It was a stunning moment to be selected for NIGINTERN 2019. After so many applications for the internship this was the golden door which opened for me and I got a call for doing the summer internship. However, being disappointed after so many applications this acceptance was like a sigh of relief for me. I was eager to experience my first international internship through this program and having decided to learn as much as I can in these 6 weeks my excitement knew no bounds.

Yuta Shimamoto is a really supporting and encouraging professor who was guiding me throughout the period of this internship. Even though his lab mainly works with xenopus as a model organism, based on my interest he allowed me to work with the mechanobiology in the cancer cells. Although, there is one project going on the same aspect, he provided me with my individual work which was a small project for me. Coming across any problem, he always showed me how to tackle and troubleshoot it. He was interested to teach his work of interest to me and thus he demonstrated and gave me hands on training for the micromanipulation assay as well as calibration of microneedles which gave us many of the different results and allowed us to know different properties of cancer cells.

NIG is a perfect place to acquire research as your career. The Internship Program also allows you for the lab visits. I learnt many new aspects from the field of epigenetics and nucleosome assembly through it. Apart from this, it was relishing to come across many Japanese words.

I am mostly interested in the immunomodulation and molecular oncology but I am really inspired and fascinated by the work I did during my internship as well as the culture of Japan. I am indebted to NIG for providing me with this opportunity.