Test, Test… Is This Thing On? - Hannah Christina Aspinwell

What an exciting time! After weeks of honing my polymer composition for 3D-printable microfluidics the time has come to put it to the test or in this case: tests. We are looking into as many parameters relevant to our applications as we can in the time left. For instance: can cells survive on this polymer? Can they grow on it? What chemicals are compatible with it? How hard is it? Do we observe protein absorption to it?

An image used for assessing the autofluorescence of my polymer
 at a wavelength of interest.

As you can imagine all these tests have very specific protocols and equipment that I am not necessarily familiar with yet. I am extremely appreciative of my coworkers who have taken the time to walk me through them and help me run them all. It’s fantastic to have access to so many resources and get exposure to so many new skills. With our final presentation coming up on August 2nd and lots of people taking summer vacations scheduling has been tight but we’ve made it work.

This is the famous astronomical clock
in Prague as seen
 when you enter the main square.
The clock dates to the 1400’s
and is the only one from this time
that is still operational.

Hopefully, by the end of the week I’ll have the results from all the tests. Good or bad this should elucidate something about out material and give direction to those working on the project in the future. Plus it gives me beautiful graphs and images to start working into my final presentation.

It’s crazy to me that I’ll have to wrap up my part of this project so soon! I feel like I just started and there’s so much more to explore. I guess that’s the nature of doing research over one short summer. On the other hand, this limited amount of time has really provided me with a lot of clarity on what I want out of a scientific career. 

None of my immediate family work in science or engineering, so it’s been illuminating for me to see what it’s like for real scientists with home lives and hobbies to work in industry. Turns out they are more funny and lively than most movies make them out to be. It’s also been an excellent environment to test my engineering skills and learn some new techniques.

In addition to the new scientific knowledge I’ve expanded my cultural and historical knowledge during my travels. Recently I’ve went Prague which was visually stunning, culturally distinct, and historically fascinating. I also attended the summer festival here in Leuven and Ghent, another Belgian city, with coworkers and the rest of the IRES crew. I look forward to taking in even more of Belgium with the precious little time remaining.

Me and Elmer from a hill overlooking Prague

Results and Reflections - Sharada Narayanan

Shaking hands with the model
in the demo room of the life lab at imec.

Before this internship I had never worked on a project that had such a short time frame. It’s made me appreciate why, for example, PhD’s are so long. Because the purpose of science and engineering is to “boldly go where no man has gone before,” you often run into unforeseen roadblocks and spend a lot of time merely optimizing your experiment to get significant, usable data. It’s something that’s both frustrating because it can take a while to advance in your findings, but exciting because you’re solving new problems every day. These three months have flashed by in the blink of an eye and though I’m happy with my work, I wish I had more time to thoroughly investigate and optimize my work. After many setbacks including chip clogging and various issues with the stability of the bacterial lysate, I’m currently analyzing the data from my last set of experiments on the effect of different chip coatings on bacterial DNA extraction. I’m excited to do some more research into the chemical properties of the coatings to help explain my results. This is the best part of doing science and what makes the tedium of running experiments worth it.

My childhood friends and me at
 the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Though I am grateful for so much of this entire internship opportunity abroad, one of the most important things that made my experience both fulfilling and relaxed was the fantastic guidance of my mentor Rodrigo. He gave me the freedom to think and work independently but would check up on me every day so I could bring up any questions or concerns I had. It was the perfect amount of supervision for an intern, in my opinion, as I never felt lost nor stifled. Of course, I understand that as I become a professional working adult I will have (and will want) less and less supervision, but I felt like this was a good transition step on my way to that. I have learned so much about independent work here that I know I will carry with me for the rest of my career.

Traveling abroad in countries where I don’t speak the language has also done wonders for my growth into a functional, independent adult. Last weekend, I went to Paris again to visit two of my friends from Seattle. This time, I was traveling alone. Being alone in a foreign country is both an isolating and uniquely exhilarating experience because you don’t have anyone you can easily communicate with to lean on. At one point, I held a short conversation in French with a stranger and it was the most exciting moment of the whole trip.

Stimulating Experiences - Kirby Leo

My typical monitor setup for harvesting
 and visualizing cardiac signals.

