Personal Goals

Woohoo! Summer is here!

Here's three of my summer goals to celebrate the start of my internship!

My first goal is to become comfortable with growing and using human cell lines. The experiments I’m working with use HEPG2 human liver cells. The cells are grown and kept in a very sterile, very contained room of the lab. Experimenting with them involves special equipment and procedures, such as working under a sterile fume hood, washing my gloves with alcohol, and using special pipettes. In order for the cells to grow, they need to be periodically divided and moved to new containers. This is called “splitting” the cells, and it has its own special protocols and procedures that I’m learning. I’d really like to be able to work with the cells without supervision, and without worry that I’ll contaminate or mess something up.

My second goal is to oversee a mouse experiment from start to finish. So far, I have been working with different mice from separate experiments, completing isolated tasks. Once I learn all of the necessary skills, however, I’d like the chance to oversee an experiment from start to finish. This could potentially involve mating, monitoring, treating, euthanizing, and dissecting a group of mice.

My final goal is to stay in touch with my mentor and the lab PI after the summer ends. I’m very interested in the work they are doing, and I’ve been really impressed with the learning environment I’ve encountered. Of course, I also want to see the results of my mentor’s PhD! I’m going to focus on building relationships within the lab, so that hopefully I can return in future summers. Now that I have some experience, I’m excited to pursue future opportunities and don’t want to limit myself to a single summer assignment.