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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. |
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