Category Archives: Summer Internship

“Light Activated…Something Something Something” – Notes From The Lab

In just a few short weeks, I’ve already learned a tremendous amount from my Kenan Fellows internship. My mind is constantly racing thinking about all of the things I want to do, make, and create based off of my experiences, so much so that it is often hard to actually sit down and focus on one thing!

So far in the lab, I’ve been able to sit in and observe a lot of different processes. I’ve watched the feeding, splitting, and managing of cell cultures, which requires a sterile procedure to ensure that the cells aren’t killed or contaminated. I’ve seen and helped out with the preparing of agar plates for future experiments. I’ve learned that the word laser stands for “Light Amplification by Stimulation Emission of Radiation”. And, I’ve had the chance to watch cells be imaged with the big fancy microscopes, which are a far cry from anything I’ve ever seen or used before! The idea of watching a cell go through mitosis, live and on camera, right before my eyes, is SO COOL! However, in practice, it has at times made my eyes droop – not from boredom, but from the act of sitting in a warm, quiet, dark, imaging room for two hours at a time. Can you blame me? It’s worth it in the end when we get a time-lapse of a cell, and when we can see the process of mitosis through from beginning to end. How amazing is it that I get to be here and watch it happen?!?

A big takeaway from this experience is that being in the lab and being in the classroom have something quite obvious in common – sometimes, things don’t go as planned! Quite a few times, we’ve been working on something in the lab only to find out that it didn’t work – like when the microscope stopped working during imaging and when the computer crashed (twice) during another imaging session, or when the gel on an electrophoresis machine cracked and we had to start all over, and that time the lens wasn’t the right one for the microscope, sending us on a goose chase through a six-story building.

Being in the lab, I’ve also learned how much of what goes on here is a team effort. No one single person is on their own, and there is always someone around to help collect data, prepare materials, or talk thorough ideas as needed. It’s just like in education – no one person holds all of the answers, and we have to rely on each other to make sure we are putting our best work out there.

Lastly, science is for everyone, and “you don’t have to be super special to do science” (Thanks for the quote, Paul!). I’ve always known that in my head, but here, I’m feeling it in my heart. I don’t think I truly felt it deep down that I could do this, too, until I sat down with sterile hands and helped exchange media for a cell culture or planned to thaw and culture a cell line all on my own. Science is empowering, and I can’t wait to take what I’m learning and experiencing here back to my students and to my classroom and help them feel empowered to be scientists, too.