Fatemeh Salehi is an Iranian student in the second year of the Master’s program in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Pavia. Driven by a desire to make a difference in healthcare, she dreams of becoming a computational biologist and using artificial intelligence to design proteins from scratch—proteins that could open up new frontiers in medicine. In this interview, in addition to sharing her professional aspirations, she talks about her academic journey, the work experience that has enriched her the most, and the biggest challenge she has faced

What is the biggest challenge you’ve ever faced in life?

Immigration. It’s that one thing that makes me feel like there isn't anything that I can't do. It's like being a little kid again. You need to rethink, relearn, or even unlearn things to optimize your new life.

What does being awarded a Dompé Foundation scholarship mean to you?

Receiving the Dompé Foundation scholarship really motivated me to keep pursuing science. From a very young age, I was wrongly persuaded that science and wealth were separate, but receiving this support was a wake-up call and made me realize that science is wealth. It’s change, it’s innovation, and lastly, it's the resources that help you to materialize ideas in life.

Tell us about a work experience you particularly loved

After my bachelor's, I worked in a hospital clinical lab and I really liked how I contributed to the precise diagnosis of patients. That was actually when I realized that I'm fascinated by technology and how it exploited physiological mechanisms and our understanding of the living to develop new theranostics, and I realized that that's where I want to contribute.

How is the Master’s degree in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnologies relevant today?

I think clinical biotechnology is now beyond just diagnosing and treating diseases. We want to live longer, but also better. So, I think one of the areas that biotechnology today shines and surprises is longevity science.

What’s your Master’s thesis about?

My master's thesis is going to focus on the de novo design of protein ligands for a very conserved site that we identified in the light chain of cholesterol neurotoxins. It's a joint project: I have a supervisor here in the Molecular Medicine Department, and there is a research group in Finland that agreed to host me for my thesis because they are working with different machine learning models with applications in biomedical science.

What is your dream job?

My dream job now is to be a computational biologist in a lab that focuses on the de novo design of proteins and small molecules by harnessing the vast biomedical data sets that are available using AI tools and machine learning. I want to venture into the unknown to save lives and improve clinics by introducing innovative solutions.