Message from NIG-INTERN 2008

The 2nd Summer Research Program for Undergraduates, NIGINTERN 2008, was carried out from May to July.
Five selected participants enjoyed their research programs at their host laboratories.

Members

• Abhinav Dubey

  

  From:Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India
  Stayed at:Gojobori Lab.

  “Vivid” an adjective to describe the whole experience

  I participated in NIGINTERN 2008 program with GOJOBORI Laboratory as my host laboratory. This was an enriching experience for me as it gave me the insight into carrying out the research, understanding how the knowledge is created besides feeling the ‘joy of science’. Creation is bliss and it was proved to me in this program. I was given the freedom to choose my project and plan my own strategy for solving the problem.

  This is a stupendous experience for any undergraduate. Besides the technical knowledge, I gained a lot in terms of overall personality growth. I met several people from various research fields and got the opportunity to know their work. I attended the seminars and lectures which benefitted me as I became aware of the several advanced studies. I attended the poster presentations of researchers from various fields and this was an enriching exposure.

  Learning new language (Japanese) was another outstanding feature of this program. Everyone kept me in their high priority.

  If I am needed to describe an adjective for the whole experience I will say “vivid”. What I gained in the 10 weeks program is far more than what I anticipated.

• Meenal Mishra

  

  From:Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India
  Stayed at:Kakutani Lab.

  It was great to know so many people and earn their friendship along with getting full freedom to work in a helpful and healthy environment.

  When I attended presentation by NIG professors at my institute the only words which I remembered after a long time before applying for this internship were a retro-transposon, Arabidopsis and name Prof. Tetsuji Kakutani. After getting selected for the internship program I was very excited about my projects which I will completely start into a different field naming Epigenetic: without changing DNA sequence controls gene expression. I worked on two different projects and learned to correlate two different works. Initially the work was very similar to Molecular Biology work but later on as the time went I also stepped into Developmental Biology. I was given complete freedom to decide the further plans once I completed the initial part of my project. I came up with few ideas and when I get chance to test my ideas I felt more confident about myself.
  I got to learn that whenever there is a failure in science that means there is something which is required to change for success, you just need to correct the things in logical manner and change few steps to get the positive result. It was amazing to score the phenotypes of plants which I haven’t ever think off can be a phenotype. I got a lot of chance to attain talks of very eminent speakers from country and abroad also poster session by institute students giving me great experience of problems being studied in science through out the world.

  It was great for being a part of culture which is very different from rest of the world through various activities with lab members. I admire NIG a lot for giving importance for education a lot, which made me to learn Japanese language very exciting and very different. I worked with very cooperative and friendly researchers who made you feel so comfortable that even if you are new to place, lab and field you will very comfortable in doing your research. NIG encourage a lot doing research even in other universities in Japan, with the help of NIG administration team I was able to visit one lab in Tokyo University in which I was very interested in learning the research work. In short it was great to know so many people and earn their friendship along with getting full freedom to work in a helpful and healthy environment.

• Parshuram S. Hotkar

  

  From:Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India
  Stayed at:Hirata Lab.

  The NIGINTERN 2008 gave me a new lease of life

  Hi, I recently finished my summer internship in Prof. Hirata’s Lab. My work was centered on effect of Ephrin and Eph receptors on the boundary formation in early development stages of mouse embryo. During early stages of Brain development, boundary is formed in order to separate different compartments of the brain. My work was focused on the boundary formation between Neocortex and Ganglionic Eminence (GE). We studied the effect of Ephrin and Eph receptor signaling on the boundary formation. After enough practicing, I could transfect the protein of interest selectively either in Neocortex or in GE. The interesting results that we got motivated us to use intracellular domain deficient Ephrin and Eph receptor in order to study the role of bidirectional signaling.

  Apart from the most fascinating animal culture, I got to learn many other things like making a mutant protein with the knowledge of sequence, designing new constructs of interest. I personally think that NIG summer research internship program is a golden opportunity for undergraduate students to explore the research world. This gives the undergraduate student an idea how researches are being designed, conducted in labs. This also gives a glimpse about how exciting and interesting a research field could be. I feel much more confident to take research as my career.

  If you consult me about the people and environment, I would say it has never been better. The people in Japan, as many of you might know already, are very polite, kind and helping. I found that all the professors and colleagues in NIG are very friendly and helping all the time. My professor especially was there all the time to clear my doubts and guide me in correct direction. I really am thankful to all of them who showed a great interest in helping me out.

