Yannik's Internship at the 3R-Center Tübingen

Insightful • Motivating • Exciting

How does a week in the lab really look like? As part of his BOGY internship – the “career and study orientation at high school,” a one-week orientation internship in 10th grade – Yannik spent an exciting week at the 3R Center Tübingen and the MicroOrganoLab. There, he gained insights into everyday laboratory life and science communication. In an interview, he talks about his impressions and his many new experiences.

Interview with Yannik

What did you expect from the internship week?

Above all, deeper insights into the laboratory work at the MicroOrganoLab. I applied for the internship because I find the in vitro models with the Organ-on-Chip projects at the 3R-Center exciting. I also see them as relevant for the future in promoting drugs that cannot be tested on animals. I also wanted to learn more about public relations, because this is really important for presenting the work done in the laboratory and reaching more companies.

Which task gave you the best impression of our work?

Researching Organ-on-Chips and building the chips themselves gave me a good understanding of how they work. Creating the science communication project and documenting the work steps and methods in the laboratory also taught me a lot about presenting methods and concepts.

Which moment of the week was the most exciting for you?

For the first two days, I spent a lot of time observing and documenting in the laboratory, but I never did anything myself. When I was allowed to go to the bench for the first time on Wednesday afternoon to thaw cells and transfer them to a culture bottle with nutrient medium, it was really exciting and probably the highlight of the week. But it’s also really exciting to be involved in experiments or working with a microscope when you don’t know what the outcome will be and you’ve been waiting a long time for something to work.

What did you personally gain from the internship?

First and foremost, all the impressions I gained from working in the laboratory and learning about Organ-on-Chip systems: the journey of cells from human organs to the chip, but also the structure of the chips and how they are manufactured. I will also take with me what I learned about how to behave in the laboratory and how to work in a clean and precise manner, as well as the patience you need to make things work.

But what’s also exciting is the motivation I get from the work. Knowing that I’m doing something useful and having new goals, such as getting cells to settle well in a chip (chip seeding), makes me think I’ll really enjoy the work. Planning and building the chips yourself while doing the lab work makes the job very variable. Additionally, I now find public relations and science communication much more interesting than before the internship because I’ve realized how important they are for publishing projects.

Did the internship change or broaden your ideas about possible career paths?

It was more like an expansion. Beforehand, I was pretty sure that I wanted to study something in the natural sciences. During the internship, I wanted to see how exciting the work was. The work is diverse, so you can complete it with a wide variety of degree programs, and you can pursue many different paths afterwards. I also spoke with many Ph.D. students about their programs and future plans, which gave me a positive impression.

Tell us about your science communication project. What did you learn about how to explain laboratory methods effectively?

My goal was to explain the process of cell isolation as clearly as possible to demonstrate how cells from the human body are prepared for research on chips. To accomplish this, I observed and documented the isolation of immune cells from human tonsils.

I kept in mind the purpose of each step so that I could later combine them into larger methodological steps. I then used these steps to illustrate cell isolation by creating a graphic with BioRender. Additionally, I had to be familiar with the materials and their English terminology, while also remembering to present the method simply enough that people unfamiliar with the work could understand the graphic.