My experience during week #1

My week mainly consisted of orientations, tours, safety training, and employment paperwork. Most of my time out of lab was spent getting familiar with the routes to the institute and auditorium where the UCSD seminars will be held at. In lab we were introduced to the research project that a post-doctoral fellow will be training Jose and I. Unfortunately for us, she happened to started her two week vacation. Next week we will be meeting with Dr. Pellecchia. We will be showing our presentation and getting more details on the specific project we will be working on. I did not want to give too many details on the project itself since I don’t know what is shareable and what is not. Let me say that I am very excited for the project that I will be working on. I love the lab space, it is huge compared to what we have in Fresno. There are several rows of bench spaces. Everyone seems very professional and dedicated to the research in the institute. I personally felt in love with the laboratory lay out and the library. Like all the buildings in the institute the library is accessible with a key card and you can go any time you like, which I consider very convenientJ. Oh and printing is free (which is a bonus) I spent a great time this past week researching information on the protein and protocols important for my project.  Over all in my first week I have discovered that this top institute has many great things to offer in addition to the great science. If you are interested in learning more details of my experience this week, below is a more extensive report. Hope you all have a great second week and I am really excited to learn more about all of the work the other interns will be doing. 

My first day as an intern at Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute was an exciting, busy, and tiring day. Well at least the morning was busy, the afternoon not that much. On my way to the institute I got lost, my GPS decided to loose signal during the time when I most needed its service. Luckily I had remembered the name of the street and other institutes that were nearby. After the panic of being lost and almost being late on the first day I arrived to the institutes’ headquarters. I had no idea what building I needed to be in. I was glad to have had one of the other interns phone number, so I texted her asking for building information. Upon my arrival I was greeted by a lovely lady named Vivian. She quickly asked for my ID and then took all of us interns (six) to fill out a bunch of paperwork that all newly hired personnel fills. After this we were escorted to get our picture taken for our ID cards. We were also given a parking pass. I was really happy that parking is free at the institute. Another lovely lady named America escorted me and another intern to meet the principal investigator of the lab in which we would be working. He was surprised to see us, he knew we were coming but was not sure when to expect us. We were introduced to current lab members and assigned a workspace of our own. I even get to have a computer of my own to work at during my stay in the lab. The postdoctoral associate in the lab that will be training us assisted with setting up the computers to take a safety orientation for new employees. After this we had nothing to do since the post doc was in a meeting we left to lunch. After lunch we had a mini meeting where she let us know that we will be working on protein expression and possibly purification. She will provide us with reading material.

On day two, we had orientation at UCSD. All of us in the internship cohort decided to walk together to the auditorium located in the Biomedical Sciences Building. Unfortunately we did not know our way through the campus. The place where we are staying is located in the north side of campus and the Biomedical Sciences Building is located in the School of Medicine which is situated on the south western side of UCSD. Once we finally made it to the orientation we heard a talk by Dr. Lawrence Alfred on working in study groups and journal club presentations. Our cohort is known as the “Fresno people” by Dr. Alfred. We will be doing a journal club presentation on July 17, 2013 from 1pm to 2pm. Afterwards, we went for lunch and explored the campus. We had lunch at the Price center and then visited the library. We then had a west campus tour that was mostly geared toward incoming transfer students. Our final event of the day was a talk by Dr. Georgia Robins Sadler. The talk consisted of good pointers for time management and goal setting. In addition she gave some insight on public speaking. She really emphasized on the importance of speaking from the tip of your tongue and throwing your voice at the last person on the row of the auditorium.

On Wednesday the 26, we had an orientation at 9am. Dr. Salveson and we interns decided which seminars from the Bridges program were best for us to attend. We decided to attend the health disparities seminar, journal club #1 and #2, since we will be presenting during journal club #3 it is best if we see how these presentations should be carried out. If time permits we should also attend the rest of Dr. Sadler's seminars on personal leadership, research ethics and managing your image. For the remainder of the morning Jose and I spent our time adding some finishing touches to a presentation on protein expression previously assigned to us. Then the postdoctoral associate that will be training us explained our project further, basically they are interested in isolating and purifying their protein of interest and applying the technique of protein NMR spectroscopy along with high-throughput screening of combinatorial libraries. We were assigned a journal article to read and learn more about the procedures and techniques. The information we learn will be added to our power point.

Thursday and Friday morning were spent on researching information on our protein, its pathway and role in apoptosis.  We were given a 2 ½ hour safety training class. The class was geared towards those who are doing biological research. Further on they will be giving a chemical safety class sometime in the end of July. We will also be attending this safety course.