Practice professional skills in the industry

Learn scientific knowledge in the research group

Pass on kindness in volunteer activities

This summer

GTers used their own way

To interpret their amazing lives as STEM students

Gene Technology Company

@Cohort 2020 Zheng Yantong

This holiday, I was fortunate to have a one-month summer internship in a gene technology company. My work was about product development and microbiological testing and my main task was to explore experimental conditions with my partner, develop products that are closest to the needs of customers, and conduct relevant microbial tests on the products.

In this month, I have gained a lot. On the one hand, I learned to apply the knowledge learned in GTIIT to work, and on the other hand, I felt that my experimental and practical abilities had been greatly improved. In GTIIT, due to time limit, the preparation of experimental equipment is done with the help of professors or seniors. In this internship, I need to prepare and sterilize the equipment by myself, so I am more familiar with the experimental operation process. In addition, I found the process of continuously improving the experimental scheme by consulting the literature was very interesting. After modifying the experimental scheme again and again and exploring the desired experimental state, I have a full sense of achievement.

I am also very grateful to my teachers and colleagues for their help during this internship, which made it a fulfilling and rewarding month for me!

Medical Laboratory

@Cohort 2019 Zuo Yuzhao

This summer, I passed the resume section and interview, and went to a medical laboratory in Guangzhou for an internship. The laboratory is located in the Guanzhou Bio-island. It focused on tumor gene sequencing and early cancer detection.

Since I am an intern who has not yet graduated from university, I was temporarily not allowed to do core experiments, and could only do comparative front-end work. At the beginning, I was mainly responsible for sample reception, receiving various DNA, blood, fresh tissue, slices and other samples in the sampling room, and conducting preliminary testing. Later, I was assigned to work in the sample management room. Store and discard samples alone in a laboratory with dozens of -80°C ultra-low temperature freezers. I need to encapsulate and store PAX plasma, DNA, RNA, red blood cells and white blood cells according to the requirements and preservation standards, as well as discard the sections as required, and register them at the same time. I also need to transfer DNA, blood, wax blocks and other samples between laboratories every day. The daily work was very busy.

At the beginning, I was not used to such a high-intensity and highly repetitive work. In the morning, I need to stay in the sampling room and often felt sleepy. Later, I got used to it and became more patient and able to stay focused under high-intensity work. After that, I was assigned to a separate laboratory, and began to adapt to loneliness and heavy work. Compared with the professional aspect, the two-month internship has helped me more in improving my personal quality and ability to cope with pressure, and allowing me to experience the hardships of scientific research once again.

As an aside, this company is a leader in NGS. As an intern, I can enjoy the benefits of the company's Mid-Autumn Festival. I can also take the shuttle bus before and after work, and have three days off each week. There are both unmanned minibusses, unmanned breakfast sales cars, and automatic patrolling robots on the Bio-island. Many large-scale technology companies have also settled on Bio-island. This internship made me realize that when choosing your career, in addition to the research field and job matching, the advantages of these “soft powers” such as company size, benefits, and environment are equally important.

Food R&D Company

@Cohort 2019 Li Yihuang

This summer, with anxiety, I went to a local food research and development company for an internship. The size of the company is not large, and all departments are closely connected. The technical center consists of a laboratory, a quality control department, and a research and development department to ensure safe production.

The colleague who worked with me was considerate. She could complete so many tasks in an orderly manner, from the preparation of the solution in the morning, to the routine sampling in the workshop, taking the food that needs to be tested every day and dividing the samples, washing the plate, writing records, and finally entering the micro-inspection room to make the petri dishes. When I encountered difficulties, she would teach me patiently in her busy schedule, and the lab supervisor and other colleagues also often helped me with my work. With their help, I quickly mastered the work process, adapted to the work environment, completed work tasks with high quality, and was recognized by my leaders and colleagues.

From this internship, I got my first salary, experienced a completely different life, learned how to communicate with people in workplace, understood how to take the initiative to study, and also knew that making money was not easy. Usually, we always complain that the knowledge learned in the university cannot be applied in practice, but in this internship, how to inoculate the sample on the dish, how to spread the dish, how to count the dish, and use different kinds of culture medium to cultivate different types of bacteria or pathogens are all we have learned and practiced in classes. Sometimes we can’t apply the knowledge to life and work, but the methods we learned are universal and can benefit us all the time.

I'm not from Chaoshan, and I don't understand Chaoshan dialect. Originally, I thought I couldn't fit into their circle, but when we worked together, prepare for the Mid-Autumn Festival party and team building together, these days and nights getting along with them made me feel involved. When I first came to the company, I felt that a month was too long. Now I feel that time passed too fast. I started to miss this place and my colleagues. I will definitely remember them.

Food R&D Company

@Cohort 2020 Ou Yongzhen

This summer, I did a one-month internship in a food research and development company. This is a company about research and development of plant extracts and their comprehensive utilization products. As a chemical engineering student, my main job was to test and analyze various products and reaction intermediates produced. In this internship, I applied the theories I learned in GTIIT to practice and had a clearer understanding of the specific application of the knowledge in the book in industrial production.

I also use the rest time on weekends to continue to practice my photography skills, so that I can balance my work and interests.

GTIIT Research Group

@Cohort 2020 Li Huihong

This summer, I studied on the project team of Prof. Leung Ka Yin and carried out experiments under the guidance of his doctoral students. The first stage was to carry out the drug resistance test of bacteria, so such "Mickey Mouse" can be seen every day.

Now we are carrying out vegetable cultivation and conjugation experiments of some bacteria.

Although I stayed in the laboratory most of the time, I was very satisfied and happy to be able to learn new things and the attitude to scientific research. I am very grateful to Prof. Leung Ka Yin for allowing me to get in touch with things I like, such as bioinformatics. In addition to the experiments of the project team, I also taught myself bioinformatics-related software, assisted in translating and completing our project proposal, and mastered how to use BioRender (a scientific research drawing tool).

Volunteer Work

This holiday, under the leadership of the Youth League Committee of GTIIT, some GTers participated in the public welfare voluntary activities carried out by the Longhu District Huyuantong Social Worker Service Center, providing blood pressure measurement and dissemination of anti-fraud knowledge services for the elderly. They send their care for the elderly and spread the spirit of volunteering.