ISSI 2023 Guest Blogger
Each year we ask UK students who have taken part in the Dr Bessie Lawrence International Summer Science Institute (ISSI) to write a guest blog to reflect on the month they spent in Israel working as part of a research team alongside scientists at the Weizmann Institute. Outside of lab time students explore Israel while forming friendships that will last a lifetime.
An anonymous student's ISSI experience
This July, I attended the ISSI programme at the Weizmann Institute of Science, kindly sponsored by the UK Friends of the Weizmann Institute.
The Weizmann Institute gives its scientists the freedom to pursue projects which don’t always lead to commercial success; as a result, each lab has their own fascinating niche, and the random conversations with researchers in the corridors and at lunch were always eye-opening. My time at the Haran lab encouraged me to think about science in an interdisciplinary way: our project harnessed the seemingly disconnected realms of DNA modification, chemical fluorescence, optical imaging, and Hidden Markov Model analysis to answer fundamental questions about the role of conformational change in a protein’s set of functions. We were encouraged to initiate discussions with the PhD students, staff scientists, and even our principal investigator, Professor Gilad Haran. In our project report, we had so much to say that we decreased the margin sizes in LaTeX to fit everything in!
Yet ISSI isn’t just a research programme: spending a month with a group of seventy 18- to 20-year-olds is an amazing opportunity. From playing card games to walking around the Weizmann Institute – and visiting Dr Chaim Weizmann’s pool – at late hours, we certainly made the most of the programme, even whilst fulfilling our various commitments. We enjoyed discussing the contents of the various lectures, which spanned the topics of immunotherapy, games of life, and even ancient Greek ‘computers’ and calendar systems. The chance to hear from leading experts – including the Nobel prize winner, Ada Yonath – was humbling.
On the weekends, we went on trips to Jerusalem, the Galilee, and the desert. The blend of biblical and modern history in Jerusalem was striking, and the ruins of Caesarea were equally impressive. We also went hiking a lot; waking up at 3am to see the sunrise on Mount Zefahot was an unforgettable experience: we could see Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt from the summit! After racing to the top of some rocks one evening, a small group of us watched the sun dip below the mountains in the distance. The breathtakingly still beauty of the desert was deeply affective; we spent that night on the edge of the cliffs, watching the constellations make their way across the unpolluted sky.
Our final activity was presentation day. Witnessing the fruits of others’ research projects was heart-warming, and I look forward to reading the compiled project reports as soon as I get home. I will certainly miss this unique group, and we’ve already made some reunion plans!
None of this would have been possible without the UK Friends of the Weizmann Institute. Moreover, I’d like to thank the Haran group, in particular Dr Inbal Riven and Dr Demian Liebermann, and everyone at ISSI for making this month such a rewarding and unique experience.
More information about the Bessie Lawrence Summer Scheme.