Don’t knock it ‘til you try it!
June 16. 2024
Hello everyone! My name is Kaya. I am a 3rd year undergraduate at the University of Delaware studying Biology and I am hoping to go into industry after finishing my bachelor’s degree. My love for biology and research was a relatively recent discovery. I found my passion through taking chances. I would have never thought I would enjoy biology and research if I had not ventured out of my comfort zone and tried something new.
My motivation for applying to the Empower Fellowship was mostly through a referral from my professor, who thought it would be a good fit for me. He had mentioned it before applications opened, and I was very eager to try joining a new lab and getting more experience in research. Going to the discovery day really solidified my willingness to apply. Interacting with other researchers with similar life experiences to mine was definitely an environment I wanted to be a part of. I felt very welcomed by everyone I interacted with. I also have had prior experience working in a lab, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I found it very fulfilling following through with hypotheses and experiments I had come up with, even if they did not always work. That’s all a part of science! Going into research in my prior and current experience was definitely intimidating at first, because I did not know much about what I was going into, but there is always room for learning and improvement.
I am very excited to be a part of The Cukierman Laboratory, where over the summer, I will investigate the effects of desmoplasia: the thick tissue surrounding solid tumors on the development and metastasis of epithelial cancers. Using a unique three-dimensional culture system that closely mimics actual tumor settings, I will be researching the ways in which this thick tissue facilitates immune system evasion, metabolism, and cancer invasion and potentially be creating my own cell line!
July 14, 2024
As I'm writing this, we are approaching the halfway mark of my internship. Time has flown by. I have learned much about my project over the past few weeks, and even presented a draft of my presentation in front of people for the first time in years. I have overcome many fears lately. It has become easier to use the equipment now that I have some experience under my belt. I have been keeping up with maintaining several cell lines, making solutions, and started my first experiment. It was quite the learning curve. I have never worked with cell lines before, so there were a lot of things I did not know. Things these scientists would not even think twice about. So far, with the help of my mentor, I have started my first experiment by first making a 3D culture modeling system from our cell line. We use them in our lab to replicate native tissue environments using an extracellular matrix (ECM) generated by fibroblasts. Truthfully, I did mess up my second biological repeat. 
But I learned from my mistakes and proceeded. It was then when I realized I needed to start taking better notes when shadowing for future procedures. That is why we have multiple biological repeats after all. After this, I did immunofluorescence on the units I made for my experiment. I was able to finally see my hard work on the big screen! (the desktop monitor) It was eerily beautiful.
During the program, the fellows and I have been attending weekly meetings where we do activities relating to professional development, improving our skills in reading research articles, working on our presentation skills, and various other things you would not find in a regular internship. They have been very helpful for me towards my professional development. I graduate soon, and I will be taking a lot of what I learned in this program with me in the future. I am very grateful.
On weekends, I have been hanging out a lot with the new friends I have made here. We have made several trips into the city to thrift, dance, see concerts, and eat delicious food. Our current housing is pretty close to the city, which is nice because there are plenty of things to do in Philadelphia. It has been great getting to know the other fellows.
August 26, 2024
It has been about a week since the Empower Fellowship came to an end. Our time flew by. Seeing the other fellows present was surreal. During the summer, we all ventured into our own laboratories, all under various different mentors; so we did not really have a great idea what each of us did. Seeing everyone present with their newfound knowledge and confidence was a beautiful thing to witness. A lot of us came into the program not really knowing the intensity that the program would entail. I felt like many of us were challenged this summer in one way or another; and eventually we were able to persevere past our limits and thrive.
I personally felt that I was a prime example of this. The program was hard, and I spent many long hours in the lab. Between meetings, running experiments, assignments and working on my presentation; I definitely felt like I was pushed to my limits. It forced me to improve in a lot of areas, especially time management and becoming more independent. Thanks to everyone in this program, especially my mentor Dr. Aleksandr Dolskii, I was able to feel far more confident in my abilities in the lab. By the end of the program, I was running experiments on my own, making lab solutions, collecting data, doing data analysis, and more! In the end, I made my own three-dimensional extracellular matrix model that simulates the tumor microenvironment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma using my PI’s (Principal Investigator) own protocol! It was a long and intensive process that yielded results. We were able to see that our model unfortunately may not be used in further experiments, but now we know what other directions we will take in the future when constructing future models to test our antibodies with. While it was a difficult and stressful time the last few weeks, I tried to make the best of my time there. Most of the fellows would have weekends off, so we would go out into the city to explore together when we had the time to destress. Our housing was not too far from the city, so we would drive or take the train. Many good times were had. We visited the Chinese Festival, went thrift shopping, and went to several concerts together!
The hardest part for me had to be our final presentation. I personally have a difficult time with public speaking and have not really gotten much practice before. Preparing to present my project which delves into a graduate level understanding of cell biology to a large audience with varying levels of knowledge was stressful to say the least. While I did feel confident in what I was sharing, it was very difficult for me to get the words out. My brain would go completely blank. To overcome this, I had to put in some practice. 
With the help of a lot of people, especially from my lovely PI (Principal Investigator) Dr. Edna (Eti) Cukierman and Dr. Theresa Austria I was able to go into the presentation with a confidence that I did not have before. They gave me a lot of really good advice and assured me everything would be ok. In the end, I didn’t do as bad as I thought I would. Many people had questions and showed a genuine interest in what I studied.
Looking back, I can say I have no regrets going into this program. It has taught me many valuable skills in the lab and outside the lab. I met so many great people in this program who I will hopefully stay in touch with in the future.