  Apart from the academic achievements of this program, we had a very good opportunity to learn about Japanese language and culture. I especially miss the Japanese food. I sometimes wish that I could turn the clock back. I can surely say that the NIGINTERN 2008 gave me a new lease of life.

• Benjamin Strauber

  

  From:Arizona State University, U.S.A
  Stayed at:Hiromi Lab

  My three months at NIG both furthered my development as a scientist and increased my understanding of the world.

  From my first day at NIG, I suspected the coming months would offer me a wealth of experiences both inside and outside the laboratory. By the end of the summer, my suspicions had been wholly confirmed.

  In my work at NIG, I engaged with the process of scientific inquiry more fully than ever before. Though I had done lab-based research in the past, I had never been given the combination of responsibility, freedom, and support afforded me at NIG. Provided my own bench and desk, I helped launch a new long-term project aimed at discovering the extrinsic factors that govern patterning of a family of receptors involved in development. Charged at the beginning of the summer with a general question to answer, I was given both latitude to follow my own ideas and support when I hit roadblocks in my project. When I came up with a new idea, my colleagues in the lab, armed with an extensive knowledge of the relevant scientific literature to date, could tell me whether my idea was worth pursuing, give me useful articles to read, and suggest experiments I might use to test my hypothesis. Thanks to their background in the field and the lab’s generous resources, my colleagues could often immediately furnish the techniques and materials necessary to pursue my research plan. They also helped me interpret my results and determine worthwhile follow-up experiments. As I worked through this process, I developed entirely new dimensions of analytical thought. More than ever, I began to think like a scientist.

  I also gained proficiency in a host of techniques in genetics and neuroscience that will be useful in my future research. Some were taught to me at the beginning of the summer; others I learned as they became necessary for exploring new directions in which I decided to take my project. Among many other techniques, I learned to culture neurons, create images and video recordings of cells under a confocal microscope, use a micromanipulator, generate recombinant mutants, and perform antibody staining of cultures and organisms. Working with my project advisor Dr. Takeo Katsuki, I also helped develop and refine a method for transferring Drosophila midline cells to neurons in culture through micromanipulation.

  In addition to the benefits associated with my research work, my experience at NIG included chances to learn about Japanese language and culture. The other interns and I were provided weekly Japanese lessons that helped us communicate when we ventured outside the walls of NIG. During breaks and daily tea time, my colleagues and I had lively discussions about topics ranging from the Japanese parliament to varieties of anime. With friends I made at NIG, I climbed Mount Fuji, went out for karaoke, and attended festivals and fireworks shows.

  My three months at NIG both furthered my development as a scientist and increased my understanding of the world. I could not ask for a better way to have spent my summer.

• Nimesh Jain

  

  From:Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India
  Stayed at:Kobayashi Lab.

  The NIGINTERN 2008 gave me the  opportunity to explore myself and to bring out the researcher in me.

  Working at NIG was the most surpassing experience of my career. It helped me understand the true essence of research and exhorted me to do science. I worked in Prof. Kobayashi’s lab and my project was related to modeling the chromosome missegregation during meiosis using budding yeast and the role of ribosomal DNA (rDNA). From this project, I learned about a model organism, the similarities between humans and lower level eukaryotes and the ways by which we can genetically manipulate yeast to study certain aspects of human diseases which re rather difficult to investigate directly using humans. At the end of this project, we were able to develop a system by which we could generate cells with missegregation.

  For this project, I worked under the guidance of Prof. Kobayashi, something that is rather rare at most places, where the undergraduate interns work mostly under post-graduates. The work culture was great at NIG, I was helped by all the lab members whenever I asked for and the work was made all the more interesting by regular discussions with Prof. Kobayashi, from whom I learned something every time I had a conversation with. (Although please don’t think the conversations were always academic).

  Apart from the wonderful work culture, the people were really nice. My experiences of living in a completely new and different culture with the most modest and polite I have ever encountered, was nonetheless equally fascinating. Every single day of my stay in Japan was an amazing experience. I learned a lot about Japanese culture and their traditions and I also learned some Japanese.

  Overall, I would say that I learned a lot about doing research and it helped me in deciding my future career path. My experiences at NIG were very inspiring professionally and I can say that, NIGINTERN 2008 provided me with an opportunity to explore science and to explore myself to bring out the researcher in me.