Three students from Biochemistry and Biology are doing summer internships in Oxford.
Three students from Biochemistry and Biology are doing summer internships in Oxford.
Students from the University of Navarra worked at the John Radcliffe Hospital.
Isidoro Cobo (2nd year of Biochemistry ), Rubén Ferrer (4th year of Biology) and Esther Recacha (3rd year of Biology), from the School of Sciences of the University of Navarra have worked in several projects of research in the Hematology Unit of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford during the months of July and August. The students have conducted research related to myeloid cell neoplasms. "We used samples from patients with leukemia in order to detect genes involved in the development of this disease," said Isidoro Cobo.
Esther Recacha summarizes her role in Oxford in two parts: "The first consisted of studying the effect of different treatments on four cell lines (NB4, HL60, K562 and Raji), present in leukemia patients with the aim of measuring their proliferation and apoptosis (death) at goal . And the second was to analyze genes and look for possible mutations in leukemia patients. All this was done at the Molecular Hematology Unit "LLR" (Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research) of the same department".
Isidoro Cobo, who participated in the same study as Esther Recacha, states that "in our study, we nucleofected the cDNA of the wild type gene in the cell lines to be studied by electroporation. Using commercial kits, we measured the proliferation and apoptosis rate of these cell lines at 24, 48 and 72 hours".
"I highly recommend summer internships to all students, and if possible abroad, as it is a way to grow professionally and a very good opportunity to get to know different cultures and learn other languages and customs," summarizes Rubén Ferrer.