Laura Paez, Current Intern at National Cancer Institute, working with Dr. Erin Davies.
Where is your internship?
My internship is at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, with Dr. Erin Davies’ lab. I am a remote intern but will visit periodically. The lab studies regeneration using Schmidtea mediterranea (S.med.) planarians with the unique ability to regenerate their entire body, including their head and brain, after amputation. Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) make this possible, and the project’s aim is to study the transition between two molecularly and functionally different PSCs: embryonic and adult PSCs.
How was the transition from program to internship?
The transition was smooth thanks to the BGMP faculty’s structuring of the Professional Development classes. Before starting the internship we discuss different aspects of it, from what to expect throughout the course of the internship to how to set boundaries or ask for help if needed. We also had the opportunity to hear from alumni about their internships, and got a lot of great advice from them. The actual start of my internship was exciting, I got the chance to visit Maryland for onboarding and met the lab and my mentors, Dr. Erin Davies, Dr. Kayla Titialii-Torres, and Carolyn Brewster. Having incredible mentors who I could openly discuss expectations with made the transition easy. I feel very lucky to be a part of the BGMP 2021 cohort and for the internship experience I’ve had so far!
What are you responsible for?
I’m currently establishing a workflow that will be used to establish an atlas from three developmental timepoints spanning over the embryonic to adult PSC stages. I get to choose and test out a mix of parameters used for clustering cells which can shed light on PSC specification and regulation. There is a chance I could pick up another project soon, studying Macrostomum lignano and hoping to establish another single cell RNA-sequencing atlas that can identify cell composition.
What has the day-to-day been like so far?
I get to set my own schedule, which is nice, but for me it also means that I set some routines that motivate me to make the most out of every work session. I’ve found that having non-work related routines help me a lot when working from home because they put me in a mindset where I can be productive but also not get overly frustrated (with code ) and burn out. I like to sandwich work between two routines that I like to think of as me ‘checking in’ and ‘checking out’. After my check-in, I always filter through my email, and read over the previous day’s lab notebook entry (in Notion, of course) and this guides my day based off what my ‘next steps’ were. Most of my days so far consist of writing and cleaning up scripts that I present to my mentors. In these biweekly meetings I ask for advice or discuss results and progress with them. Overall, I find it immersive and have been learning a lot about planarian biology and what goes into running a single cell RNA-sequencing analysis.