Southampton, 21 September 2016
The project has been a realistic insight into the research profession and overall has been extremely interesting.
Helena Rawsthorne, a Biomedical Sciences student, just starting her third year, was one of our undergraduate students who successfully applied for prestigious Wellcome trust summer studentship to work in a research laboratory. During this 8 week placement, Helena studied the role of microglia in an experimental model of Alzheimer’s disease and investigated if the function of these innate immune cells of the brain is altered following a bacterial systemic infection.
‘’I applied for the vacation scholarship because I wanted see first-hand what it’s like to be a genuine research scientist’’, says Helena. ‘’It was exciting to be part of the team and carry out research. I was not simply an extra set of hands in the lab, the team trained me to do my own research for this project. I was taught how to cut tissue on a cryostat, carrying out immunohistochemistry, take pictures of my results on a fluorescent and confocal microscope, quantify my data and present it professionally as a figure. The project has been a realistic insight into the research profession and therefore overall has been extremely interesting’’.
Jessica Teeling and co supervisor Alex Collcutt were impressed with her work. ‘’Helena is a fantastic team player, she quickly picked up complex laboratory skills and developed her own research project, starting with a tissue block, all the way to presenting her results at our annual SoNG research conference: a real achievement’’.
Helena also took part in presenting our research to the general public at the New Forest show, a popular summer event. The ‘snot lab’ was very popular this year.
Would you like to apply for a Wellcome Trust Vacation studentship? Find our more here or contact David Tumbarello – D.Tumbarello@soton.ac.uk-