Polina Ivanova's internship: One month, full speed ahead

We were happy to host Polina Ivanova for a 1-month internship in September, just before she starts her MSc in Biochemical Engineering at UCL.

Polina radiated enthusiasm from day one. She worked primarily with Tom, and quickly impressed him with her skills, independence and drive. Rather than simply shadowing, she became an active part of the team, planning experiments and coming up with her own ideas.

It was wonderful to see how naturally Polina took ownership of her work in such a short time.

Polina certainly kept the full-speed-ahead spirit going right to the end, as she was still working away until the very last hours of her final Friday with us! And she still had to move to a new room that same day/night.

As a future Biochemical Engineer, Polina also dipped into our 2026 iGEM synthetic biology project.

We are very grateful for all the energy, curiosity and ideas Polina brought to the lab.

We wish Polina all the very best for her MSc and whatever adventures come next (and hope this is not the last time we see her in the lab 🧪 🙂)