My Internship

The internship I have been placed at specializes in studying osteoporosis and osteopetrosis. Osteoporosis is a condition in which a patient has reduced bone mineral density which causes their bones to fracture and break easily, thought to affect near 200 million worldwide. Osteopetrosis is the opposite because it is an abnormally high bone mineral density which also causes bones to break easily. This disease in much rarer affecting only about 1 in 20,000 people. So rare in fact, that my internship is the only lab in the United States studying osteopetrosis! The lab I'm a part of does most of their experiments using mice as a model organism. They have different genetic strains of mice that they test and observe to see if a certain treatment has any effect on the mice's bone density. They gather data on the mice using many different techniques such as blood samples, CT scans, X-rays, and many others. Throughout my time here, I will have the option of focusing in on a specific project that they are conducting or being a part of multiple projects. I will learn how to do the many different techniques that they employ and learn how to gather scientific data in a professional lab setting. In fact, I was initially interested in this lab due to the many different techniques that I will learn while researching. I believe that I will be most successful working with the cell cultures and basic laboratory techniques to begin with. However, as I become more comfortable, I hope to master more challenging techniques associated with handling the mice.

I've already discovered multiple relationships between my current classes and my internship. For example, many of the techniques and concepts that we're learning in my Genetics lab and lecture classes are very common in my internship. The disease that we're researching has genetic links and the way these links are established have been covered in Genetics class. The drugs that we test in the internship all have organic structure easily found online and I've begun to learn how this structure plays a role in the drugs' effect on the body. By getting the opportunity to apply the concepts I've been learning in organic chemistry and genetics at my internship, I've really cemented the material in my mind. It's very helpful for me to get the opportunity to apply these concepts in a hands-on fashion. Many times, at my internship we go above and beyond the basics and as a result I've gained a much deeper understanding of topics covered in my classes.

The drug that I've been testing in lab is an agonist of a certain membrane channel in lysosomes. In cell biology, we've been covering different types of membranes and their associated channel. This has been helpful information because it's something that's very pertinent to what I've been attempting to do at my internship site. It seems that most of the work we do is with gel electrophoresis and PCR which we have covered both in-depth in genetics and cell biology lab as they are both basic lab techniques. In Organic chemistry lab, we have learned about the process of drug discovery and how to do this using our basic organic chemistry knowledge. It's fascinating to have a glimpse of a possible method that was used to synthesize the drug that I've been using to study calcium release in my research project.

I've been really surprised at how long research and individual experiments take. I've spent the last three weeks doing something that I thought would take a week. I can now understand why scientific discoveries can take years to come about.

I thought I'd be doing grunt work and not get the opportunity to do something that can actually make a difference in the treatment of these bone diseases. However, with the independent experiment that I've thought of myself from start to finish I believe my findings can truly make a difference. I've developed a drive to push forward the literature about these diseases can give the patients with this disease a new treatment option to improve their quality of life.

My greatest strengths were my drive and work ethic. Once I start on something that I have a passion for, I am unable to stop thinking about it. In my internship, once I began my research, I couldn't stop thinking about it and I wanted to get it done as soon as I could. I worked at it as hard as possible and gave it my all to get good results. It was very difficult for me to accept that I wouldn't be able to finish the research that I had started when the COVID-19 restrictions began. I luckily had enough data for a quality poster, but there was more that I hadn't yet analyzed. I hope to pick up where I left off when I hopefully am able to return to my site in the Fall.

I believe that I was able to work well as a team member throughout the first semester. I jumped in and helped wherever I could and constantly offered my assistance with various tasks. It was a little more difficult to act as a team member during the spring because I had my own independent research/experiments and everyone else had their own tasks/duties. However, I still helped when I could and tried to be assist as much as my time would allow.