I fled Russia’s bombs in Ukraine, now I’m in Sweden researching a cure for infertility. This is my story. – The European Sting – Critical news and insights on European politics, economics, foreign affairs, business and technology
This article is brought to you in collaboration with European Sting with World Economic Forum.
Author: Nataliia Petryk, postdoctoral fellow, Karolinska Institutet
- Nataliia Petryk ran a private clinic in Kyiv and helped countless women give birth to healthy babies before they were forced to flee the country when Russia invaded.
- Following a call from the European Research Council to EU law to bring in Ukrainian researchers, she is now working in Sweden to find a cure for chronic inflammation that can cause infertility and cancer.
- The world now knows how heroic Ukrainians are — Dr. Petryk wants to remind us that they are not only fighters, but also scientists, doctors and innovators.
Like many others, I was forced to flee Kyiv with our two children when Russia invaded Ukraine. We were no longer safe, and our stable and fulfilling lives had taken a dramatic turn – a turn we could not have imagined even days before the bombing began on February 24 last year.
When our youngest son, a happy and energetic ten-year-old, saw the explosions with his own eyes, he changed completely. He could no longer sleep at night, worried that we would die.
Float Ukraine
The day after the invasion, we took our passports and backpacks, spontaneously set off to the western part of Ukraine, only to find that bomb sirens went off there too. We continued by car towards Poland, but long queues at the border held us back. We drove towards Romania, where we crossed the border on foot. My husband returned to Kyiv to do his duty as a doctor, while I took a bus with the boys to Italy where we stayed with a childhood friend.
Once there, I searched the internet to plan a new life in a new country.
Just days after the start of the war, the EU’s funding body, the European Research Council (ERC), had taken action and appealed to their fellowships across Europe to open up their teams to Ukrainian researchers seeking protection.
Niklas Björkström was one of many who answered that call at once. His cutting-edge medical research at the prestigious Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm is backed by a large ERC grant. After my search, and thanks to his enormous help, I was offered a job as a postdoc in his group and I settled with our boys in Stockholm. With my background in medicine, it was a perfect match. Niklas Björkström’s group studies human natural killer cells — a part of our immune system that is important in cancer, infections and pregnancy.
Ukrainian expertise in a Swedish team
I am a gynecologist and surgeon by training, but my interest in science also took me to the field of chronic inflammation, which can lead not only to cancer, but also to infertility and miscarriage.
Targeted treatments for these conditions are in high demand, so I completed a PhD in 2021 at the Department of Pathology at Kharkiv National Medical University – a top Ukrainian institution just miles from Ukraine’s border with Russia. My work was published in three international journals, my husband and I ran a private clinic in Kyiv where we provided world-class healthcare and we focused mainly on female infertility.
During the course of my career in Kyiv – cut short by Russia’s invasion – we gave many women, both Ukrainian and those who traveled from abroad, a second chance at motherhood with the help of an innovative medical technology that enabled women with ovarian failure to give birth . to healthy children from their own eggs.
In the darkness of war, working with Karolinska Institutet gave me back a sense of purpose. I am developing new techniques and participating in high-tech programs that I plan to use later in Ukraine to provide better treatment to patients in our clinic – there will undoubtedly be demand.
Discover
How does the World Economic Forum support refugees?
Since February 24, 2022, over 6 million refugees from Ukraine have crossed the borders into neighboring countries. The war is widely recognized as the worst conflict in Europe since World War II and adds to the estimated 31 million people worldwide who have been displaced across borders as a result of persecution, conflict, violence and human rights abuses (UNHCR, 2021). Of these, approximately 10 million are of working age, which underlines how central employment and employability are to successful integration.
The crisis in Ukraine is unique in terms of the speed and scope with which it has developed. But it is also unprecedented in the legal and institutional response to the crisis. This has put a sharp focus on what is possible for refugee employment and employability with the right enabling environment.
The Refugee Employment and Employability Initiative builds on the momentum associated with supporting refugees from Ukraine to create a foundation for system-wide global support from employers to refugees across conflict contexts.
The initiative has three goals:
- to increase employment opportunities for refugees;
- to expand the range of initiatives that support their employability;
- to build capacity for rapid response and resilience in the face of future refugee crises.
In its first phase, the Initiative works with the Forum’s Community of Chief Human Resource Officers to understand what the member organizations are doing with regard to the employment and employability of refugees. These results will be used to shape the initiative and identify opportunities for further collaboration in the second phase of the initiative.
The crisis, despite its horrors, has given me a unique opportunity to advance my research. With my specialized medical knowledge, I now help Niklas Björkström’s team to develop new treatments and break new ground in our research.
My boys, aged ten and fifteen, were traumatized. Living in Sweden was hard at first. It was a new country, but now they love the educational culture and methods, and they have made friends. They are happy here and I am useful – although the tragic situation in my country always comes to mind.
Looking back, I had to take the plunge without planning and start a new life abroad, but above all I was lucky enough to be welcomed into a wonderful research team. It is encouraging to see that even a small initiative – in this case matchmaking between the ERC’s top researchers and refugee researchers – can change people’s lives and give them a future. Europe and its scientific community reached out to help, and a number of those who had fled answered the call. This has resulted in a win-win situation. I hope this can inspire others to reach out to their communities.
The future of Ukraine and Ukrainians
I also hope that soon I will be able to bring this experience and knowledge back to Ukraine and help rebuild the Ukrainian scientific community.
The world now knows that Ukraine is strong – we are defending ourselves.
But beyond that, the world must understand that Ukraine also has brain power and can stand science, technology and education. We are ambitious, intelligent and are willing and able to contribute to cutting-edge scientific, technological and social development. My experience at Karolinska Institutet is proof of this.
My experience also shows that science knows no boundaries even in the fragmented world we live in today.
I have seen for myself how scientific collaboration promotes understanding and exchange between people in the midst of geopolitical turbulence. It gives hope and strength. By working together, researchers can take science to new heights – crucial for the future of Europe and beyond.
In the long run, such collaborations benefit people all over the world, not least in the medical field wherever the research is conducted. We must remember this also in these days when Russia’s bombs continue to fall on my country.