My name is Miah Morales, I am 16 years old, and I applied to Fred Hutch for their 2 week Explorer internship. I initially didn’t expect to get in, I thought my chances were very low, but I still made sure to hold on to hope that somehow, I will make it. I remember how excited I was once I received the notification that I was accepted. I held on to that excitement from the moment that I got accepted till the end of the two weeks. This was such a valuable experience that I will forever cherish and encourage other incoming sophomores and juniors to take upon. This experience is so unique, it shows you all the science going on behind the scenes and how much science, experiments, trials and repeating it takes to get the desired result. This experience made an impression on me because seeing that people from all different backgrounds can be scientists, I used to think that because of my background I wouldn’t be as smart as another person with a different background than me. That is not true, we all have different experiences, backgrounds and knowledge. “Being different is good, own being different, because you bring different ideas to the table.” Dr. Raabya Rossenkhan said something along the lines of this, and it really did shift my perspective because it is true, why act and try to be someone you are not when you can be yourself, especially when it comes to science. I mean why would you pretend you like science when you truly really love a different area of science, and especially the ideas. It’s so cool when we are given a problem to solve or the same assignment and everyone comes up with different solutions, views, drawings, and different perspectives on how to go on about this problem. Your idea should never be turned down or kept inside because you never know, it could be utilized. Each idea is unique and important, whether that is using it for an experiment, or trying it out or maybe inspiring another person's idea to build off of yours. Those are multiple ways on how this experience made an impression and an impact on me, only for the better. Even if you are iffy on applying because you think that you won’t get accepted, you won’t have fun or whatever you might think, just apply. It is such a fun, welcoming, loving experience and environment. Everyone is here to help you and welcome you because all they want is to have young kids learn and see science to find a new passion and to pursue science as a career. Fred Hutch’s Internship programs are only here to help you and guide you to potentially finding your career. What I am trying to say is that this program is only for the good and will make you leave with a good experience and new bonds and potentially networking. The picture down below shows new bonds and friendships that have occurred because of this internship.
(a group of us looking at different labs at Fred Hutch) 8-23-23
(color wheel lab) 8-15-23 Our first lab was a micropipetting practice where we practiced moving around the sizes and precisely placing them in specific spots, and mixing the colors to make other colors and then making a color wheel. This was a super fun experiment to get comfortable with the pipette itself and to feel like a scientist extracting and being precise without working with chemicals.
(gel electrophoresis results of the different dyes densities/charges) 8-16-23
My favorite lab was gel electrophoresis where we pipetted dyes in the gel electrophoresis and we calculated before which one would go to the negative side and which one would go to the positive side and which ones would go farther or stay back. In the beginning putting the dyes into the wells was a little difficult but it began to be easier by the second one. It was fun working with my partner and seeing the dyes moving, we captured a time lapse of it, and we being right with our calculations.
(PCR lab getting, copies of the B2M gene) 8-17-23 This was part of our PCR lab where we are trying to get multiple/many copies of the same section/gene which was B2M. We had to make sure that we all did it correctly by putting a liquid that made it glow, and by having a negative control which just had water. It ended up working and my partner and I have successfully performed PCR!
Writing in our lab notebooks was very fun, although it isn’t required it helps a lot if you don’t understand a topic well. When we went over Kristins cancer (ALL) I understood it a little bit, but was also severely confused. I decided that the next day I would spend 10 minutes writing down all the information. And I did, it helped out so much because everything I wrote down helped me understand it better than just reading or hearing it. There are different learning methods for everyone, this was one of them for me. Do what you feel helps you best, because the only thing that Fred Hutch wants you to do is learn!
This is another example of writing things down, to look back on in the future and or understand the concept again if you forget! You can decorate and make your journals as fun as you want! On the second page we all wrote down an intro to cancer to get a basic understanding and have a review, and since we were diving deeper into cancer they wanted to make sure that we understand what causes some cancers and what available treatments there are. On the third page we did two labs, one I already described which was micropipetting and the second one was “Extracting Strawberry DNA”. This was a great way to work together as a partner or team to try and figure out how to extract DNA from a strawberry. Figuring out the steps and problem solving why some ingredients worked and some others didn’t was very educational. Educational in the sense that even though we are just extracting strawberry DNA, we are truly mimicking what they do at Fred Hutch. Extracting DNA and trying to figure out either if there is something wrong or
studying it.
This is how I decorated my lab notebook, I put stickers that they offered and drew stuff! You can personalize your notebooks and make them fun!
8-22-23–8-24-23 (first photo is a product of the PCR lab from last week and the second photo is our last lab which we did today, on testing patient samples and running them through gel electrophoresis)
All the labs that we did helped me so much understand how much work goes into the jobs that are offered at Fred Hutch or overall, and it helped me get a better understanding and insight on the job that I want to pursue in the future, which is Forensics. Working in forensics requires lots of lab work and that is one thing I certainly did a lot of in my two weeks!! I’m very grateful for this experience because I don’t receive lots of experiences like these and or they are not available to me in my school or in my area, which is unfortunate because I love doing these types of things and I wish I had more opportunities to experience and experiment. Even though I already knew how to run all the equipment before I came here, I became more comfortable and felt confident in my skills on using the equipment and I’m very glad that this experience ensured me to feel confident and comfortable in using the equipment, which I’ll use a lot in my future. I also learned lots of ups and downs in science, that lots of accidents happen and that it’s ok to have to do it all over.
8-23-23 (visiting lots of labs, from fish labs, to fly labs, to different buildings and wet labs)
I learned a ton by visiting labs, so many different areas of research and labs. The possibilities are endless, and seeing all the professional equipment was also super cool, some I have never seen before! Like the first and third photo, luckily they explained it and made sure to have all questions answered. I loved visiting all the labs and seeing what people’s day to day are like. Talking about what they research or do is very interesting and I learned a lot. I learned about testing on zebrafish, I learned about mouse lungs, fly embryos being used to test how fast a wound can close and why.
We listened to lots of speeches and all of them were so great, the one that really stuck with me was Dr. Raabya Rossenkhans. Her words really stood out to me and stuck to me, her empowerment on how all journeys are different and that you will find your path, you will find what you love and have a motive to fix or solve it. She is very inspirational and I definitely recommend her to the next cohort!! She is a scientist at Fred Hutch who studies viruses, she is a virologist! Very cool and I would definitely love to shadow her and see what her day is like.
I know this blog is very long and whoever is reading is probably like, “oh my godddd could she not have said this in 500 words or less?!”. But my last thing that I’ll say before I submit this is, thank you to everyone at Fred Hutch for being so welcoming and loving towards every student, intern, learner and worker. This is such a good work environment and I enjoyed every second of it. Thank you to all the TA’s and people who gave their time to talk to us students and give us insight on their job and help us; thank you to whoever chose me to be a part of such a wonderful environment, experience, and group. It was all so lovely and I wish I could start it all over again. I am very sad that we can’t keep this going because I learned a lot and these wonderful experiences and people aren’t given a lot of the time, these opportunities are essentially a once in a lifetime experience.
8-24-23 Lastly, thank you so much Dr. Goode. You are such a role model and inspiration. I want to be just like you, and thank you for being patient and so helpful and kind throughout the whole experience. I really enjoyed my time with you and everyone and I would love to have another experience like this with all of you guys again!! Thank you for fulfilling my dream of being a scientist and ensuring my future as a future scientist. Thank you for all the opportunities and care that you gave me and others.
8-23-23
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