Summer Internship Program at the Lambe Institute

Well Done to Thalia, Luke and Daniel who took part recently in this year’s summer internship program at the Lambe Institute, University of Galway funded by the National Breast Cancer Research Institute. Here is a little about each student and the work they carried out at the Institute over the summer.

Thalia Monaghan 

Thalia’s project involved extracting and characterizing RNA from blood samples donated by patients with metastatic breast cancer. In these samples, she used PCR to quantify the expression of small fragments of RNA called miRNAs which have important implications for both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Throughout her time at the Lambe Institute, she developed her skills and techniques such as RNA extraction from tissue, cell culture, cDNA preparation, and on-chip electrophoresis. Thalia is considering her options on whether to continue scientific research in academia or industry.

Luke McCarthy 

Luke worked as a research assistant for the current group of PhDs in the laboratory of Dr. Róisín Dwyer, while learning skills that are essential for his research career. He became familiar with many of the main techniques undertaken in the lab, such as characterising Extracellular Vesicles using nanoparticle tracking analysis, culturing cancer cell lines and testing for specific gene expression using PCR. Luke has reinforced his desire to start a Postgraduate degree in the area of cancer research and is looking forward to commencing this in October.

Daniel Nordon

Daniel helped the lab technical staff in the discipline of Surgery to prepare for a safety audit and supported the Cancer Biobank quality management programme by digitalizing archival documents for auditing. He also observed lots of experiments and practiced methods like DNA extraction, cell culture and PCR. Seeing how research samples were processed and analysed was extremely beneficial for the completion of his studies in Genomics at the University of Galway.