Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Introductions

Hello to my fellow researchers and to our web readership at large. My name is Erin Turk, and I am entering my final year of undergraduate studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. I'm a biology major and an incurable lab rat. This summer (June 1 - July 31) I will be headed to the Université de Lausanne on beautiful Lake Geneva to study in Professor Jürg Tschopp's lab. I will be working with a post-doc on the UV-induced DNA damage response. I have worked in a couple of different cancer labs, and am excited to tackle the problem from a new angle as a part of a biochemistry lab. So far, I've enjoyed meeting parts of the lab by email and can't wait to see them all in person.

I spent last summer in the MIT Summer Research Program in the Jacks Lab with a fantastic Swiss post-doc, Etienne Meylan. He often told me of the wonderful environment in Lausanne and Switzerland in general, and piqued my interest in working there. Having never been to Switzerland, I am very excited to go, meet new people, and learn a new language. I am a native San Diegan, so the French is very new. I'm hoping I will not arrive and attempt to speak French in a Spanish accent, as would befit my regional background, but we shall see soon enough.

I am very grateful to the ThinkSwiss Research Scholarship for the funding and the forum in which to share a collection of new experiences. So for now,
À bientôt tout le monde!

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