Happy Swiss National Day!
It's definitely not as big as the 4th of July in the States, but not surprisingly all the shops are closed in the city and people are having picnics and swimming in the river in town. I'm definitely glad to have the day off because I just came back from a weekend in the Milan and the Italian countryside - today is for resting, catching up on some things, and sleeping early :)
A bit more on the research I am working on here: the fellowship that I have is from the Swiss embassy through an organization called ThinkSwiss. Their mission is to foster the exchange of science and culture between the States and Switzerland, and they have multiple programs for all different types of majors: a summer school for biological sciences (BUSS), the ThinkSwiss research scholarship for undergraduate and graduate students, a vision and sports series, and even an architectural program! They're also at separate locations in the country: EPFL Lausanne, Bern, Zurich, and Basel. The communication between the interns in charge of the program at the embassy and the scholars is very open and smooth. I've had no problem contacting them about my application, travel arrangements, and other tips on getting to Switzerland. If they don't know themselves, they'll let you know the best way to find what you need (ie where to look for housing within the area, etc).
The application is very straightforward: a transcript, an essay on your scholarly merits and about how you can serve as a student ambassador, one reference letter and a letter from a PI accepting you into their university group. You also have to blog for ThinkSwiss at least twice during your stay, but that is no problem: I wrote that I love photography and have blogging experiences already! So far I think it's a wonderful program - it gives students the opportunity to do research abroad and not only to learn science from a different scholarly standpoint, but in an entirely new environment as well. I never thought I would get the scholarship, but I'm so glad that I did because it provided the means and the chance for me to explore the world; it's something that I will never forget for the rest of my life.
The past weekend, ThinkSwiss took the scholars on a trip to Bern and Interlaken. Since I was going to Europe for the summer, I only brought summer clothes and a few jackets... talk about being unprepared for the snow! We took Friday to see the city of Bern, got a talk and short information session at the embassy and the Swiss Parliament, and then headed up to the mountain of Jungfraujoch on Saturday. It was definitely snowing like crazy when we got up there; don't let the smiling pictures fool you because it was freezing! I am also here with Andy Downard, a Caltech grad student studying physics at CERN for this summer; we actually went on the science policy DC trip together! Techers are everywhere :) Because of his studies, he was able to phone a researcher at the observatory and we got to go up to see where the weather forecasts and atmospheric measurements were made.
One thing I have gotten used to here is that everywhere in Switzerland is beautiful - we have come to expect no less. Even my desk space in lab is ridiculously neat and surrounded by greenery:
The research I am involved with here is different from what I've done before at Caltech or any other university. My PI, Jay Siegel, is working primarily in organic chemistry and synthesis. The professor I work more closely with, Ehud Landau, is a specialist in lipid cubic phases: there are two main purposes that these are synthesized for - prebiotic chemistry and drug delivery methods. Prebiotic chemistry deals with hypothesizing how life/cells originated and developed. Marek, the post-doc who is working on this project, is using l.c.p.s that are modified for DNA binding and studying the specific strands of DNA that may interact with them. Yazmin, another post-doc, and Silvan, an apprentice about my age, work more on the chemistry side of things. The lipid phases can also be modified with photochemical compounds that will release certain molecules if activated by a laser. There is a lot of preparation and synthesis before actual experiments can be set up: in my first week, I made a batch of l.c.p.s, synthesized a derivative of thymidine, ran two columns, purified compounds, ran NMRs and lots of UV-vis spectra. Right now we're working up the reactions and are in the middle of diffusion experiments to see if binding occurs with different complementary/non-complementary/sized strands of DNA.
The research environment is also different here: I really like the work style, the group of people that are in the lab (we're so international: from Brazil, Mexico, Poland, Germany, Italy...) have lunch together, celebrate birthdays together, just come over and chat in the afternoons - it is a good atmosphere to be a scientist in. They work very hard but are genuinely nice and helpful about everything, and have included me in all the things that the lab group does. Cultural exchange is everywhere: stories are told about growing up in different countries, what life is like here in Switzerland, and I'm picking up on a bit of Swiss German and have used a bit of French (mainly to read things at the grocery store, where ingredients are written in German and French).
More on Zurich/Italy/traveling a bit later - off to sleep because I'll be waking up early for work tomorrow!
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