"My time at the University of Navarra and the completion of my TFG has been a very enriching experience both in terms of staff and academics."

The topic of the TFG was not chosen by Teresa, she chose her tutor to be Dr. Gabriel Reina, from the department of Microbiology of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra. She decided to choose this discipline because she took a similar subject during the degree program. In addition, he was also attracted by the option of being able to do it in a hospital and more specifically, in a microbiology department . The specific topic was proposed by his tutor.

When it came to the TFG Teresa was faced with a number of obstacles to overcome. The biggest of these was not being able to have full mentoring from her tutor; because he was extremely busy fighting, via the research, against the pandemic. "Being a microbiologist and working in a hospital, he was more overwhelmed with work than ever, so I would like to thank him personally for the time he spent with me despite the difficulties."

As far as the TFG is concerned, Teresa tells us how "I became part of a project of research called OKAPI. This is carried out in a population of patients with infectious diseases in the Democratic Republic of Congo". This project is responsible for collecting dried blood samples from infected patients, to analyze them in the microbiology laboratory and determine how to effectively treat possible new strains of the virus.

Within that project Teresa had a specific role, "my work was to study the validity of three different techniques, to diagnose Hepatitis C in dried blood samples and detect mutations of the virus in sub-Saharan Africa ."

Once the final work was submitted in May, she was surprised, as she tells us "shortly after submitting it telematically I was informed that I was going to be awarded the award for the best TFG of the high school of Tropical Health of the University of Navarra (ISTUN) which filled me with joy and pride" .

In the end the effort, the work and the dedication had its reward, "I felt that my effort was rewarded, and also my tutor gave me the opportunity to publish it as an article in a magazine".