Lab Experience Personal reflection – Matteo Mureddu

I got the opportunity to do my 1st lab rotation at the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Biology Applied to Neurodevelopmental Disorders, University of Milan

PI of the laboratory: Nicoletta Landsberger

Tutor: Angelisa Frasca

The Lab

The lab focuses on the study of two disorders affecting neurodevelopment, called Rett syndrome and CDKL5 deficiency syndrome. These two diseases share many clinical manifestations and can be both classified as dominant X-linked syndromes, usually caused by de-novo mutation. Thus, they affect almost exclusively female children.  

The lab has a strong translational approach, with the main goal to define new possible therapeutic targets and strategies useful in the treatment of these two diseases.

The main project I followed during my lab rotations aims to identify if NCPs’ secretions may have a therapeutic value on cdkl5 deficiency cells in vitro, and eventually their benefic value in cdkl5 KO murine models.

Research Laboratory Experience

This lab rotation was for me a brief, yet a full glimpse about the life of a research laboratory. This experience taught me a lot, starting from the lab etiquette: use of hand gloves and lab coat, the structure of a protocol book and its pivotal role in the lab life, the importance of cataloging every new solution used. At first, I had no clue about how the majority of the lab machinery worked. Now I have acquired enough confidence to perform some molecular procedures multiple times, under supervision, from start to end.

Valid examples are PCR; use of a fluorescence microscope; work underhood; preparation of common solutions. The observation of other procedures, not directly performed by me for a lack of experience and dexterity, were functional to deepen my understanding of why and how these procedures must be performed, training my scientific reasoning.

To be honest, even if those were great opportunities to train my scientific reasoning, the most helpful was for sure the participation in a lab meeting focused on the revision of an article that will be submitted to revisor on 17/9. This meeting was a great occasion to visualize how successful scientists apply and review their scientific thinking to construct a good experiment, structure an article and guarantee research integrity.

To summarize

To summarize, I greatly appreciated this lab experience, both from a scientific perspective and from a personal one. The concepts learned will be for sure applied in my future lab rotations, but hopefully could be translated into the study of clinal subjects and, maybe, in my clinical practice in the future.

The exact way in which this will happen is a question that I am still reasoning. For sure this opportunity represents a starting point to reflect on how the competence that I am acquiring in medical school can be used to establish a link between clinics and research. One thing I am sorting out is that my medical background would be very helpful to maintain the focus of my eventual research devoted to defining new translational approaches. The concrete risk of losing this focus is the major flaw I’ve noticed in working in a lab structure isolated from the hospital ward.

That said, I have extremely appreciated the opportunity to view in the first person how a research lab works, applying my knowledge in a different way than what I am used to. This made me acquire new practical skills that I will be applying in my future lab rotations and new perspectives that I will for sure translate into my personal and clinical experience.