In Leuven and Leuving It - Hannah Christina Aspinwall

Coming to imec is a dream come true for a young scientist. The imec facility is straight out of a sci-fi movie, and Leuven is simply adorable. It’s a small city of 100,000 people about half of whom are students from Katholic University (KU) Leuven. It’s old, verdant, clean, and everyone rides bikes; a picturesque European city. 

My 10-week long research project focuses on developing UV-curable polymers for 3D printing microfluidic devices. It’s right up my polymer-science alley and provides me a lot of design flexibility. It also touches on my hobby of 3D printing, which motivates me to move my work from the lab to fabrication quickly. Hopefully, this venture will make it cheaper and easier than ever to fabricate biocompatible devices for onsite patient testing.

To characterize my products’ bulk chemistry and degree of polymerization, I’ve been trained to use the Raman spectrometer. Raman was my favorite and last topic (aka freshest in my mind) from my material and surfaces class so I was enthused to hear I would get to use it! After numerous safety trainings this week and waiting for reagents, today I start my experiments.

Me in the heart of Bruges' old city center right next to Church of Our Lady and the Groeningemuseum

The administrative business in our first week gave our group free time to bike around the city, see the sites, and learn the traffic rules. We also started to get to know our coworkers. They are all very nice, which is fortunate since I run in to at least one of them almost every time I’m out in the city!

With Monday off for the Christian holiday of Pentecost, Sharada and I toured Belgium over the weekend. We hit the cities of Bruges (which was absolutely stunning), Antwerp, and Brussels. After several tours and museums, I think I’m starting to get a feel for distinctly Flemish architecture and art. It was so much fun to learn about the history of each city and some of their unique quirks. For instance, Bruges has a city official devoted to taking care of their swans and Antwerp is known for being the diamond capital of the world and constantly under construction. One commonality was the abundance of fries, waffles, and chocolate.

Sharada and me taking in Bruges 

It’s been thrilling to take everything in. Things keep getting better and I look forward to my remaining time here!

Science and Culture, What Belgium Has to Offer - Elmer Zapata-Mercado

I have never been in Europe for more than two weeks, but now I must live like a local Belgian for 10 weeks, and as soon as I landed in Brussels it became clear that I was up for an incredible ride.

After arriving to imec (my workplace for the next couple of months) and was warmly welcomed, it was evident things run differently around here. The biggest “shock” was to see that each office space has its own division/department. Everyone within that division sits in the same place. The purpose of this set-up is to promote crosstalk and collaborations, which brings me to the next point; science. This is in contrast to the usual American way where each lab has its own office, its own niche.

Me in front of the imec building.

When I met my team (notice how I said ‘team’ and not ‘lab’) I was told the project I will be working on. IMEC specializes in the development of technology based on microchips, from biosensors to a lens-less microscope. My team is developing a microscope in a chip, that will not need a lens to visualize the sample. I was put to the task to implement the system on biological samples. This first few weeks was spent researching literature to achieve the assigned task. As any work, it starts slow, between trainings (hey, safety first!) and literature research. So, in the meantime, I decided to explore the city I will be calling home for the Summer, Leuven.

Located just a 20 minute train ride from Brussels, Leuven is a vibrant city about 1/5 the size of Baltimore. Leuven’s main university, the Katolieque Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) is the oldest catholic university in the world dating back to 1425. While exploring the city by bicycle, besides making my quads pretty strong, I was able to immerse in the culture. At first it was hard to figure out where I was going, since everything is in Dutch. A few days in and translating basic words and traffic signs does not seem as hard. The locals appreciate when you try to learn a new word and its pronunciation, they don’t make fun of your broken Dutch, instead they help you.

The City of Leuven as seen from KU Leuven's Library Tower

I also found something connecting not only to my home country of Puerto Rico, but also JHU with Leuven. The main library of KU Leuven hides a rich history that for time’s sake you can read about it here. This made my cerebral amygdalas (because emotions are not processed in the heart) fill with joy and pride. Who would’ve thought?!

Now that you’re probably tired about reading history of Leuven, I will leave Brussels for next time. :)

Tot de volgende keer, mijn vrienden! <- Until next time, my friends! ;)

Meet Our 2019 IRES Student Fellows

From left to right: Thomas DiSorbo, Elmer Zapata-Mercado, Kirby Leo, Sharada Narayanan, and Hannah Aspinwall

Enjoy our feature article about 2018 summer intern, Rayyan Gorashi. Learn about her experience doing summer biomedical research on heart-on-a-chip devices at imec and traveling around Europe. 

Summer 2019 Student Recruitment

We are recruiting undergraduate and graduate students for summer 2019. Applications are due January 23rd, 2019. 

Learn more about the program and apply at 

inbt.jhu.edu/education/international

Farewell and Safe Travels Home

Our 2018 IRES interns now head home after 10 weeks of intensive research and cultural immersion at imec in Leuven, Belgium.

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