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1) 3 pieces of advice for your 14-year-old self …

The first advice would be don't worry if you're not the very best at school in the regard of test results and marks. Of course make enough effort much more important is the individual path that everyone has to identify and to go through for the professional development. The second one would be turn off your PC and smartphone and go outside explore the life in the other way meet friends, do sports. The third one would be directly connected to traveling. Go abroad as early as possible. Meet new people different cultures with different backgrounds new ideas view of the world. Of course to practice your foreign language skills, communication and diplomacy.
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2) What's written on your business card?

I'm Master of Science in biotechnology. I'm currently working as a research associate which in my case means PhD student at Fraunhofer. I am an institute for molecular biology and applied ecology. I'm actually employed at the Department for pharmaceutical product development.
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3) What's the coolest thing about your job?

In our job we very often uncover or discover novel findings which would mean a new biological mechanism or a pathway. Definitely the coolest part of this job is to be the very first one to publish this and to share it with the science community.
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4) What are the limitations of your job?

As I mentioned, in our job we very often discover or uncover new biological mechanisms and very often these should be first filled into a patent form, before revealing it to any of outside world. One should be really careful how to deal with this with his ideas and findings. The second limitation would be time management. If you conduct experiments with biological units for example mice, they don't stop for the Friday and then go on the weekend. Of course it continues all the weekend and one should really invest his time in order to achieve the needed results.
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5) What's your job about?

In my department we investigate mechanisms pathways and biomarkers in order to develop or innovative solutions and product candidates for diagnosis and treatment of a variety of human diseases. In my PhD I work on two projects with similar structure, but different focus. One is on cancer and the other one is on chronic inflammatory diseases. My working day is split into equal time parts between lab and office. The normal day starts with office work and got a cup of good black coffee where I read some new publications, plan my experiments. Later on I go and in the lab and I conduct my experiments. I can work either in vitro with cancer cells on their bench for example. The much more interesting part is going into in vivo preclinical animal models for example in mice. Later on all the collected data have to be evaluated so I can go back to the office where I evaluate all my results and write it down in my lab book. Me and my colleagues meet on a regular basis and present our results and discuss them. Share opinion! This is very important and in case we have some new findings we either first fill a patent form. If it has a direct application or we just publish in scientific journals. The last part is maybe the most important. It's writing project applications. As an academic the industry funding is always needed.
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6) What's your background?

I was born and raised in Bulgaria and after graduating high school with good knowledge in English and in German I decided to go abroad for my studying. I landed at WTH university and started biotechnology studies. I done here my bachelor's and master's and in 2012 I started my master thesis at Fraunhofer IME. Since the results were quite promising, the project was really interesting and of course people are great to work with and very supportive I decided to directly continue with my PhD. Now, three years later I can say that this decision was definitely the right one for me. Especially when I look at my publication record and other achievements.
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7) Could someone with a different background do your job?

A lifescience is quite interdisciplinary field of studies, combining molecular biology and other important natural science disciplines. Everyone with background in one of those and of course master degree can commence a PhD like mine. In my opinion one has to have the strive for innovation and not to be afraid to try new ideas. Of course to cooperate with other people to cooperate, to be open for their knowledge, opinions and to be interactive. We have an international team of scientists here, working shoulder-to-shoulder and it's quite motivating. It's really interesting to identify yourself in the level of science.

“Turn off your PC and Smartphone and go outside and explore life, meet friends, do sports.” As a Master of Science in Biotechnology, Radoslav Mladenov currently works as a Research Associate at Fraunhofer IME. In his department he investigates new and innovative possibilities for diagnoses and treatments for a variety of human diseases. What he likes most in his job? “In our job we often uncover or discover novel findings, which would mean new biological mechanisms or pathways, and definitely the coolest part of this job is to be the first one to publish.”

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