Time flies, I still cannot believe I did so much work in this short period. 69 days, lots of fun, lots of memory...
I never imagined that I would work in a bioinformatics lab before I came here, because I am interested in plants. Because I mentioned I am interested in mathematics in my autobiography, I was arranged to Akashi lab, a bioinformatics lab about Drosophila. I asked the postdoc whether we have any bench work here. “No!!!!!!” She answered me without hesitation, and I shocked.
My friends and other intern students all joined the labs they expected except I. I always sighed at the first few days. I thought these days might be terrible torture. However, after 69 days, I have changed my mind. It is exciting for learning new knowledge. I learned a lot about programming and Drosophila. Though the knowledge about Drosophila I will not use in the future, the programming I think it will be a powerful tool I can use for my research in Taiwan. It’s very happy to see I harvest and make a progress every day.
Because there is no bench work in my lab, I spent most of time sitting in front of the computer in programming. My project was to analyze the gene chip data from Drosophila melanogaster by two different statistical methods, cluster analysis and principal component analysis. I have to filter some inappropriate data or some conditions by python program language before I analyze the data. Then I can use R programming language to generate the graph of the analysis. Finally, I use these graph to compare whether different tissues show different gene expression, and to find what kind of gene functions make the tissues have difference from other tissues. As a beginner in programming, I spent a month in learning python. Thus, I did not do anything about my project in my first month. I worried about whether I could have enough result to preset. Fortunately, everyone in the lab helped me a lot that I could have a nice presentation.
About the life in Japan was nice, the guesthouse service was very great. It was comfortable to live in. People in NIG and in Mishima are so enthusiastic that I can enjoy the life here. I visited Tokyo and Numazu in this summer. Sometimes I could see Mt. Fuji from the lab. The view of Mt. Fuji is so beautiful that I want to climb it if I visit Japan next time. (I did not prepare warm clothes this time.) Life in Japan was an unforgettable experience for me.
Finally, I want to thank JASSO, NIG, NTU for giving me the chance to be an intern in this summer. The experience and knowledge I learned from here must be helpful for pushing me in my future research.