For our first summer intern interview, we asked Dylan Mihindu about his experience at the Department.
What lab group are you interning with?
I am with the Mela Group, as an in-house intern.
Who is supervising you during your internship?
Ioanna is directly supervising me, along with another intern who has already finished their placement.
What project are you working on?
I am working on a modular drug delivery system, specifically a system using DNA nanotechnology and DNA origami techniques to deliver antimicrobial drugs.
That sounds interesting – can you elaborate?
Of course. The part of this system that I am working on is different nanostructure shapes and how they interact and target bacteria. I measure the characteristics and efficiency of their formation – as they are self-assembling – and how they interact with different payloads of compounds.
The structure of the container isn’t particularly important, what matters is how this container is targeting the bacteria.
I see. What methods are you using to target bacteria?
We’ve done a couple of different things. For example, we used peptide conjugation, non-specific electrostatic binding, and a lectin-based system.
Have you tested this system on bacteria yet?
I have. I am using E. coli to test out nanostructures, but the hope is that this system can be easily modified to target any desired bacteria.
What techniques have you been using in this project?
I’ve used quite a lot of techniques! I’ve done atomic force microscopy, confocal microscopy, plate readers for growth curves, thermocycling protocols to build the nanostructures and so on.
So how are you measuring how effective your nanomolecule targeting is?
We use a fluorescent system. The E. coli and the drugs are tagged with separately coloured fluorescence molecules. We can then observe the amount of overlap (co-localisation) of the drug to the bacteria to measure targeting efficiency.
You’re coming to the end of your internship now. How much progress has been made?
There’s been quite a lot of progress! I worked with Ioanna as a Part II student, so this internship continued my previous work with her. We went from designing each nanostructure from scratch and characterising how they work against bacteria to the point where we’ve now iterated on design and targeting and so on.
How would you rate your time as an intern with Mela Group?
It’s been great! It’s a similar experience to my Part II but as an intern, I have much more agency and I am much more informed. Without the pressure to revise or attend lectures, I can commit more time and effort to the project.
I also have a better understanding of what’s going on in the lab, along with the opportunities to make an active contribution – like suggesting experiments or solving issues independently.
That’s great. Would you recommend doing an internship here?
I absolutely would. It is a great experience that is great at showing you what life is like in the lab if you are unsure if you want to pursue research.
One last thing – do you have any advice for students starting lab work?
I would definitely say that keeping a journal of what you’ve been up to is really useful. Not just a lab book, but a journal where you write down what you did in your own words. This will help you understand your project much more – and be sure to ask lots of questions!