vliu322’s Articles at WOW Fellowship Blog

Last Week at the Brigham

After three seemingly long months flew by, I have finally concluded my internship at the Hoffmeister Lab at Brigham Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Looking back to when I first began, I see that I reached many of the goals I began my internship with. Besides my PI, I networked with my fellow lab members and other interns and researchers from neighboring labs. I also walked out of here with way more biology and biomedical techniques in my toolbox than I had when I first started and in fuller control over my experiments.

However, I am most proud of becoming more involved in lab meetings. Before, most of the talks went in one ear and right out the other, but at the end, I could follow along and even give input in editing conference power points and papers. More importantly, these two to four hour long meetings allowed me to observe lab politics and see how doctorates and post-docs fund themselves, mainly through writing and applying for grants such as the Pathway to Independence Award. I also saw how papers are published from start to finish. Data is first collected, which is then analyzed and gone over by the PI and lab team. The paper is then written, submitted, reviewed, edited, and then finally published in journals such as Nature and Blood. While the process of obtaining data and being published is a long process, it is rewarding and well worth the trials and errors.

For any student interested in doing an internship at a lab to learn more about scientific research or this career path, do not hesitate to shoot the PI an email. Especially with labs who accepted interns before, many mentors welcome students desiring to gain experience. When finally working in a lab, while experiments may get repetitive, never hesitate to inquire or ask for clarification to understand why you’re culturing these mice cells or running a Western blot. The researchers there will understand that you haven’t reached their level of specialization yet and enjoy seeing students take initiative and think beyond the box. Also, ALWAYS keep a lab notebook to take notes on the protocols shown to you, the experiments you’ve done, and the results you’ve obtained.

My lab notebook containing all my protocols, data, and results.

Most importantly, take the opportunity to ask other scientists or lab techs about their goals and why they chose their career paths. You’ll find that everyone has a different backstory. My PI actually got into an industrial design school before going to medical school to be a pediatrician, ultimately ending up as a researcher and associate professor devoted to glycobiology. By talking to my fellow colleagues at the Hoffmeister Lab, I’ve realized that while science does interest me, I still feel more compelled to work with patients. Although, I wouldn’t mind working as a lab tech for two years before going to medical school and doing part time research in the future. However, I will definitely follow the advice my PI gave me on my last day, which is to always keep an open mind and pursue your interests and heart no matter where you end up, despite how cliche it may sound.

Overall, I am extremely grateful for the time I spent at the Hoffmeister Lab and look forward to the upcoming school year. I’m sure all the skills I’ve learned and invaluable advice given to me by my mentors will benefit me whether in the classroom or in whatever career I decide to pursue after I graduate!

Vivian Liu, ’17

Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School: Midpoint Check

I have now reached the midpoint of my internship at the Hoffmeister Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Since starting back in late May, I have pretty much grown accustomed to my work place environment, as my schedule and tasks have been more stabilized and set into stone. I have practiced and almost perfected some old lab techniques, such as western blotting and genotyping, and at the same time, have been exposed to a variety of new lab techniques, such as microscopy, quantifying protein, and preparing mice samples for flow cytometry. I had also been busy re-running experiments to reconfirm data in preparation for the International Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis Conference a post-doc in my lab presented at, and got a chance to see how researchers practice, prepare, and present for big conferences such as this one. Of course, I have run into obstacles along the way, such as gaining almost no results from experiments, but as I’ve learned, mistakes are OK and are necessary in the field of science. Success often bears from and conclusions are often drawn from mistakes.

My lab bench where I do most of my experiments.

While I was sort of nervous the first week, I now feel more comfortable and independent in the lab. My mentor and other post-doc researchers have given me a lot of guidance in going through experimental procedures. Everyone is very patient and encouraging, and I have grown less conscious of making mistakes. I’ve learned that overall, it’s always better to ask a question, no matter how simple it may be. Preventing avoidable mistakes, such as using a wrong chemical and then ruining the entire experiments, saves a lot of time and money, which are very important factors to consider in a big research lab. More importantly, asking questions to understand the purpose of the technique and experiment is also crucial. I feel that this mindset is different from my university labs, which focuses more on learning techniques. Here at Brigham, I have to decide which techniques to use in order to test and prove a hypothesis or idea, creating a bigger picture, which I still often need guidance on.

