16.10.2023
“Be the difference in our world!”- TEDx Talk by Professor Karine Sargsyan

The TEDx Talk "Be the Difference!" by Professor Karine Sargsyan, YSMU Honorary Doctor; ARICE expert; World Health Organization (WHO) expert; Scientific Director of the Cancer Biobank at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, California, USA; Managing Director for International Biobanking and Education at Medizinische Universität Graz, Austria; is now available to watch online.

The Professor highlights the importance of dreaming big, being open to change, as well as being kind and humble with a view of making a positive impact and better future. She presented her professional path from nutrition specialist and pediatrician to scientist, biobanker and futurologist. "By managing biobanks, I started to manage science and research infrastructures, and I became a research manager to intensify and to enable ethically proven biomedical research in favor of the population of the whole Earth. To support humanity, I started to implement digitalization, AI, machine learning and from that part I somehow went to work as a futurologist. I am trying to enable a better future for everybody. Very often I am asked: “Why are you doing so much?” I am doing some things parallelly, it opens eyes and mind. For instance, in the first biobank the software that we have implemented was a museum software, but it served perfectly”, Karine Sargsyan emphasized. She assured that if you implement the ideas taking them from one sphere to another, it makes you richer, it makes the process easier. “But this is not the end, I am sure I will open new ideas, I will work and have different opportunities to learn. Although it looks chaotic, I have my focus. My focus is: to have and to make better life on Planet Earth and with everything I do I try to make life better. And here is my personal, very specific formula for a happy professional life:

  • Dream (big),
  • Vision,
  • Passion,
  • Mission,
  • Education,
  • Exploration,
  • Change.
A dream job is not a fantasy! It is a possibility waiting to be realized”, YSMU Honorary Doctor noted. According to her, it is a contribution to a society.

Karine Sargsyan’s advice is:

  • Don’t jeopardize the freedom of your choice at any time.
  • Learn new things every day and read as much as you can.
    • “Every piece of knowledge we are gaining today, is a tool to build a structure by putting a block on the other, and to make a freedom of choice tomorrow.
  • Be open to change. If you are open to change, you are not allowing anybody to put you in the box and don’t do it with yourself too!
  • And the most important: be kind and humble.
Be the difference in our world! Don’t ask your children what they want to be, ask them what problem in our world they want to solve”, Karine Sargsyan concluded.