Pietra's Internship Blog

Here’s a stalker photo my co-worker Vicky took of me sitting at the window (im the person wearing yellow)

A photo of me with the labs PI, Silvio Gutkind 

My internship project went great I think. I am now able to execute almost every basic lab skills that one should need to do. I don’t think there’s anything I should’ve or could’ve done differently because I made sure to always take notes and pay attention to things so that I’d be able to gain the trust of the people around me and help them with their tasks. I have made mistakes and things have gone wrong, but in the end it all ended up working out. Something that stands out to me is how much the people in the lab seem to genuinely care about me and each other. Everyone in the lab is so friendly and helpful and without them, my internship project and experience wouldn’t have been able to happen at all. The fact that I was even able to intern here at all is a huge deal because I had no family connection or anything aside from a girl I volunteer with on weekends who got me a position here. PI’s are so busy and if I had just emailed Silvio(our PI) he probably wouldn’t have even gotten back to me. This experience was so unique and my mentors said they want to have me back twice a week after school and help me develop my own mini-research project that’ll hopefully become my bio honors project. This month has been unreal and my iPOL will hopefully reflect that.  

My biggest piece of advice would be: connections are more important than you’d think! Don’t rely on your parent’s connections or that of people who you know, go out and volunteer or do something in your area of interest, then by the time you need to find an internship there will be people around you willing to help. The most important skill you need to be successful at an internship is responsibility and being able to keep yourself accountable. Realistically, at your job and in the real world there isn’t going to be anyone there spoon-feeding you things or babysitting you. You need the responsibility, drive, and be willing to learn new abilities and skills. One could start developing this at school or in their own life easily by just trying to stay on task and not relying on your teachers or parents to tell you what to do. 

I’m currently applying for a summer program at UChicago in a research lab and I think the experience I gained here is going to really help me with my application process, and if I get in it’ll help me work well at the program. This can also help me in future labs that I may work in, and also in my professional career in the future if I choose to go into research. I will still be in touch with my mentors and Monica(the girl who helped me get my internship) after internship ends, and they invited me to come back and work for them over the summer, so if I don’t get into the summer program I might come here instead. 

I’m thankful for being able to have experienced being in a lab at this age. This work experience will set me apart from other high schoolers in the college application process, and when working in labs in the future. I have developed an appreciation for research. Before working here, I had no interest at all in biomedical research or anything of the sort, but being here and experiencing it and seeing how much scientists care and work together in order to try and help people is truly inspiring. 

Internship has definitely made me reconsider what I want to major in. Everyone at the lab thinks that the colleges I want to attend are good fits for me, but maybe I’d like to major in something more biology-oriented. Internship has mostly made me think about my path after college, like pursuing going to grad school to get my PhD and possibly even getting my post-doc after. Seeing all of the people around me be so invested in their studies and be excited about new and different things every day makes me want to go down a similar path in my own life. 

There’s nothing I would change about the social environment. This lab is probably one of the most friendly and kind labs out there. Everyone is always kind and willing to help; keeping the balance of work and play is never an issue around here. I’m really loving my time at the lab and I’m sad that next week will be my last week here. 

I have a newly-found appreciation for being driven places. I drove here for the first time today by myself and I had to pick up a parking permit my friend bought me and then I had to circle the parking lot like an idiot for like 30 minutes to find a space. It was a mess but I’m here now and I’m ok, it was just stressful and I appreciate being dropped off by my mom a lot now.

It was stressful and a lot of hard work, but the final product came out great ! (control-mcherry-gfp) 

Last week I began culturing cells and learning about lentiviruses. A lentivirus is a virus that carries DNA that has a gene expression we want to see. By transfecting a lentivirus into a cell line, you can study how it may affect things like the proliferation speed, the cell size, etc. You can also transfect a fluorescent protein (from jellyfish) into cells so that you can see them under a colorful fluorescent microscope. This all probably sounds very complicated, but the process of doing this all is just as complicated. When working with cells you have to work with your hands in a fume hood, and you have to be super careful not to contaminate anything.

My project is going great ! I am learning new things every day and I'm making sure I ask for protocols for all the procedures and if a protocol doesn't exist, I'm writing my own with all the steps detailed so I don't forget. In the beginning I thought I could probably just remember everything, but when it came time to start doing things on my own I quickly realized I was very wrong and my memory is terrible. My mentor Yoyo got me a journal to take notes in that matches the ones everyone in the lab use.What did you learn about yourself. I think that overall this experience has prepared me a lot for working in a lab in the future, and now I'm very very good at pipetting and getting better at putting on gloves, which is still my biggest challenge.

The biggest difference between the work week and the school week is the amount of structure in each. In the lab everyone has their own schedule and there’s different things to do every day. This has definitely made me appreciate having a schedule at school because it’s a lot less pressure when you always have something to do. Also, always being around adults and people who either have or are getting their PhD. can be intimidating at times. Everyone is super nice, but compared to always being around a bunch of kids my age at school feels very different. School only prepared me and probably will prepare me for these things by giving me background knowledge on topics because this job is different to school in almost every way possible. 

Here’s some genotyping PCR’s I ran for my mentor (150 of them). Long process, but they came out great !

I will bring back my newly-found knowledge in biology in order to help me when I’m in Lucas’s class. I’ve also learned many lab skills that’ll be very important for me to know if I chose to pursue a career in biology, chemistry, or medicine. Also now that I know how to do all of these things it will probably help me with coming up with a great honors project for Lucas.  

The biggest challenge I face at internship is making sure I am learning and taking the most out of things like just shadowing people. Understanding these complex biology concepts is a challenge within itself, but then also making sure I’m being productive and learning and doing things correctly is a challenge. Also not having a “schedule” has been a bit daunting. I’m a person who likes planning and knowing what I’m going to do everyday, and that’s not how the lab works. I’m getting used to it now and accommodating, but at first that was a challenge. A challenge that arose in the lab was having to do with ordering dry ice. We at the lab just found out that you’re committing a federal crime if you order dry ice without having taken the “safety training” class. The way they solved this problem is just asking the people who have taken the class to order it for them, then when they have some spare time they’ll take the class themselves. There have been some bigger problems concerning grants, politics, and papers, but that’s probably confidential and also goes way over my head.