June 4, 2018

Written by Kirby Morris

This week we had another seminar for the entire institute, this time from a guest speaker from a similar facility in Argentina. He addressed ways in which research institutions and industry can work together, and provided examples of collaboration he facilitated in Argentina in the past. It was much easier for me to follow along with this one, and it was interesting to see the multi-national relationship between the two institutes.

I have settled into the specific procedures more, and am becoming increasingly comfortable in the labs here. I have conducted several repetitions of competition experiments between prophage-containing and prophage-free strains of bacteria, and am starting to get usable data. In terms of life outside of the lab, we also got to see more of Asturias, and went to two of the major cities of the region this week: Gijon and Oviedo. They’re both super cool, a short bus-ride away, and have lots of opportunities for shopping and food. Additionally, Gijon is on the ocean and boasted some beautiful views and a lot of surfers, causing the whole situation to seem incredibly movie-like and surreal. I’m definitely planning on going back to both!