Internship

About the Internship

Lymphedema is a common condition that affects breast cancer survivors that increases risk of infection and decreases quality of life. Currently, treatments for lymphedema are poor and there is no cure. This lab studies novel targeted gene therapy to prevent and treat lymphedema.

Planas-Paz, Lara & Lammert, Eckhard. (2014). Mechanosensing in Developing Lymphatic Vessels. Advances in anatomy, embryology, and cell biology. 214. 23-40. 10.1007/978-3-7091-1646-3_3.

Project Summary

IU Plastic Surgery Research Day 2025 Poster

Workplace

The skills and strengths I have that will contribute to my internship site as a professional and a team member include knowledge of laboratory techniques and methods from previous research experiences, as well as a broad clinical knowledge from working in clinical environments. These areas will grow due to the specialized nature of this research topic by means of exposure to new techniques and literature reviews. These are important to my future career plans because as a physician scientist, having a strong basic science research background will serve as a benefit to understanding the clinical pathology.

This year I've grown into being a very active independent team member. My role changed throughout the internship overtime as I grew more comfortable and the other members in the lab grew trust in me to accomplish tasks. My contributions impacted the larger goals of our team by being an active collaborator in multiple ongoing projects and submissions. My efforts mattered because they allowed for more full group contribution.

Successes and Challenges

The first time I've felt successful in this lab was when I started to be given more responsibilities. When I first started it seemed like I couldn't do anything on my own and I always needed supervision in order to do any sort of research activities. However, recently on we just started a new project I was given my own responsibility of analyzing histology. I take this as a win because I complete this analysis on my own with minimal supervision and present my progress weekly during lab meeting. The second time I've felt successful in this lab is when I receive positive feedback during lab meetings. While this may sound very trivial, in research it's very easy to feel like you aren't doing good enough if experiments or data don't come out how they were intended to. However, the members of my lab do a very good job in making me feel valued which I think is a win. A time that I was successful this year was presenting our project at IU's plastic surgery research day. This was a successful experience because I was able to showcase the successes that we achived through the term. I can apply these success to my future academic and career goals because presenting at meetings like this give me more experience in presenting research which is a necessary skill in academic medicine.

The first thing that has been a challenge this semester is time management. In addition to the internship, balancing coursework, work, and some aspect of a social life doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room. In order to make sure I have enough time for everything, making sure that I make the most out of all my dedicated time maximizes my efficiency which has brought me success. The second thing that has been a challenge for me is accepting that I won't be perfect at everything. In research and in school it seems that there's a big expectation to always be perfect or it isn't good enough. But through talking to all the mentors that I have through this internship, they've assured me that being perfect isn't a necessary factor to success. A time that I experienced a challange this year was constructing a poster for IU's plastic surgery research day. Since this was the first poster I was building completely on my own there was a learning curve to the process. My internship team helped me navigate this process by providing me constructive feedback which helped me to construct a coherent poster presentation.

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