The lab I  am now working in is a translational genomics lab, I have be working on three different cell lines first testing to see if there is any mycopasma contamination, then extracting the DNA and doing PCR analysis of the DNA to see

The work must be carried out in sterile conditions and in a fume hood, so everything must be cleaned before use and if you touch the pipette tip on the side of the tube or anything like that it must be thrown away to avoid any contamination. It was more difficult than I thought it was going to be but I quickly got the hang of it which was shown in my results as there was no unwanted cells growing in my medium which made me happy.

I also had a good networking opportunity when I met with Reiner Metzger who is the head of PDL operations and external affairs, I certainly learnt a lot from the meeting and it gave me a great insight into the logistics of organizing several labs here but also leasing with sites in America and China, and also the money side of things. Being in a lab and doing all the tests you forget that all this costs money and quite a lot, so it really put everything in perspective.

Outside of work we arranged would you believe a beach volleyball tournament, yes Switzerland is landlocked they had some imported especially for this tournament, well, not really but there is a bar which is full with sand and it has courts. The English interns and I also tried teach the Germans how to play cricket, it was going quite well until they lost interest... which was after about 5 minutes! but they did say they enjoyed those 5 minutes, so we all just played football instead!