Two biology students are doing summer internships at laboratory at Oxford University.
Dos alumnos de Biología realizan este verano prácticas en el laboratorio de la Universidad de Oxford
Two biology students are doing summer internships at laboratory at Oxford University.
Alba Martín and Charles Breeze, from the School of Sciences of the University of Navarra, did research on leukemia.
Once they finished their exams last May, two Biology students from the School of Sciences of the University of Navarra packed their bags and went to England to do an internship at a laboratory of the University of Oxford, where they are conducting a research on leukemia and its genetic instructions .
laboratory "The research at Genetics was very interesting for me, and I realized how close research is to the patients whose quality of life could be improved with future discoveries. Thanks to the financial aid and trust of my colleagues at laboratory and, especially, Marta Fernández Mercado, with whom I worked there, I learned some of the most widely used Genetics molecular and engineering Genetics techniques," emphasizes Alba Martín.
Together with her, Charles Breeze participated in a project that consisted of analyzing the regulatory function of two relevant miRNAs in several lymphoid lines of interest.
"The knowledge gained at degree program has provided me with the necessary background and technique, as well as experience internship in performing them. In this work I have become familiar with qRT-PCRs, minipreps, cell culture techniques, gel electrophoresis, plasmid DNA ligation, RNA extraction, apoptosis assays (ELISA), cell proliferation assays (MTS), miRNA nucleofection, and other techniques such as Western Blot, Cytospin, spectrophotometry.... " summarizes Breeze.
One of the most interesting aspects for Alba Martín was that "I was able to see what day-to-day life is like at laboratory at research and how the projects at research are organized. It is true that the hours of work were many, more than eight every day, but the atmosphere at group, which was really good, made the time pass quite quickly. The experience was so good that I decided to extend my stay in Oxford for a month longer than I had planned."
The two students from School Science have returned more than satisfied with the experience, and say they would like "to be able to repeat it. And, of course, we would recommend it to anyone who is thinking of going to research".