Sarah Fazal joined our research center team as an intern for the summer. Over the past few months, she worked with our MitoSENS team, primarily verifying the integration of DNA transfected into cells and detecting RNA expression levels.  Her efforts contributed greatly to the progress our MitoSENS team has made over recent months, and she presented those results in a poster at our recent SENS5 conference in Cambridge. We'd like to thank Sarah for all her hard work over the past few months and wish her well in her graduate studies; and now, without further ado, here is her internship report:

I clearly remember my first day at the SENS Foundation research center in Mountain View, California. It was a gorgeous morning with clear skies and beaming sunshine; a perfect reflection of how I felt - a fresh young inexperienced graduate student excited about a new opportunity that brought me to the Golden State. It was a summer of firsts for me: my first time in California, my first prolonged internship, my first project that generated positive meaningful results, my first attendance at a scientific conference, my first poster presentation, and even my first dip in the pacific ocean! I rushed into the lab that day, late of course because as a New Yorker I was oblivious to the fact that missing a train means at least a 20 minute wait for the next one!

I went inside to find everybody hanging out in the tiny cafeteria room. One thing I quickly learned about SENS was the lack of a formal hierarchy; where an intern can share jokes with the CEO, enjoy a drink with the CSO, borrow a bike from the manager, get a comforting hug from her boss, and share a vegetarian meal with her supervisor. Matthew O’Conner (aka Oki), the head of MitoSENS took me into his office and sat down on his exercise ball while I got the luxury of taking his desk chair. From then on, I got acquainted to the idea of walking into his office and finding him bouncing up and down on his ball - I nicknamed him Mr. Bouncy which he corrected to Dr. Bouncy of course. I had the privilege of working with him and Gayathri Swaminathan, both very talented scientists. I was lucky enough to share an office with Gayathri, during which time I learned that she is not only brilliant, but humble, inspiring, and extremely patient (with my multitude of questions)!

The current project for mitoSENS is allotopic expression, which involves copying the mitochondrial DNA into the nucleus. My project required checking for integration of the DNA transfected into cells, and detecting RNA expression levels. By the end of the summer, I had done this successfully for 4 out of the 13 genes involved in oxidative phosphorylation that are still encoded by mitochondrial DNA. I spent my summer mostly doing PCRs (polymerase chain reaction), DNA and RNA isolations, cell culturing, and gel electrophoresis. I learned to perfect these techniques, to think critically when my results weren’t as expected, and to design experiments. My experience at SENS helped shape me into a more confident and better experienced scientist. I would definitely recommend volunteering for this foundation; the experience was educational, the research is open-minded, determined, and bold, and the staff is friendly, welcoming, and helpful.

I was also fortunate enough to have the chance to attend the SENS 5 conference in Cambridge at the end of my internship. This was a remarkable experience for me; I was exposed to an incredible amount of information on research in the aging field, and met fascinating people who are ambitious about ending aging. I am back in graduate school in New York now and I must say I am much better prepared to take on my thesis project. I’d like to thank everybody at the SENS foundation for their contribution towards making this experience so valuable for me.