Almaz Aldashev was a man of his people. He was never more happy than when travelling through his native mountains, talking, eating and singing with his fellow Kyrgyz, drinking kumis, fishing in streams, and sleeping in yurts.
He was born on November 1, 1953 in Frunze (now known as Bishkek), then capital of Kyrgyzstan and part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). His father, Abdulkhai Aldashev, was professor of veterinary science at the National Agrarian University, as well as a member of the Writers' Association of Kyrgyzstan (now the Kyrgyz Republic). His mother, Fatima, devoted herself entirely to raising five children. Together, they stimulated and nurtured Almaz's broad education and deep understanding of his country's cultural history.
Almaz spent his undergraduate years in Moscow. In 1980, he became a research assistant in the high-altitude laboratory in Kyrgyzstan, sparking a career-long interest in hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension. He was awarded his PhD by the Moscow Academy of Sciences in 1983 on “Receptors, intracellular signalling and hypoxic proteins at high-altitude pulmonary hypertension”. He was soon Head of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cell Biology within the Institute of Cardiology in Bishkek, and in 2002, he became Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Medicine. His scientific leadership was recognised internationally …