Hitting the Ground Running - Dante Navarro

After a long day of traveling, leaving Sunday before lunch and arriving early Monday morning, we went straight to our work at imec. Our wonderful guide, Laurien, helped us get acclimated to the huge campus of imec, a campus reminiscent of the tech giants of Silicon Valley. We went to the cafeteria for lunch (everyday our group eats lunch at the same time, 11:30) with the entire group that we would be working with for the summer. It was amazing how accepting and inclusive everyone was immediately.   

The next day we walked and rented the most important thing for staying in Belgium for a summer: a bike. Everything became accessible within Leuven now and the commute to work became even shorter. Through the next few days, we finished up all of the administrative tasks we had like declaring our stay and finishing up safety trainings at imec.  On the weekend, we were invited out to spend time with our work group who we bonded with right off the bat, making me feel at home the first night out. 

On Saturday, we explored more of Belgium and ventured to Brussels. The train system is amazing here as far as being quick and economic. In Brussels, there was so much to do but we stuck to the main tourist attractions of the Royal Palace, city center and especially the food, since we knew we’d return. Belgium is known for waffles and fries which is understandable because I had both in Brussels and they were the best that I have ever had in my entire life. 

Returning to work on Monday, I began working on my project within the wearable technology department that utilizes biologic vital signs to produce a calculated stress values and how to visualize this on an iPhone Application. I am enjoying my time at work, but I am also very excited for my trip to Madrid this weekend!

"Boring" protocols...says who! - Jaynie Criscione

Last Monday morning, I arrived in Leuven, Belgium, for a 10-week research internship. I flew into Brussels airport and jumped on a train to Leuven. Once I got to imec, I stowed my bags and got to work! The first day was the longest, but luckily all five of us adjusted quickly. Most people in Belgium speak English, so communicating and navigating is not too difficult. Though the language is not a problem, most signs are in Dutch so I would recommend a translator app.

As for first week survival here, renting a bike and getting a Belgian SIM card from Orange is a must. Bikes are the primary method of transport because the city is small and the roads even have bike signals next to the pedestrian crossing signals. Thankfully, the daylight hours are between 6AM to 10PM, so biking back to Wisteria (our studio apartments) is safe.

At imec, my research is in the Life Sciences Technologies group (LST). I am studying bacterial biofilms using microchips. Biofilms are known to form on implanted therapeutic devices, creating highly antibiotic resistant coatings. With my experiments, I aim to characterize the spatial organization and characteristics of biofilms in hopes of finding methods to recognize and eradicate biofilms.

I’m happy to report that everyone at imec has been kind, compassionate, and welcoming. Though we are interns, everyone has made us feel included and important. The people at imec are personable and considerate--I was surprised they were concerned with work rules being “annoying” or protocols being “boring”, when in fact they were the opposite.

This weekend I will be traveling to Madrid, and last weekend, I went to Brussels with Rayyan and Dante. I’m looking forward to traveling Europe, but there’s also so much going on in Leuven. Stay tuned!

Dinner with IRES Group

Java Cafe at IMEC. An important collaborative place!

Leuven Town Hall.

Meet Our 2018 IRES Student Fellows

Top left to right: Ayon Mitra, Dante Navarro, Ariel Slepyan
Bottom left to right: Jaynie Criscione and Rayyan Gorashi

Cell & Tissue Technology Weekend Getaway - Diego Burbano

After receiving the chips back from wire bonding, there are a few more steps before we can test them. First comes epoxy painting, then the second etching, and lastly sterilization. Now the chips are ready for cell culturing: ventricular rat cells will be seeded on the fibronectin coated chip and allowed to grow for three days. During this time, the gripers close around the cells, ideally enclosing only one cell each. On day three, we record extracellular action potentials with the electrodes embedded in the grippers, and we stain the cells with Fluo-4 in order to image the calcium fluxes around the cells. After obtaining all this data, we look for closed grippers with a cell inside, and try to match the electric signals with the images. Right now, I’m pushing to use another imaging technique, confocal microscopy, since it provides better temporal resolution needed to correlate it with the extracellular recordings. In the meantime, outside of the lab, I’m writing the necessary Matlab scripts to analyze the data. Specifically, we need to filter the signal, detect action potentials, sort the voltage peaks, and calculate the difference in firing time between electrodes of the same gripper.

These past two weekends I have travelled outside of Belgium. Kevin and I visited Copenhagen for a few days, and the crossed Øresund Bridge to Malmö, Sweden. Copenhagen was expensive, but we bought a Copenhagen Pass which allowed us to go to several museums, tours, and use public transportation for the whole duration of our stay. Tivoli Gardens, the second-oldest operating amusement park in the world, the Louisiana Museum, and the street food by the waterfront are some of the experiences I will never forget. Malmö was rainy and quiet, which made for a good, relaxing last day before coming back to work.

Last weekend was CTT Weekend (the group I work in, “Cell & Tissue Technology), a once-a-year retreat with most of the group. We rented a house on the coastline of Zeeland, in the Netherlands. Even though one of the days it was rainy, we still had lots of fun playing games inside, going to the beach at midnight, barbecuing under the porch, and relaxing in the sauna.