One week down, one to go!

I'm currently one week into my internship at the Curie Institute and I have already gotten to experience a true research lab setting. The lab I work in is led by Dr. Silvia Fre and is studying Notch signaling in stem cells as a method to research the cause of cancerous development in cells. Each of the six members of the lab have their own experiments and also collaborate on approaches to prove hypotheses involving notch signaling. The majority of the concepts and techniques utilized in the lab are far too complicated for my understanding (one year of biology freshman year). However, everyone in the lab could not be more helpful in breaking everything down into more simple terms and helping me to understand the experiments I am observing and assisting on. Already I have observed experiments and dissections involving the intestine, mammary gland, and prostate of mice. The most exciting and nerve racking part of this week was helping Dr. Fre with the DNA extraction and genotyping of mice samples to decide which mice have the desired mutant genes for experiments. Although I made a pipetting error on the first day that set us back, Dr. Fre took the time to go through every step with me the next day to correct the mistake and finally get the results we needed. I am excited to see what is in store for next week!

My final PCR genotyping strip! (2nd time was the charm)