Real Life on Dr. Shakardokht Jafari
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Let me introduce myself first in terms of profession, then go back to personal story.
00:06 So I am a clinical scientist in Queen Alexandra Hospital, a medical physicist,
00:13 working in radiotherapy department. I am also CEO and founder of True In Vivo company,
00:22 which is based in Surrey Technology Centre in Guildford. And that's a university startup company
00:30 that I founded after my PhD to commercialize radiation detection system that can help
00:38 cancer patients to have a better and more accurate treatment and better quality of life.
00:44 Now, going back to what is my story, but I am originally from Afghanistan, and being in here
00:53 meant I had to go through cancelling three arranged marriages and fighting through to
01:02 choose my own husband, continue my education, not easily because I was not allowed to go to
01:08 high school or university. So I was studying hiddenly in the bathroom in the toilet to get
01:14 prepared for university entrance exam. This is in Afghanistan? It was in Iran. I was living as a
01:22 refugee. I had a problem that my own family didn't want me to go to high school. They wanted me to
01:30 get married when I was just 14, 15 years of age. So that's why my studies went hiddenly. And I
01:41 participated at the university entrance exam and succeeded in extraordinary circumstances,
01:49 because all my classmates were attending the preparation courses for this university exam.
01:56 And I was by my own self studying in the bathroom, toilet in the garden, making my own lantern
02:05 when everybody else is asleep. You were studying in secret? Yeah. And that year, I was the only
02:11 girl from our school in the town that succeeded to go to public university in Iran. So I studied
02:19 radiation technologies in Tehran Medical University. By that, my own family's mindset
02:25 changed and they become supporter of girls education. And then they supported my sisters
02:33 and recommended to other relatives to send their girls to school. And now almost all of our
02:41 relatives had access to education. Their children are graduated from university and some are
02:48 studying to go to the university. So when Taliban fell off power first time, I returned back to
02:56 Afghanistan. I worked as assistant professor in Kabul Medical University. And after that,
03:02 I became project leader for reestablishment of cancer center in Afghanistan.
03:08 In 2008, when I lost my own father due to cancer, I decided to become a specialist in cancer care.
03:19 So by October 2010, I came to UK. I did my master's degree in medical physics under a
03:25 sponsorship of International Atomic Energy Agency in Surrey University and then continued to PhD.
03:34 And during my PhD, I was shocked to see that even in UK, up to 30% of cancer patients who receive
03:43 radiotherapy suffer from severe complications or their treatment even fail. And as a physicist,
03:52 I thought what I can do about this. And one of the major problem was when we were scanning a patient
03:59 to plan the treatment for him or for her. The day that patient was receiving the treatment, there was
04:07 no assurance on feedback system to tell us patient received what we planned. And I looked for that
04:15 feedback system. So I looked for finding tiny radiation detectors that can go inside the body
04:23 and measure the radiation, actual received radiation, those when patient is receiving
04:30 the treatment. So when clinicians see the results, they can correct the treatment because radiation
04:36 treatment is given somewhere between 5 to 35 daily fractions and there is time for correction if we
04:44 have correct information. So I focused on this and I developed small radiation detectors made of
04:52 mass produced jewelry glass beads, very effective, robust and cost efficient system, which now I am
05:00 in the process of commercialization. Just had a conference in the US, want to penetrate US market.
05:08 And it is not used just in the medical industry. It is radiation detector and can be used in other
05:14 industries like nuclear decommissioning. We had four order till now from nuclear decommissioning
05:19 to use for their dosimetry purpose.
05:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]