My internship also differs from my university lab in that I have more of a handle on planning experiments in my given schedule and timetable. Definitely, I have improved in managing my tasks and time in a productive manner, such as planning experiments in ways that avoid coming into the lab on the weekends. As mentioned before, while I have learned a lot method wise, my critical thinking skills have vastly improved. Interestingly, I have applied a lot of the knowledge I learned from the biology courses I’ve taken at Brandeis, which is very cool. Outside of benchwork, I have had opportunities to eat out with some of the lab technicians, post docs, and PIs in and outside of my lab, allowing me to expand and build stronger networks and at the same time, learn more on their thoughts about their jobs.

Ultimately, the techniques I have learned and the relationships I have built here at the Hoffmeister Lab will help me when I consider or apply for a research job such as a lab tech when I graduate. More importantly, the critical thinking skills I have been practicing will help me anywhere, whether for my science or health policy classes I will be taking this upcoming semester at Brandeis, and also in my future career choice, which might not even involve research!

Vivian Liu, ’17

First Week at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School

My workplace from the streets of Boston in Longwood Medical Center (http://www.tka-architects.com/st_all_chb_karp.html)

After laboring through a year of the infamous organic chemistry and surviving, summer has finally come. For this summer, in order to apply my school knowledge and to pursue my interests in medicine and research, I secured an internship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, located in the heart of Longwood Medical Center, which houses a plethora of hospitals and research buildings in Boston. The area is bustling with activity from morning to late evening, with patients, scientists, physicians, and students rushing to their appropriate destinations, ambulances blaring through the roads, and helicopters hovering over hospital buildings.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital, one of the largest and top teaching hospitals in the nation, aims to transform the future of healthcare through science, education, and compassionate care on both a local and global level. Along with Harvard Medical School, these organizations offer each other the opportunity for educators and leaders in their respected fields to mentor and nurture aspiring physicians and scientists, fostering a diverse community committed to leadership in alleviating human suffering caused by disease.

I specifically have the pleasure of working in Dr. Hoffmeister’s Lab in the Division of Hematology, formerly known as the Division of Translational Medicine. The Hoffmeister Lab’s focuses on the molecular mechanisms of platelets survival and hemapoetic stem cells (HSCs). HSCs have the fascinating ability to differentiate into all different types of blood cells and tissues, including platelets. Ultimately, the research done here will expand the overall knowledge on platelets and homeostasis, opening doors to treatment of various blood cancers across the globe.

A specific project I will be working on is titled “b1,4 Galacosyltransferase T1 is a key regulator of hematopoiesis,” which investigates the role of the enzyme b4GalT1 in the formation of blood cells and platelets. My first week, however, mainly consisted of acquainting myself with the Principal Investigator (PI) and the other personnel in the lab. I shadowed and observed another post-doc, taking notes on how to perform various assays, such as immunoblotting and immunostaining of various mice blood cells, and learned how to use the FACs, a machine utilized in flow cytometry, a core technique used for cell counting, cell sorting, and even diagnosing diseases in labs and clinics. My supervisor gave me a shot at dissecting mice and mouse embryo to obtains cells from their bones, spleens, and livers as well. At the end of the week, I also attended my first lab meeting. While I didn’t contribute much, I observed how data is presented, how questions are posed, how presentations are prepared for conferences, and how future steps in this lab and future experiments are determined and designed.

Ultimately, during my time here, I hope to become more independent and willing to tackle challenging assays, to master more high-level biochemical techniques, and to contribute to future meetings. While the experiments I will be doing aren’t large themselves, such assays are still important for the development of the overall project. But more importantly, as I forge connections with both established and budding researchers and physicians in and outside of the lab, I hope to gain a good sense of this career path. And while I might not necessarily end up becoming a scientist, the people I meet and the skills I learn will still help me later on down the road as I think about and search for jobs. Overall, despite my jammed packed first week, I am excited and look forward to seeing how the rest of my internship develops!

Vivian Liu ’17