Letters from Berlin - 4

So this final week has been even busier than the last, but it was broken up nicely by the amazing German 7-1 win against Brazil! There are no words to describe how much fun it was to get to watch it here in Berlin and we will be rooting for them in the final back in England!

Trying to wrap up all the projects by the end of the week has been difficult but we have both finished on a high note getting the results we were anticipating, and have now passed the reins onto the rest of the team.

Yesterday we presented these results to our lab team and discussed what direction the projects should go next after we have left, this was also acompanied by a lovely lunch out in the sun to say our thanks and goodbyes.

Tomorrow our flight leaves in the early hours of the morning, meaning a very painful start at 3am!

It has been an incredible experience and we were very lucky to have the opportunity to come here and would definitely recommend Berlin to anyone who is thinking about working in a lab abroad.

Lucy & Nick

Letters from Berlin - 3

Week 3 has been a busy one in the lab, with us working the previous weekend to finalise results (its OK, we still got to enjoy the sun).

Lots of PCRs and gel electrophoresis occurred with the badger and the mastomys PCRs finally being finished and sent for sequencing.The mastomys sequence returned unexpected results, so in the final week we will investigate whether wild mastomys show similar results. The sequencing for the badger viruses is also nearing completion. The initial results look promising, with other sequence yet to be returned to confirm these results.

We also had a good weekend in the sun in Berlin, with temperatures being about 30 degrees for most of the weekend, enabling us to watch the world cup in an amazing atmosphere amongst the crowd at the public open air viewing in tiergarten. We also got to visit the aquarium and chocolate factory, a last weekend well spent!

Our last week will be spent getting the final results to finish our projects and presenting these results to our lab team, as well as going out for a group meal with our lab to thank them for our time here.

Nick & Lucy