with a health problem and seeing their joy in living and cherishing life when they can is what motivates me, and I believe many other scientists, to keep going.

I come from Iran, the land of poets and love. I wish I could bring all of you to Iran and show you how lovely the people are and how gorgeous the country is. I enjoy learning new things every day and getting to know people's stories, sharing humanity. I try to stay active whenever and however I can, whether it's just running at the lakeside or paddling my bicycle around the lovely city of Canberra.

Sometimes I find it hard to live in this world when I read the news and see so many bad things happening, be it wars, racism, or gender issues. People getting hurt for what they believe and love, such as the war in Gaza, crushes my heart. I pray for those affected Palestinians and the people of Israel. May God help them and bring peace.