My Internship
Learning and Skills
As I progressed in life, I came to the realization that my skills have strengthened over time that I carried them along the way till now. Some of these skills include being able to cooperate with my team members while maintaining an understanding level of communication as a Pharmacy Technician in Trainee. Furthermore, I am required to actively listen while multi-tasking, for example: listening to my Managers orders while filling prescriptions. I always strive to communicate clearly in my life because communication is key to avoiding misunderstandings. I used to be insecure about myself but over time, I have noticed that I became more confident in presenting myself, my values, and traditions, and presentable yet more confident during an interview or a speech session.
Internship Overview
My internship is located in Dr. Wen Zhang's laboratory in the Van Nuys Medical Science building at the campus of IUPUI. The research is broken down into several steps. The research focuses on suppressing the gene in multiple myeloma cancer. The important part of the research includes comparing RNA and DNA modifying sequences to the best fit of ability to effectively treat multiple myeloma cancer. The research can proceed by utilizing and synthesizing novel mirror-image nucleic acids primarily focusing on one type of artificial nucleic acid molecule and selection/ study of the functional mirror-image RNA/DNA molecules in order to target the RNA-related disease by the process of SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) (more information of SELEX process, the sue in the research can be seen on Dr. Wen's lab website). The steps are further continued by researching the development of this mirror-image RNA and helping reach Dr. Zhang's lab's goal to generate novel mirror-image RNA aptamers that will demonstrate high specificity for particular cancerous cells in the body. During so many years there have been multiple trials performed for aptamers-based therapy, but no particular results have been found with exception of one drug found in 2004, to focus treatment on targeting vascular endothelial growth factor, for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration. Also, follow the video provided to understand the aptamer and its importance from a better point of view.
From this internship, I want to learn to be confident in performing and designing lab experiments individually. I strive to earn this skill because my backup plan is to study master's in biology and plan to specialize in Microbiology. In my perspective, understanding and executing lab skills such as learning new names of the equipment, lab safety, being able to problem-solve quickly and efficiently, designing experiments, and confidently experimenting with them is very important. Aside from this, being an active listener, confident, and maintaining a good safer environment around me are some of the skills I have carried along and would like to improve on.
Workplace
At my internship site, I work with a very small group of people that includes my supervisor and Ph.D. student, who is currently training me to perform lab experimental research by helping me understand the complex language of procedures and biological terms and applying those skills in the lab with hands-on experience. My trainer is very professional about lab cleanliness, using types of equipment in the lab, and very particular in helping me memorize the different chemical reactions. When I meet other colleagues or students in the building or the laboratory area, I felt very welcomed and included even though we were not involved in the same groups. My internship experience is good so far in terms of getting used to my schedule can be challenging but the support of my supervisor and my group is constant as I worked among them. I would consider these experiences as my strengths so far and my progress. My supervisor likes to work on her own experiments, quietly because she has her individual projects, while other colleagues in the lab like to engage with one another in groups and work on the tasks together. I have learned determination and concentration while on the experiments from my supervisor while also being aware of the surroundings and looking out for hazardous situations because of lab work constantly being performed. The interaction with different people was an immersive feeling, considering these people totally strangers and then considering them as my work colleagues. The people I continue to work with have impacted me in a positive way as described above. In my case, I like to read my literature work while listening to music because that is the majority of what I am required to do before I can perform hands-on experiments. Everyone has their preferred way of working and it also depends on the working environment- for example: at my Pharmacy Technician job, everyone worked as a team and had to constantly communicate professionally with team workers and customers while working in labs requires professional understanding of background foundational knowledge about research to actually perform the experiment.
Success and Challenges
I never used to celebrate my small success until I was introduced to college life in a way of recalling previously learned material in high school and connecting it to my Biology class. Over my time at college, I realized that small success matters in life. Throughout my time as an intern, there have been many things that made me feel accomplished, and challenged me to do well. Some of these challenges included understanding the meaning of words in pieces of literature that I am expected to read for a better understanding of chemical synthesis which plays a huge role in my research. Also, being introduced to general concepts about foundational organic chemistry and the interaction between chemical reactions has been my strength in terms of applying and building on the knowledge in my class in the future. I would generally consider literature work as boredom, but the challenge to read the same concept over and over until all the words made sense is very important for this role. In the future, I think I can tackle this challenge of reading the same kinds of literature by requesting my supervisor to use visual and auditory concepts to explain concepts.
One of the other challenges was when I had to perform gel electrophoresis, but before that, I had to make sure that all the amounts of chemicals were exact in order to prepare the gel. When the chemicals were ready to mix, I had to immediately mix them well or they would turn into solid compounds because of some of the chemicals. This took me two tries and on my third try I finally made the perfect gel with a lot of focus, determination, and accuracy. During this time my supervisor was guiding me on how how much amount of chemicals to take and the further steps to make a perfect gel. This process took me 3 hours to complete and 3 tries to make the perfect gel with a lot of focus, determination, and accuracy. Later on, I was taught how to wash the gel with urea before running the samples, and the functions/ speed of the machine. This day was very challenging, and I learned that I would be required to perform and monitor experiments of 4-6 hours, which would teach me how to execute new lab techniques that I have not learned before and prepare me to feel confident to work in the research field. I have also learned that this research is very broad and could be re-tested to execute in the real world and when performing experiments it is important to stay focused and note down the steps that need to be done to run the experiment really well. In the future, I know that I will be expected to face challenges ton more literature reading and understanding the fundamental to deep concepts of biochemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Molecular Biology because having no background in these subjects will make it harder to understand and apply knowledge to the lab experiments.