Student’s view - Molecular Microbiology
- Some impressions from foreign students
Ever wanted to know how to tag a protein with a fluorescent tail, how to run a bioreactor, how to perform reporter gene assays, and how people from eleven different nations work and cooperate together by enriching the working environment individually for everyone?
Feel welcome to join! And enjoy a great working atmosphere at MMB as well as a living atmosphere in Leiden being a wonderful typical Dutch town.
During our internships at the MMB section, we studied the morphology of Aspergillus niger. One of the major advantages of the section is the impressive range of the tools which are available and ensure solid scientific approaches – you generate and compare results on different levels (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics). Latest technologies and state-of-the-art equipments enable an excellent environment for an internship which is to our opinion hardly found in any other University research group.
To get a brief impression, we will leave you with some of our impressions:
... so friendly that I did not realize that I’m a foreigner… (^!^)
... the working experience contributes a lot to my course specialization
... compared to Hungary, I have by far more opportunities here – in everyday life as well as in lab life
... I will keep this time in very good memory
... and always in-between some Dutch biology students… \(^_^)/Annett, Franziska, Tabea (from Germany) and Peter (from Hungary), December 2009
- Some impressions from a Dutch student
During my Bachelor period, I got more and more interested in the smallest living organisms on this planet. Based on there relatively simple genetic packages they are able to regulate there ‘lives’ in a fascinating way. So my choice was to do my Master research project with MMB.
I have been working with the famous and widely used Aspergillus niger. The aim of my project was to establish an inducible transcription system that does not interfere with the metabolic processes of this fungus. The first view months of my internship I have constructed plasmids containing the expression cassette. After transformation of these plasmids into A. niger, I was ready to test the system under several conditions. The first results were very promising and the strains that I have constructed are now being used under bioreactor conditions to further test the expression system.
I enjoyed working on my own little research project within the MMB group. There was a nice working atmosphere and everybody took the time to help me out with all kinds of questions I had. And most of the time we had coffee and lunch together.Right now, I am doing something completely different. I’m a high school biology teacher. At the end of this year, after having experienced both research and education, I will decide in which direction I’ll go.
Janneke van Gent, December 2009
