Andrew Qian

IM6/11AP

Summary Journal: Quarter 1

Quarterly Review:

This quarter, I officially started my internship with Dr. Xi Lan (Nancy) at the The Johns
Hopkins Hospital Traylor Research Building. I first began my internship over the summer; At
first, the environment was very intimidating, especially for a high school student. However, after
spending numerous hours at the lab, I soon became much more comfortable. Already, I was
given my first legitimate task for the lab; it was to use a program known as ImageJ to quantify
the phagocytosis level of microglia in the brain. This assignment was important, albeit a little
tedious, as it represented the first official task that I was given for the lab. Currently, I am
working on my second task, which is to write lay articles for the publications that other members
of my lab have written. While at the lab, I am usually shadowing my mentor, occasionally, i am
given the opportunity to perform some easy tasks, such as pipetting, carrying items, or refilling
supplies. From these shadowings, I have learned a great many protocols, including two essential
ones in western blotting and genotyping. On the weeks where I go to the lab on fridays, I always
attend the lab meetings and observe/take notes on the research that the other lab members are
doing, and how they present their research.
As an Intern Mentor student, a lot of the experiences I have had at the lab are very useful
to what I do in class. Articles that I have been assigned to read and write about could be
submitted as annotations and critical read. Additionally, the lab meetings are an excellent
opportunity for me to gain a better understanding of how experts/professionals give their
presentations about their research.

Obstacles:

Upon my first visit, I faced many problems. My biggest challenge came in my

communication with other lab members. There were two main issues in regards to
communication; the first was the level of formality that I had to have within my speaking. As it
was my first time in such a scenario, I was unsure how to talk with my mentor and the other lab
members at first. The second issue was a result of the language used. Everybody in the lab
primarily speaks chinese. While I would consider myself quite proficient in chinese compared to
my peers, I still found it difficult at times to understand what my mentor and other lab members
were saying or asking. However, over time, I managed to determine what tone and language was
best to use in the lab, and I even managed to improve my chinese skills slightly.

Goals:

From this point forward, I wish to achieve a more prominent role in the lab where I am
given more hands on lab work. I believe that will be highly beneficial as it would give me a
legitimate research experience, different from the one I had last year in IR where I continually
did research online, rather than in person. Additionally, I wish to develop my own project, or at
least develop my own role within one of the projects that my mentor has undertaken. I believe
that this will give me the best useful experience that I could have in the lab.

Mentor Signature: Date:

Summary Journal: Quarter 2
 Andrew Qian
IM6/11AP

Quarterly Review:

This is the second quarter of my internship with Dr. Xi Lan (Nancy) at the The Johns
Hopkins Hospital Department of Critical Care and Anesthesiology in the Traylor Research
Building. I have been going on site at a very consistent rate, with very little hiccups in my
schedule. I have seen the various problems that my other classmates have had while going on
site, and I am very grateful for how smooth my internship has been overall. In addition, I am
very thankful for all of the opportunities that I have gotten on site. In the beginning of the year,
all of my on site experiences were exclusively based on observation and shadowing. I would
watch my mentor while she performed various different experiments and lab protocols while on
site. Through this initial experience, I was able to obtain a vast amount of knowledge in regards
to lab protocol and techniques. These include, but are not limited to, usage of various PCR
machines, genotyping protocol, western blot protocol, extraction of mice brains,
immunostaining, and omse limited work in cell culturing. I was able to obtain all of this
information from shadowing my mentor. As a result, I am now able to actually have a more
hands on role, where I can actually participate in some parts of the experiments. Finally, I have
also begun to start writing my own works, including my lay review that I wrote for my mentor,
which was heavily discussed in class with Mrs. Sasser. .
As an Intern Mentor student, a lot of the experiences I have had on site are able to
translate over to my work in class. This is especially true for my analysis of articles; with the
increased knowledge that I have now have, I am better able to understand in greater detail the
procedure/results areas of each source that I have, enhancing my research.

Obstacles:

As a result of increased experience at the lab, many of the obstacles that I previously had
are now gone. This includes issues such as knowledge of certain behaviours or protocols that
were expected of me. However, the biggest obstacle that I still face on site is the language barrier
that is present at the lab. Although I pride myself in my fluency in Chinese, it is still inadequate
compared to the native chinese speakers at the lab. This is an issue that I need to work on during
my time at the lab.

Goals:

Obviously, one of my biggest goals is to continue to work in a larger role while on site.
Another major goal that I have, however, is to expand on my role as an author, whether that is in
writing articles/parts of articles for the people in lab, in addition to the review that I am writing
for class. Based on what I have heard/seen on the lab, it is clear that writing is the easiest way to
both express your work in addition to gaining more experience with your topic of research.
Therefore, a specific goal that I have is to complete a detailed lit review and hopefully submit to
the NHSJS,

Mentor Signature: Date:

Summary Journal: Quarter 3
Quarterly Review:
 Andrew Qian
IM6/11AP

This quarter, I continued my internship with Dr. Xi Lan (Nancy) at the The Johns
Hopkins Hospital Traylor Research Building.As a result of all of the time that I have spent on
site, I have become greatly accustomed to the workings of the lab, and the various procedures
there. Additionally, I have begun to take on a much larger role in the lab. This process began
when I was tasked with writing a lay review on a scholarly article that my mentor and the rest of
my lab had published I spent approximately 3 weeks writing this review, before submitting it to
my mentor, who then forwarded it to the head of the lab. After a few weeks wait, my article was
successfully published on the science website “Science Trends”. For me, this was a huge
accomplishment as it was the first major product that I had produced within the lab, and it
showed that my mentor was confident enough to allow me to write something that would
legitimately be presented to a wider audience. To build on this opportunity, I have begun to do a
lot more work for the lab. For a more specific example, I have been doing a lot of the analysis on
the behavioral data collected on the mice. While a lot of this analysis is done using a program on
the computer, the fact that I am afforded the opportunity to do this with hardly any supervision is
telling of the progress that I have made within my internship.
Since most of the assignments within the intern mentor class now revolve around the
work that I am currently doing on site, I can focus on one specific topic, rather than trying to
finish multiple assignments that were related, but not necessarily completely connected. As a
result, the workload of this class is not as difficult as before.

Obstacles:

For the first part of 4th quarter, everything went quite smoothly with no interruptions
whatsoever. Once March started, however, I ran into a major issue; baseball starts on March 1,
and there would be practice every single day of the week except for sundays. As a result, I would
not longer be able to go on site during the times/days that I had previously been doing so. As a
result, I had to accommodate for this by looking for opportunities to go on site during the
weekends. Luckily for me, my mentor does still occasionally go on site on the weekends, so I am
still able to do so. It, however, becomes a test of my ability to communicate and schedule with
my mentor the best time to come in.

Goals:

My biggest goal for the fourth quarter is to complete the data collection and analysis that
is currently being conducted on the lab. This is the major focus of my internship right now, and it
is what I have been doing when I have gone on site the last few times. After finishing that, I hope
to help with the final paper written on the results that are being conducted. In a best case
scenario, I would be able to actually write a portion of the paper, no matter how small.
Realistically, however, I expect to contribute my ideas about the background sections while
helping to edit for grammar and spelling. B

Mentor Signature: Date: