Exchange visit to the University of Tübingen

Danish Diabetes Academy PhD student Caroline Maag Kristensen reports about her stay at the University of Tübingen in Germany - an exchange visit that she received financial support for from Danish Diabetes Academy.

CHANGE OF SCIENTIFIC ENVIRONMENT

"I travelled to Tübingen in the Southern Germany for an eight week long exchange visit to stay in the laboratory of Professor Cora Weigert to experience a change of scientific environment", Caroline tells.

Her plan was to characterize a new human hepatic primary cell line, but due to complications with the cell line, it was not possible. Instead, she measured ER stress markers on a previous mouse study as the focus on her PhD study is ER stress in the liver of mice.

EXPERIENCE IN WORKING WITH CELL CULTURES

Caroline also gained further experience in working with cell cultures performed in human myotubes. These are part of preliminary studies of a novel protein, potentially involved in the improvement of glucose tolerance in pre-diabetics by exercise training. 

"The greater experience of working with cell culture is something that I will bring back to Copenhagen in order to perform cell culture studies", Caroline reports.

THE STAY ABROAD WAS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO NETWORK

According to Caroline, it was interesting to see how other groups have their daily routines and how daily problems that occur in every lab are handled differently. "I got to know a lot of people with whom I will keep in contact. In less than a month, I will meet a few of them at the Cell Symposia: Exercise Metabolism in Gothenburg. Expanding my scientific network has been a huge benefit from my stay", she says.

I ALSO LEARNED A LOT FROM A PERSONAL VIEW

"Being in a new environment with people I don’t know, has been a great challenge for me, but it has taught me a lot about myself. I am grateful for the financial support, I received from the Danish Diabetes Academy for this stay", she concludes.