Samihah Hussain - Work Experience Bursary

Samihah, a student from the School of Biomedical Science, used the Work Experience Bursary towards working as a summer Laboratory Researcher here at the University of Birmingham.

What did you do?

I conducted my own research in a professional lab setting under the supervision of a respected Cardiologist, and alongside a PhD student. To begin with, I shadowed and worked alongside multiple PhD students in the cardiovascular team. I was shown experiments and given tasks to complete under supervision and then later independently once I was confident.

From week 2 onwards, I set up and ran flow based assays which measured the recruitment of monocytes in response to Galectin-9 treatment. Throughout the duration of my placement, analysis of the data was collected continuously using a wide range of software and presented in graphs and tables.

What did you learn?

The most valuable aspect of this internship was working alongside so many professional and respected researchers as a team. Working in the cardiovascular science department allowed me to work alongside professional academics who had lectured me in my second year, so it was great at networking and seeing their research conducted first hand.

Samihah Hussain

College of Medical and Dental Sciences, School of Biomedical Science

“The summer project has helped me immensely in solidifying my decision for my future careers by providing better insight working in lab settings for a long period of time. I am a lot more confident in the labs and I would love to do further laboratory research in the years to come.”