I’ve had a couple productive weeks working on my heart-on-a-chip project. I’ve been moving on to deeply investigating the impact of stimulations on my chip electrodes. Using concepts of impedance and capacitance, I have been able to characterize the quality of our chips based on specific stimulations. Simultaneously, I have been testing different impedance analyzer setups that aren’t just relevant to me and my supervisor, but also other members of Cell and Tissue Technologies (CTT) at imec.

Additionally, I am still generating and going through much of my cardiomyocyte data. A part of my analysis includes utilizing scripts that my supervisor has written to extract data from my cardiac recordings and organize them for plotting. It has been a good exercise for me in understanding data portrayal and what makes an honest figure. I still have experiments to run before my presentation, and though I have been already keeping track of my work on a singular document, I’m excited to make a brief presentation for a general audience and finally wrap my work together. There are of course many experiments to further this project, but my timeline limits me and I’m hoping to see my work being fuel for further studies.

Possibly the edgiest - but strangely
cleanest - Gent alleyway I've ever
been in!

With my time here wrapping up, I’ve been reflecting a lot on my research experience here. Though the research I do here is centered on micro-electronics, which is not a field I have had much experience in, I found that it wasn’t as difficult to get into the work as I had expected due to my prior experiences, specifically with research culture and the scientific method that I have picked up from labs that I have worked in previously. Additionally, some of the work theoretically strikes a note of familiarity considering my training as a student in biomedical engineering. This has given me new confidence in entering new fields and using interdisciplinary approaches. I’ll be incorporating the quantitative style of problem solving and systematic approach that I’ve so distinctly picked up in my time here at imec into my future research.

To cap it off, I’ve attended Beleuvenissen, a popular music festival based in Leuven’s center that’s been happening for the last two Fridays, with my coworkers from Life Science Technologies/CTT, and I’ve had a great time getting to know some of Belgium’s music and hanging in the Leuven atmosphere. I’ve also made the decision to stay within Belgium for the rest of my time here to soak in the experience, and I have been back to Brussels and attended the famous Gent Festival. I’m hoping to get the most out of the cultural and work life in Belgium in the next couple weeks before I leave.

Discobaar a Moeder (a Belgian music group) at Beleuvenissen II attracted quite a crowd

Rounding the Corner - Thomas DiSorbo

Chip hooked up to electrode under microscope.

It is hard to believe my summer in Belgium and imec has almost come to an end! Within a few short weeks there will be nothing left to do but reflect on my experience. When I look back on what I have accomplished so far, I appreciate the quality of this opportunity and have a better understanding of the steps I must take to complete my work.

My project, developing a procedure for electrical partial cell lysis, has come a long way. It began with a number of ancillary questions regarding equipment, experiment parameters, and model production, and all of which have been answered to give the experiments more focus. I have selected the optimal electrode configurations, perfected the mathematical model of the cell, and crossed over many other stepping stones to come to a place where my experiments are producing promising results.

Printed circuit boards to hold electrodes.

To successfully capture and lyse a cell using the electrodes I have selected, I need to design two separate electrical pulses, for the capture and lysis respectively. The “capture pulse” must produce positive dielectrophoresis, an attractive force that acts on small particles, while the “lysis pulse” must produce a voltage that is capable of lysing the outer membrane of the cell while keeping the nuclear membrane intact. With the help of my models, I have determined a number of pulses that are capable of capture, and a few that may be capable of partial lysis. As the project comes to a close, I need to produce video evidence of the capture and lysis using a cell staining procedure with two types of dye and working with them under a microscope.

Spending the summer focused on a singular research project has been a rewarding experience and a refreshing break from the often hectic, multitasking I do during the school year. Although I am approaching my project’s conclusion, I do not feel the stress or pressure that I may have felt on a similar project in America. With the more relaxed work culture in Belgium, I have been able to work at my own pace. A balanced work life has done wonders for my productivity. My time at imec has also provided me a taste of academic research that encourages me to continue my plans to pursue a PhD.

Beyond work, this past weekend I attended the Gentse Feesten, a 10-day summer festival in Ghent. It was a fantastic opportunity to explore another Belgian city, its gothic architecture, and to experience the Belgian culture and people at their most relaxed. Though my time is ending, I am happy with the memories I’ve made. 

