Internships Many options

Noëlle & Ingrid

When we, Noëlle van Leur and Ingrid de Jong, were informed about the long wait for our master in medicine, we decided we wanted to spend that time useful and therefore started searching for a research training internship abroad. Soon we heard about Physiomics and their collaborations with research groups all over the world. We contacted Physiomics via email and we met Prof. Dr. Joost Hoenderop a couple of days later. We had an interesting conversation about the requirements associated with a research training internship and our preferences. Based on that, Prof. Dr. Joost Hoenderop came up with several proposals. The Bonventre Laboratory of Kidney Injury and Repair - Brigham and Women's Hospital - Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, most appealed to us. It was partly thanks to the long-standing collaboration between Prof. Dr. Joost Hoenderop and Prof. Dr. Joseph Bonventre that we were both assigned an internship in Prof. Dr. Joseph Bonventre's laboratory. We were really excited and started preparing right away. We were warned that this would take a lot of time, but it turned out to be even harder than we initially thought, with obtaining a visa being the biggest problem. Thanks to the Physiomics staff and our study advisor we got everything organised just in time to start our internships.

Although we had written a Plan of Work during a two-week course to prepare ourselves for our internships, we had no practical experience with working in a laboratory and doing research in general. Fortunately, our supervisors abroad were really enthusiastic and patient in teaching us as much as possible in the twelve weeks we spent in the laboratory. We have learned a lot about the theoretical background and the practical implementation of various techniques, such as cell and tissue culture, immunocytochemistry, fluorescence microscopy and molecular biology methods, including Gateway cloning, bacterial culture, gel electrophoresis and DNA purification and amplification. Over time, we integrated ourselves into the laboratory environment and became more independent which gave us the opportunity to set up our own experiments. Noëlle's original proposed project was to explore if isolated Six2+ nephron progenitor cells are capable of forming mature nephron segments in the absence of associated FoxD1+ interstitial cells. Unfortunately this project had to be changed due to the unavailability of sufficient mice of correct genotype. With her new project she has focused on transcriptional reprogramming of mice fibroblasts to nephron progenitor cellin vitro.

The switch to another project was not easy but it taught us that doing research is not something that you can totally plan and predict. Ingrid focused on identifying co-culture conditions for the maintenance of the Six2+ nephron progenitor cell population. She also had problems with the availability of sufficient mice of correct genotype, but was able to complete her experiments once. The results of both projects are still preliminary but they gave us the opportunity to learn a lot about basic science research and master a wide variety of lab techniques. Besides these interesting techniques we were also able to meet a lot of international researchers and discuss topics such as research in other countries, the combination of clinical work and doing research and cooperation and competition between researchers. This made our abroad internship even more interesting.

During our stay in Boston we were also able to have some fun outside the laboratory environment. We went to New York, celebrated Halloween and went on a whale watching trip in Boston.  After our internship we decided to travel along the east coast of the U.S.A. and visited Washington D.C., Charlotte, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami and the Bahama's. Together we had a great time and made memories that will last us a lifetime!

Eline

It all started 1,5 years ago when I contacted the physiology department at the Radboud University to inform if I could do my medical research internship under their supervision, because I’m interested in the field and they have a lot of connections with departments outside of The Netherlands. They have been really helpful and said I could chose whatever city or department I liked on their online world map and that they would try their best to make it work. I can highly recommend the physiology department if you’re interested in going abroad. Organizing and doing an internship abroad is going to require your own effort, time and sometimes even some blood, sweat and tears. But they’ve been a great help through it all.

I chose Nikolai Nordsborg’s research team at the department of nutrition, exercise and sports at the university of Copenhagen in Denmark. My research internship was about blood doping and I’ve stayed in Copenhagen for 3 months. The reason I chose this department is because it's research topics are so different from what I would normally learn. I'm used to learning about medicine related topics and we never get the chance to learn about exercise physiology or anti-doping. Also, the research is very clinical, so you’ll be interacting with subjets a lot and that’s something I really enjoyed. Also, although Danish is the native language of Copenhagen, they all speak English very well. 

During my free time I enjoyed the city a lot. It’s really beautiful and full of cool neighborhoods to explore. The only thing is that the housing market is tough. If you plan on going to Copenhagen, you should really start seeking housing as early as possible. I recommend joining the Facebook groups and even search on Airbnb (this is actually how I found my room). 

If you’re in doubt wether you should go abroad or not: don’t hesitate, go! I can highly recommend Nikolai’s department and Copenhagen. I absolutely enjoyed my time there!