Student Profiles

Polly Po
During the summer internship of 2009, I worked as a lab assistant at the Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition Department at Boston Medical Center

"In the summer of 2009, Icompleted an internshipas a lab assistant at the Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition Department at Boston Medical Center.  This department mainly focuses on obesity research and obesity-related diseases, such as cardiac disease, diabetes and joint problems. I assisted a researcher on a fat removal project and I received training on handling animals and other hands-on lab based research techniques.  I had the opportunity to learn new skills and practice methods that I've learned in the classroom. For example, I was trained to operate the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) machine, which is used to scan mice to collect information on their muscle mass, water mass and fat mass. After the data was collected, I would analyze the information on spreadsheet, merging my previous skill set with these new activities.

 

Curiosity, observation, and experimentation are necessarily tools in the quest to identify the causes of disease and to solve some of the most challenging public health related problems.

 

It was indeed a valuable experience working at the hospital’s research facility.  In addition to my assigned duties inside the laboratory, I had the opportunity to attend research seminars and view presentations from other researchers.  I am more familiar with the role of animals in medical research.  I also feel better acquainted with some of the unlimited academic opportunities in the Boston medical research field thanks to discussions I was able to have with my supervisor. 


My internship this summer has provided me with valuable work experience as well as a solid introduction to  the medical research field, which has helped me to further refine my future academic and career goals in public health.  I wish to study epidemiology in graduate school and   although most epidemiologists are not necessarily working in a laboratory setting, my internship experience gave me a better understanding of where medical research data comes from.