“I am from Siberia and I am an MD. I moved to Alabama to do biomedical research at UAB. Some of my friends worked there and I moved in 2001. I started with gene therapy, then immunology and hematology. Now we are looking for a drug to treat genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis. We get good results but we aren’t there yet. It is a lot of work. They say about 5-10 percent of results are positive in research work, so when you get good results, it is exciting. It is experiments and ideas and proving or throwing out. We do a lot of throwing out. Alabama is home now. My parents come here every winter. The move was very good for me. The people and weather made it easy to adjust, it was harder for the food.”