UCSF Department of Radiation Oncology, San Francisco, CA
Looking at the benefits of this summer there are a great many to consider. At Williams, I am studying both Biology and Pre-Medicine, thus the opportunity to work at a radiation oncology lab has been incredibly useful as a foundation for having experience in a career path that I am interested in. The lab I interned in was a joint lab between a thermal therapy lab and a radiation oncology lab at UCSF which used similar software and techniques that are used in various biomedical start-ups that I am looking at applying for in San Francisco this coming year. The project that I worked on looked at improving treating success with glioblastomas using ultrasound paired with an injection of microbubbles to open up the blood-brain barrier for the administration of cancer drugs or programmed T-cells. When I first came to the lab this summer the project was at its initial steps in working towards designing an experiment to test their hypothesis. The central question to designing this treatment was whether ultrasound therapy would help improve the grim statistics surrounding glioblastoma survival rate. In preparing for the lab work I began my summer by immersing myself in prior literature regarding thermal therapy with induced ultrasound and microbubbles, tumor microenvironments of glioblastomas and mouse models of glioblastomas. Once I had established a foundation based in literature, I began work on more of the engineering-based challenges of the project. In doing so I was provided the tools to learn Solidworks, a 3D modeling and design software that is commonly used across a wide range of practices in the medical and mechanical fields. I was also expected to use this software in conjunction with PET-CT imaging and other 3D imaging software such as Mimics which allowed me to take 3D images and segment them into differing bodily parts such as soft tissue or bone. I then used Solidworks to design a bed for holding the mouse in treatment, anesthesia holder for applying isoflurane, and an ultrasound applicator holder that would fit into the current protocol of the CT-PET workflow already implemented within the other part of the experiment. This would allow us to image the mouse brain and aid in the positioning the ultrasound device for treatment. The design process was helpful in understanding the amount of work that goes into designing just the simple pieces of the project so that one can make it all work logistically.
Outside of the direct benefits and tools learned, the summer internship was very helpful for me in understanding the dynamics of a professional research in an academic institution. Looking back at the internship I learned how quickly eight weeks goes by and what seems like a good chunk of time is really a very short amount to get everything done in a lab project. Although we were able to have one trial treatment, we were stalled for later experiments in the project due to a special technique that was needed for injecting the microbubbles which could not be performed as it was a tricky procedure to be administered. Thus, in waiting for the individual to get trained we were left at a standstill for the project in the last weeks of my internship. This meant that I did not get any conclusive successive results to the success of the treatment, however it provided larger opportunity to take on other projects in the lab. One of the other main projects I was working on was improving the design and building a workflow for an endoscope for ablation of cancer cells in the pancreas. Most broadly this meant I would sit down to print and then build multiple iterations of models to troubleshoot designs and occasionally add my own improvements on both the design but also workflow protocol. It was a good challenge in creating a comprehensive walkthrough on how to build the endoscope for someone completely new to its design and inner workings. This was an unexpected project due to unforeseen stalling in the prior blood brain barrier project but it allowed me to take on another opportunity to learn while I was in the lab.
Part of what made this summer so enjoyable was the individuals who I was working with in the lab. The head of the lab was a very patient, helpful and kind individual who would always make time to help or explain a tricky problem. The openness and helpfulness of the lab extended to everyone else (it was a small lab of five people) thus was a positive and fun environment to work in. During lab meetings and even joint lab meetings with other labs, I was often asked my opinion on an issue or asked my insight for a question posed. This made me feel like I was doing what they considered good work and allowed me to feel like my insight was valued even if my work experience was limited. Outside of work, we would often eat together or play ping pong. It was these sorts of unexpected interactions outside of lab that made it for a really positive summer experience.
The parallels to its usefulness in school are many, which is inherently due to the nature of my studies at Williams. By prepping for the lab in reading a large amount of scientific papers, it was a great way to stay in touch and think about the complexities of cancer, prior to my class on signal transduction pathways to cancer this fall. The internship also reinforced that I greatly enjoy lab work outside of the typical experience of classes at Williams as there is a larger extent of active problem solving. In doing so I am now planning on working in a lab with psychology professor Dr. Shivon Robinson looking at the effects of neonatal opioids from opioid abuse using a rat model. Additionally, this experience has been great for making connections in San Francisco and in providing experience and reassurance in the path of study I have taken at Williams. I can now certainly see myself back in San Francisco post-graduation and am so grateful to the Class of 1972 for the opportunity this summer.