Name of the activity: National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge (insa) internship

Colégio Planalto

IB-world-school

Name of the activity: National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge (INSA) internship

Learning outcomes: 1, 2, 5, 6, 8

80hrs of Creativity

In this project I did an internship in the National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge on molecular biology. I've learned how to extract DNA from peripheral blood, gel electrophoresis, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), sequencing, etc. It showed me one side of medicine that I really like that is clinical investigation. I did the activity for two weeks from 9 am to 5 pm, which gives 80 hours of Creativity.

I hoped to study diseases that particularly interest me such as autism specifically in my favourite area that is genetics. I think that is somehow magical that the entire genetic information is encoded in one cell nucleus. Also, I hoped to see some of the things we learn in Biology like the PCR and electrophoresis to further my insights on them and possible improving my grades too.

In my opinion, all these aims were achieve. In fact I didn’t only “see” the PCR’s and gel-electrophoresis but I also did these by myself. I understood the need to use certain chemicals and solutions that have been helpful in my IB studies. Diseases of global importance were studied. I’ve worked with the influence of changes in the PARK2 gene that made individuals to have autism and also the changes in exon 4 and exon 9 in LDLR gene that made people have Familial Hypercholesterolemia. I really liked to face the role of someone that makes part of the Autism Genome Project (AGP) and saw the genotyping of true Portuguese people that suffer from autism.

I found some difficulty at first using the micro pipettes but after some time using them it was intuitive. I had to read some studies and these used very technical language that was somehow difficult to understand. On the other hand, they have a fantastic laboratory but after a while my admiration was replaced by my inquisitive thought. I asked everything about everything and sometimes I was a little disappointed because some of the people working there could not explain properly how some machines work.