A PhD student's experiences from an exchange visit to Sydney, Australia
Danish Diabetes Academy PhD student Anja Elaine Sørensen recently visited Professor Anand Hardikar at University of Sydney in Australia for one month - an exchange visit that she received financial support for from Danish Diabetes Academy. Her experiences include laboratory work as well as trekking in the Blue Mountains.
GAINING LABORATORY INSIGHT INTO THE BETA-CELLS USING A COLUMN-BASED PURIFICATION METHOD
One of the focuses for Anja in the laboratory is gaining insight into the insulin-producing beta-cells of the pancreatic islets using a digital droplet PCR based system.
"Prior to arriving in Sydney, I had sent plasma samples obtained from polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) patients, whom are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, as well as serum samples from overweight and obese children/adolescents. I began my stay with isolating DNA and RNA from the samples using a column-based purification method. One of the challenges with RNA isolation from blood samples is to gain a high enough RNA concentration of good quality. To overcome this, an automated instrument for purification was applied", Anja says.
INTRODUCTION TO AUTOMATED DIGITAL DROPLET PCR
She was introduced to automated digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) which combines water-in-olie droplets, PCR and flow cytometry technologies. According to Anja, one of the advantages of ddPCR is the ability to gain an absolute count of the target DNA copies. She also ran a series of TaqMan® OpenArray® microRNA Panels, which allows for the identification of more than 700 different miRNAs in one run.
AN EXTREMELY VALUABLE EXPERIENCE
"This has been an extremely valuable experience for me with fruitful discussions about general methodology, opportunities to learn new and novel techniques and the chance to immerse oneself in a new culture and go beyond a purely academic experience", Anja emphasizes and continues:
"The relationship between our two labs was already well-established, and I was very fortunate to meet professor Hardikar before my visit due to his recently granted “Visiting Professorship” funded by the Danish Diabetes Academy".
Anja also found time to go trekking in the Blue Mountains. "It has a beautiful nature", she states.
ANAND HARDIKAR IN DENMARK
"I am keeping in touch with the people from Professor Hardikar’s laboratory, and he will visit us in Denmark in a few months", Anja concludes.
During his visit in Denmark, Anand Hardikar will conduct two webinars within the field of MicroRNAs (on July 6 and July 7 at 11:00-11:40 AM, Danish time). For registration and more information about this please go to: www.danishdiabetesacademy.dk/events/cluster-webinars-micrornas