My name is Marisol Jimenez Garcia. I am a first-generation, Latina, located just south of Seattle
in the city of Tukwila, I have a great passion for science and diversity within the field. Recently, I’ve been able to participate in an internship at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and to say it was an extraordinary experience would be an understatement.
Throughout my time at Fred Hutch, I was able to explore different lab skills and go in-depth with science concepts and my overall understanding of each topic. We had opportunities to learn about different labs and how each relates to cancer research. One of my favorite labs was the zebrafish facility here at Fred Hutch. I had already taken care of zebrafish before at UW as a part of another program and the familiar fish was a delight. I was already fond of zebrafish before, but visiting this lab only cemented my adoration for this unique model organism. My cohort and I were also able to gain multiple lab skills within a training lab. We did a variety of different techniques that would be essential for anyone interested in doing lab work. One of our first activities was learning to use micropipettes and mixing dye with the pipettes. With time, each experiment increased in difficulty, but still incorporated core skills we learned earlier that week. A notable experiment was gel electrophoresis, my wonderful lab partner and I did our best to pipette into the dedicated wells. She did hers flawlessly and while we had both done this before, I got our solution in anything but the well. I was disappointed when I realized my mistake and I apologized profusely. It threw our results off and by the time it came to run our next gels, I was determined to get it right. Luckily we got our expected results and I was able to correct my skills with the help of the wonderful TAs. Who were there to give extra support to whomever and whenever needed.
Throughout my time here I got to learn skills that were both new and familiar to me, but the absolute highlight of this internship for me was the people. As a part of this program, I got to listen to multiple guest speakers. Each speaker gave a different perspective and helped us out in their own way. A highlight of the guest speakers was the visit and talk from Anthony Fauci and Larry Corey. Evidently, this was not a common occurrence and likely wouldn't be, even for future Explorers. The experience was surreal and took me by complete surprise. Every mentor that I was able to meet was always everything and more. There were many who were at different stages within their career and seeing the different stages of science not only motivates me but also scares me, in a good way.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone for their work and effort put into the Pathways Research Explorers Program. To those who we saw daily and to those who we didn’t get to meet. To every guest speaker and TAs who were amazing mentors. To the amazing cohort, who kept me on my toes, not knowing what to expect each day.
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