The moment when I got the mail “We are glad to invite you as a 10-week intern of NIGINTERN program” was undoubtedly one of the happiest moments of my life. And the internship just turned out to be the most enriching experience of my life. Entering Japan, I was taken aback by its natural beauty and also the generosity of people. And at lab, I was just awed by the level of scientific research being conducted there.
My project was based on studying the “cellular effects of a novel anti-cancer drug complex2” under the able guidance of Prof.Maeshima. In this project, I studied the effects of complex2 and cisplatin on cell cycle of human cancerous cell lines (HeLa and PC9) and also examined the chromatin compaction in HeLa nucleus due to drug treatment. I was taught each and every basic step in Animal cell culturing and flowcytometry by the energetic Prof. Hiratani. And also I was taught invitro treatment of drugs and its analysis on HeLa nucleus by Prof. Takatana. In the end, the amount of data accumulated was just so huge, for me to believe that these were my results in just 2 months (actually even lesserJ)!
Other than work, I would like to thank Prof. Maeshima and Prof.Hiratani for teaching me values like time management, punctuality and also respecting other people’s time. I am sure these values will remain with me forever.
Moving to the informal parts, the guest house was just great with all the facilities and cooking was fun with my other co-interns. Having a “master chef” among us, we were blessed with some great food time to timeJ. Also, being a foodie, I tried every other Japanese cuisine and mind you if you are a non-vegetarian, this place is heaven. Also visit to places like Numazu, Atami, FujiQ, Karaoke bar etc with my co-interns was just awesome. The only wish which remain unfulfilled was climbing Mt.Fuji, which I am sure I will conquer someday. Japanese classes were also fun with Miyauchi sensei teaching Japanese and describing her Chennai experiences. I would never forget our UNO games guys and the famous Neha-Tullika match.
In the end, I would like to thank my co-interns, Maeshima and Hiratani sensei, Pradeep and Neha for helping me out during my chicken-pox stintJ. And also I would like to thank SOKENDAI, NIGINTERN committee for providing me with this immense opportunity and exposure to such a great culture and the world-class research in Japan.
I would like to end my write-up by Prof. Maeshima’s words,
“In Science there are no HOLIDAYS!!!”