Internships within the Department and our students' experiences
A guide to finding your own internship within the Department
Many students try to organise an internship ideally during the summer vacation at the end of your 2nd or 3rd year. Some students also arrange to volunteer in a lab for a few weeks at the end of 1st and/or 2nd year.
The Department of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford is a high quality research training environment, and you can easily access research labs for information.
There are also other research departments in Oxford or in your Home city or elsewhere in the UK where vacation studentships are advertised (see back pages of New Scientist and Nature).
You can also try industrial research laboratories in the UK/abroad. You may want to try other internationally recognized research universities and research institutes.
To organise your own internship, think about the courses you are attracted to in Molecular Biochemistry. Review the department's research groups pages and make a shortlist of Principal Investigators (PI's) whose research topics interest you most. Arrange to meet the PI's of highest interest to you, and find out whether they can accommodate a internee in their groups. Be prepared to give them a copy of your academic CV, which should list the name and contact details of your tutor(s), who can act as your referee(s) if necessary. You should find out whether there is any project that the group needs to investigate, the aims of the research, the experimental approaches, what research methods you might expect to learn, and whether there would be direct supervision in the summer.
When you find a PI who can accommodate an internee, you will also need to identify a funding source that will support your living costs. You will need about £180-£200 per week to pay for your rent and other costs in Oxford. Ideally, you and your supervisor (PI) will together apply for a Vacation Studentship to various funding bodies, naming you on the application. Funding is a competitive process, so you will need a good academic CV (usually predicted M.Biochem. with Honours Class 2:1 or higher), and may need to apply to more than one funding body. You should be prepared to invest some time into writing a compelling application, stating your experience and motivation for the internship. From time to time a PI might have small funds that could be used to support an internee. Alternatively you may be able to organise a part-time internship, where your income for living costs comes from part-time work in College or in town and an accommodation grant from college (ask your college if they offer any opportunities for the summer, e.g. accommodation in return for help with conferences or office work to support your internship)
You may also volunteer to do research in a lab while living at home, if you don't have to work all summer for income.
Here are sources of information you might want to try:
- Internet (e.g. websites of Universities, Research Centres, Industrial Companies, Research Funding Organisations, Professional Societies)
- Scientific Press
- Your Tutors
- Careers Service
- Direct contact
Read about students' experiences
Cristiana Banila - Second year Biochemistry student at St John's. Cristiana spent 8 weeks in Jason Schnell's lab in the Department of Biochemistry.
I wanted to do a project that would be useful to help explain the techniques I was likely to come across in my course, so I chose an internship with Jason.
The overall aim of the project was to analyse interactions between chaperone BIP and the membrane receptor S1R. My specific role was to integrate S1R into lipid nanodiscs - the first step in the project. It was quite a time-consuming task but I ended up getting some good results.
The project gave me a good grasp of membrane protein purification and HPLC, and I also carried out some SPR (surface plasmon resonance). My supervisor let me analyse what lipids worked better in the nanodiscs using FRET and also showed me some NMR. I've found it very useful as we are now covering NMR in our lectures and it has helped me understand this.
I approached Jason because I had read about his work and found it interesting. I contacted him and he accepted me. When I was there, I interacted with postdocs and others in the lab. I had to keep up with reading and participating in the weekly journal club, and presented my own work towards the end of the project.
I really enjoyed working there - I'd say it was the best experience of my first year. I hadn't done any research before but I want to do more placements if I can. This year I wasn't eligible for most of the funding on offer (which is for second or third years), but I did receive some support from my college which helped with the costs.
I would definitely recommend first year students considering a placement. It has helped me understand the concepts that are now being presented to us in second year lectures and classes.
Andrei Florea - Third year Biochemistry student at St Hilda's. Andrei spent two months in the lab of Petros Ligoxygakis in the Department of Biochemistry.
I started by contacting some tutors and lecturers to ask about the possibility of doing a placement in their lab. I was interested in pharmacology research or working with model organisms. Petros accepted me and I was successful in securing departmental funding (which is for second year students).
I worked on an RNAi knockdown system in Drosophila. We wanted to see whether an interaction that had been previously observed was due to an off-target effect or was a real physiological effect. I found that it was an off-target effect but my results were very different from Petros'. We thought that the explanation might be that the Drosophila larvae were showing over-crowding - something that should be taken into consideration in the RNAi screens that Petros has been carrying out. So the finding has informed Petros' research and we may be able to publish it.
I really enjoyed the project. For the first few weeks I had to expand fly stocks so I learnt how to look after flies. Then I made crosses and checked these using RT-PCR, and used microscopy to check phenotypic traits in progeny. I also carried out some infections - Petros' interest is the pathways involved in immune responses.
The work has helped me to understand concepts of genetic manipulation and has been especially useful for helping me tackle data handling questions we are given.
I hadn't had any other significant research experience before this placement. Carrying out a research project made me realise that you continually have to think about how to move the work on - taking different paths. In practicals, you know what the outcome will be whereas in research, you don't know where the work will lead you. I enjoyed discussing potential experiments with my supervisor and found that this really made me think and apply my knowledge.
I would like to do more research in future years. I'm considering a placement in industry next year to see what a more applied environment, with different drivers, will be like.
