Guest Lecture by Professor Ilya Digel “From Molecules to Icy Moons: Research Across Disciplines”

Al-Farabi Kazakh National University invites faculty members, doctoral and master’s students, and undergraduate students to attend a lecture by Professor Ilya Digel, PhD, of FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences, Germany, entitled “From Molecules to Icy Moons: Research Across Disciplines.”

Ilya Digel is Director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Head of the Laboratory of Cellular Biophysics and Microbiology at FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences. He has 33 years of academic and teaching experience and an h-index of 26. His areas of expertise include biology, biotechnology, bioengineering, biomedicine, and ecology.

Professor Digel’s research interests are strongly interdisciplinary. His work encompasses medical biophotonics in diagnostics and therapy, the application of neural networks in medicine and biology, the molecular biophysics of thermoreception and signalling molecules, the adsorption of bacterial endotoxins on nanostructured materials, and biophysical approaches to combating viroid diseases in plants. A distinct area of his research focuses on the in situ decontamination of equipment used in space and glacial research.

Professor Digel has led the VirEx and TRIPLESciDecABL2 research projects and, from 2011 to 2014, served as the principal responsible researcher for the EnEx Enceladus Explorer project dedicated to the study of Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn. He has extensive experience in leading and coordinating interdisciplinary research projects that bring together different scientific fields and methodological approaches.

Alongside his research activities, Professor Digel is actively engaged in teaching and academic supervision. Over the past four years, he has supervised 65 bachelor’s theses, 40 master’s theses, and 3 doctoral (PhD) dissertations. He teaches courses in bionics and biomimetics, cellular and molecular biophysics, the physical foundations of medical imaging, applied optical methods in medicine, and other related fields.

The lecture “From Molecules to Icy Moons: Research Across Disciplines” will focus on interdisciplinary research integrating approaches from biology, physics, medicine, biotechnology, Earth sciences, and space sciences. The event will be of particular interest to faculty members and early-career researchers whose work lies at the intersection of several areas of contemporary science.

All interested participants are warmly invited to attend Professor Ilya Digel’s lecture.