Graffiti of atomium Ghents.

Hallo nog een keer! (Hello one more time!) - Elmer Zapata Mercado

 BBQ at home of my mentor, Niels. 

Now that we are 80% of the internship completed, I can say I have spent most of the time trying to wrap up my project. You might remember that we are trying to replace bulky and expensive equipment, with a small (mass-producible) photonic chip. Since Physics are a thing that exists, that task is not easy to fulfill. Although, my job has been to implement the system into biological samples. From the three goals I was given, I completed two already, and I expected to complete the third one by now. But we all know that Science never works the way we want, when we want. So, fulfilling my third and final goal of getting a super high-resolution image of a biological sample, had its setback. I am hopeful I will be able to complete such task in the coming days. As of now, I have been improving protocols, that will serve as a foundation for the work that has to be done by my team here at imec. Thus, the work I have done here will be beneficial to the future of the project. Just the fact the ERC saw potential in this project, and me contributing to it, makes me feel I have done contributions for the advancement of science.

As the end of this experience looms, I have considered new endeavors for my future. I have always wanted to become an educator at a research institution, and for that I must do a post-doc. After living in Europe for the past eight weeks, I think I will enjoy doing a post-doc here. It has been a different and positive experience. One thing I can say, is that this experience helped me grow my network, which is always good to have for future plans. I do not like to think of life as linear, since we never know where the winds will take us. But as of now, I think the winds have shifted a little.

In terms of travel, I was able to visit the fairytale city of Prague, or Praha as the locals say. Two of the most interesting things I saw were the world’s oldest astronomical clock, and the window where the Defenestration of Prague occurred, and event that sparked the 30-year war (you can read more here).

Houd mijn laatste blog in de gaten! (Keep an eye for my last blog!)

Prague’s Castle seen from Charles Bridge

New Month, New Compositions - Hannah Christina Aspinwell

I’ve finished the preliminary stage of research on a suitable polymer composition for 3D printing microfluidics via UV-polymerization. I’ve characterized our pure components, identified key design parameters, and optimized photoinitiator concentration. Now the fun stuff: getting to crosslink my polymers, a.k.a. mixing it all together! 

In my opinion, this is the most exciting stage because it lends itself to creative problem solving, the heart of engineering. I understand the properties my final product should have and what my starting materials are like. From there, I get to play with the ratio of each component to optimize the final product. While I don’t need to characterize every possible end-outcome, it’s nice to come up with some rules of thumb for those who might continue my work.

Right now, I have two major lines of experimentation that both look to address a cracking during curing issue in some compositions. There’s no clear frontrunner yet, but by the end of this week my group and I will have picked one for further study. 

My new compositions (right) eliminates cracking seen with previous compositions (left).    

I’ve been afforded a great deal of independence on my project and planning my workflow. My mentor checks in with me daily and I present to an advising group on a weekly basis. This is quite similar to the way I do research at Hopkins, but I still get a little nervous when showing my results. 

It’s odd to think of research as my job rather than something I do on the side after classes. The work I do sounds as fantastic and complicated as the science stories I grew up listening to on NPR, but feels very natural and straightforward.  All the Hopkins’ classes, design team meetings, and hours in the lab are coming together to inform my experimental plan and troubleshooting for this project. While I feel I could certainly stand to know more about electrical engineering, imec’s specialty, I believe my past experience has prepared me well for my work here.

On the contrary, I was unprepared for the weather here. Last week it was in the 90’s (Fahrenheit) and today the high is 68. During the heatwave Kirby, Sharada, and I escaped to the beach town of Ostend along with half of Belgium. Despite the crowd, the water was refreshing and watching Belgian’s on vacation made me nostalgic for summers with my family.  Last weekend, I made it to London whose parks, museums, and signs in English were all fantastic. I’ve also taken the time to explore Leuven including some of the parks and the surprisingly vast M-museum, which showcases local art dating back to medieval times. This week I hope to take advantage of the weather and head to the local botanical gardens. 

Kirby, Sharada, and I at Ostend for a beach day.