Doing a placement is a very useful experience - both for you as a potential future researcher and to help with your course. I've found that people in the department have been helpful so I would say that you shouldn't be afraid of approaching group leaders, expressing an interest in their work, and finding out if they would be willing to offer you a placement.
Jennifer (Wanyi) Jia - Visiting student from Pomona College, California. Jennifer spent 9 weeks on a programme at the LA Biomedical Research Institute (LABiomed) in the Ibrahim lab, combining research with exposure to hospital medicine.
I was a research intern in the Infectious Diseases Department of the LA Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor UCLA, which is geared towards students interested in medicine and medical research. The work in the lab was quite clinically orientated and I took part in medical rounds with doctors. I joined residents and infectious diseases fellows on the discussion of patient cases and ward rounds. The programme included a variety of research projects and I was offered a choice upon my arrival.
In the Ibrahim lab, I worked on the development of a vaccine and effective diagnosis for mucormycosis, an infection commonly caused by the Rhizopus orizae fungus. Patients who are immuno-compromised such as those with HIV, leukaemia and diabetic ketoacidosis are especially susceptible to the infection, which can often be fatal. To characterise monoclonal, antibody-producing hybridoma cell lines, I conducted a range of experiments such as optimising cell growth conditions, purifying and testing antibodies via ELISA, FACS analysis/flow cytometry and THP-1/spore killing assays, and inducing neutropenia in mice. My work was part of the long-term goal of the lab to identify which antibody was the best against the fungus, scale up its production, and take it into clinical trials. I successfully identified which antibodies were most effective at binding CotH3-a crucial R. orizae surface protein-and initiated mass purification.
I have had a lot of experience working in basic research settings. My degree at Pomona College has involved several periods of research during the year. In addition, I interned in an 8-week summer project in a protein crystallography lab at Penn State University and worked for two other summer internships at my home institution on the evolutionary origins of adaptive immunology and Drosophila axon guidance mechanism. Currently, I am at Oxford as a third-year visiting student, combining courses in Biochemistry and Neuroscience with neurogenetic crystallography research in a STRUBI lab. Because my home institution overseas is an undergraduate-focused liberal arts college, I would not have had the opportunity to undertake a project involving such advanced and high-technology facilities.
I think the LABiomed programme can be a very helpful experience-not only for students going into medicine, but also for those who are interested in more clinically-oriented research.
Overall, I would recommend students going to other countries for internships. In fact, they shouldn't be afraid to look for labs they are interested in and contacting the lab PI. I was looking for cancer-related research online when I found out about the opportunity at LABiomed. The funding came with the research application acceptance, which more than adequately covered living expenses, and would probably also cover travel costs for those who need it. I applied mid-January/beginning of February- but note that the deadlines for US programmes can be as early as December, running through to March.
As for my future plans, I would like to go to medical school and pursue an MD or MD/PhD in the US or here at Oxford University.
Alice Cross- Fourth year student at Somerville College currently working the lab of Nicole Zitzmann for her Part II project. Alice had a placement at Diamond Light Source (DLS) in 2013 and in the lab of Ilan Davis in the Department of Biochemistry in 2014.
I worked at DLS for 10 weeks on their summer studentship programme. I mainly carried out protein purification and worked with physicists. The facilities there were excellent. As part of the programme, we attended special talks and also social events, and it was good to meet the other students who were from all over.
I really enjoyed the experience and found it very valuable. It gave me a good understanding of basic molecular biology and helped me to understand work for my Collections as well as the practicals I carried out that year. The programme was generously funded and I took advantage of cheap accommodation at my college. I even had 5 days of holiday included in the 10 weeks.
I hadn't done any research before this placement and it made me decide that I would like to stay in research after my degree. I am still in contact with my supervisor at DLS who has offered me the opportunity to collaborate on some work.
This summer, I worked in Ilan Davis' lab for 11 weeks. I was originally going to be funded by the department, but on the first day I started work, I found out that I had Lister Institute funding. This was arranged through Ilan and my supervisor.
In this developmental biology project, I was looking after fruitflies – growing and dissecting them, and using fluorescent microscopy to study their neuromuscular junctions. It was very different from my placement at DLS and helped me decide where the focus of my future research should be. There were fewer students to meet – just one other in the lab when I was there.
It was useful to learn microscopy techniques and also be exposed at lab meetings to how research is presented. I presented at one of these and received some useful feedback.
I am now doing my Part II project in Nicole Zitzmann's lab. I tried to get a placement in her lab in the summer but couldn't. I looked for supervisors in several other labs in Oxford but in the end, the placement in Ilan's lab came through before the others. My enjoyment of doing research has made me decide that I would like to do a PhD, perhaps in the field of immunology with a structural biology focus.
I would advise any student considering a placement to go for the organised programmes like the one at DLS unless you know exactly what research you'd like to do. These schemes are good - you meet other students and, at DLS, mix with a range of people and come into contact with more applied research. Certainly if you have even a vague interest in doing research after your degree, getting research experience is a very good idea. Look out for Gill's emails about opportunities and be aware of the deadlines. Although the one for DLS is fairly late, some are earlier in the year.