Julia Dreimann (Humboldt University) in the CiRA Open Lab

Having obtained her bachelor’s degree in biology and now finishing her master’s program in Quantitative Molecular Biology at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, Julia Dreimann longed for research experience in a different setting.

"I wanted to do something outside of Germany because I have just studied in Berlin, never anywhere else," she explained. "I am also considering doing my Ph.D. outside of Germany, so I wanted to dip my toes into going somewhere for a longer period than only a week."

Given her supervisor’s research exchange experience in Japan, Dreimann thought she would also consider a cross-continent short-term research stay. Since she has always been interested in CRISPR-Cas genome editing technology, she identified the perfect landing spot at CiRA in the Knut Woltjen Laboratory (Department of Life Science Frontiers), whose motto is "Total Control of the Human Genome," for her six-week stay starting in August during the CiRA Research Internship Program.

While she has previously worked with genome-edited cell lines, she has never done any genome editing herself. Through the internship experience, among various experiments, she learned to culture iPS cells, perform genome editing using the CRISPR-Cas system, and analyze the edited cells using flow cytometry—a fluorescence-based method for counting and selecting cells—and nucleic acid sequencing. "I got to learn a lot of new stuff in the lab," she added.

Back in Germany, Dreimann is part of a large-scale project at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin to characterize lung organoids—miniature lungs cultured in a dish—using multi-omics and morphology-based analyses and has been establishing a semi-automated pipeline to analyze hundreds of lung organoids simultaneously. Hence, unlike most interns, she was able to reciprocate and offer her expertise in image analysis, specifically image segmentation, for an active research project in the Woltjen Lab.

When asked about her experience during the internship program, she said, "I got to meet a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds, so it was interesting to see differences in culture and style of education. It was also really interesting living somewhere else."

Dreimann also took advantage of the weekends and holidays to sightsee around Japan, touring various shrines and temples around Kyoto and visiting Nara, Osaka, and Tokyo. "The deers in Nara," she happily explained when recalling what she liked about her experience in Japan. "And I really liked Arashiyama and enjoyed trying different foods."

Building upon her interest in the CRISPR-Cas system, the internship helped to strengthen further her desire to work with the Nobel Prize-winning technology in the future. Regardless of where she will study for her doctoral degree, CiRA and Japan have undoubtedly made a lasting impression on Dreimann and her research career.