Internship in Singapore for IMU’s Medical Biotechnology Student

11 Nov 2013 to 3 Jan 2014 – International Medical University’s final year medical biotechnology student, Tan Siew Zhuan had the opportunity to undergo a 2-month internship at the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore), a state-of-the-art university research institute affiliated with, and hosted at the National University of Singapore. CSI Singapore has comprehensive basic and clinical translational facilities and mainly focuses on research in Cancer Biology, Stem Cells and Experimental Therapeutics. Generally, it emphasises on cancer disease areas which are prevalent worldwide, including breast, gastric, lung, liver and leukemia cancers.

“As an undergraduate student, I felt that it was a great opportunity to work at this prominent research center. I was very excited when I received the email in July 2013 from the Institute informing me that I have been accepted into the internship programme”, said Siew Zhuan.

Commenting on her experience at CSI Singapore, Siew Zhuan said “On the first day, I was brought to tour the research lab where I visited several different facilities and met researchers from various countries, including, China, Japan, Taiwan and India. I felt that this is a great opportunity and it was very interesting to work with people from different backgrounds. On the third day, I was given my first task, which was amplification of patients’ DNA samples. By the second week, I was expected to start working independently with minimum supervision. In the two months of this internship programme, I gained a lot of experience, not only on practical skills, but also on how to work in a team.”

“I am grateful for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and these precious experiences. I wish to acknowledge my supervisors and the lab members for giving me this opportunity to assist and work with them. Besides that, I wish to thank the lecturers particularly the Medical Biotechnology lecturers at IMU for training us and giving me the necessary knowledge and skills for my internship,” added Siew Zhuan.