last days in copenhagen

My last days in Copenhagen were filled with both fun and sadness. As I went around the city enjoying my favorite things, I couldn't help but think about how each of my trips were my last trips. I had a last trip to Tivoli, a last trip to Copenhagen Street Food, and a last trip to Nyhavn. I hope that I will be back but for now I am just happy that I got the opportunity to have 4 of the best months of my life in one of the best cities in the world. My current plan is to apply for an internship in Copenhagen next summer at a biotech company so that i can enjoy the city when the weather is beautiful. For now, I am returning to Cornell for a summer of Alzheimer's research in mice using two-photon microscopy, a project I have been working on for 3 years now. As sad as I am to be away from Copenhagen, I am looking forward to going back to my normal routine.

Last Final

Today I finished my final final- medical ethics. It feels great to be done and I still have a few days to explore Copenhagen on my own time! Tomorrow I plan to go to Amager Strande- a manmade beach just 20 minutes away! My friends and I plan to have a picnic lunch there to celebrate being done and maybe get some sun! It's still a but cool here so I am definitely looking forward to summer when I finally get home. While I am excited to see my family, I am most excited to see my dog since the rest of my family visited. He and I have 3 weeks together before I have to return to Cornell University for my summer job. I am really looking forward to using that time to relax and be with my family after so long apart! Although I know it will be hard adjusting back to my old lifestyle...

Mons Klint

This wednesday I was lucky enough to travel to Mons Klint! they are chalk cliffs about 2 hours away from Copenhagen and are a beautiful sight! It took us 3 hours on public transportation (1 train, and 2 buses) but it was definitely worth it. As my last days in Copenhagen pass by I have been trying to everything left, and I still feel like it isn't enough. I wish I could stay much, much longer! In the end this whole experience has been the best time of my life and I know I will miss it every day. I know one day I will return and I count the days until it will happen!

Biomedicine Drug Development Paper

The final paper for our drug development project was just due as well. It was a 15 page paper assessing Liplasome, the company we interviewed a few months ago. While we finally finished it, we have a 20 minute presentation to prepare for on Wednesday. We have to pretend to be the company and present the drug to the class as if we were trying to sell it to them. Our product is still in clinical trials so its more difficult to present since we don't have access to their data results. However, we plan  to present the product by marketing the drug as a novel cancer therapy. The other groups are presenting their products so I look forward to hearing from them as well!

Danish Final

I had my final Danish exam last Thursday and I believe it went fairly well. It had multiple components including a listening comprehension section, a reading comprehension section, a translation section, and a cultural section. Unfortunately, my teacher was sick on this day so another teacher was doing the listening comprehension section which was more challenging since we weren't used to listening to her voice as much. Surprisingly I think I understood most of the facts which made me realize I've learned more than I thought this past semester. The class isn't quite over though, we have one more recording due and this thursday we have cultural presentations. My topic is called "why aren't they fat? a look at food, fitness, and fun in Denmark" where we are essentially looking into how Danish culture (which includes lots of smoking and lots of bread). I am really looking forward to it since we have to take lots of pictures of Danes around the city and we are excited take this as an opportunity to further explore culture around the city.

Budapest, Vienna, Prague, and Munich

I returned a week ago but was thrown right into finals season so unfortunately I am delayed in this post. Anyways, over 10 days I was lucky enough to travel through Budapest, Vienna, Prague, and Munich and had an amazing time!! Budapest was beautiful and we were able to do a walking tour and were lucky enough to go to the Baths there which were amazing! next we traveled by train to Vienna where we saw the Schronbrunn palace and wandered around the city. My family friend who lives in Vienna names Johannes showed us around for a few hours and exposed us to the coffee culture in Vienna- apparently its very common to enjoy coffee for hours at a time in a very relaxed setting- not quite the style in the US. Next, we went to Prague which was definitely my favorite city of the trip! We did a walking tour here as well and saw the main sites including the John Lennon wall and the astronomical clock. Lastly we made our way to Munich for Springfest where we went camping (not our best idea) but we made the most of it! We made lots of German friends at the festival and ate lots of sausage and hotdogs on the fair grounds. Overall the entire week was fabulous and I am getting very sad to be leaving Copenhagen so soon!

st Stephens Basilica

policeman statue in Budapest

astrological clock in Prague

john lennon wall in Prague

ice cream in budapest!

Schronbrunn Palace, Vienna

beerhalls at Springfest

chinese tower in Munich

springfest

Final Days with Biomedicine

Shockingly, my time in Copenhagen is quickly coming to an end. This week I had my final exam in Biomedicine and a paper due as well. The paper covered things we learned on our two study tours and I was very pleased with our results. We focused on how improved technology has effected the biopharmaceutical industry and vice versa- since new discoveries lead to new technology. We assessed the good and bad consequences of such changes and one thing we really noticed was that if prices of new advances drugs go up, would insurance companies pay for such drugs when cheaper possibly similarly effective drugs are still available? For example new chemotherapies are more targeted so the patients have less side effects and can therefore tolerate higher doses of the drug. This means that the patient might need fewer chemotherapy sessions to get the same results and normal chemotherapy, however it would cost less. While this would drastically improve quality of life for the patient, insurance companies may not be willing to see it as such. Our final conclusion was that future advancements in bio-related technology should be made to benefit the consumer and not be advancement for the sake of advancement.

Renewable Energy Field Study

This Wednesday I had my last field study with my Renewable Energy Systems class. We were lucky enough to spend the time playing with Legos!! The game was called "changing the game" which involved groups being assigned a region of Europe and lego model representing what energy sources that region uses. The goal was to use our budget to implement changes in the infrastructure to reduce CO2 emissions as much as possible. We started with a target goal- our group chose 0 carbon emissions and 100% renewable energy which was a long shot but since it was a game we decided we were "all in". Since we were just having fun we were able to ask lots of questions throughout (it was a 3 hour process) and we learned a lot from the game instructors. One thing we immediately noticed was that they left out geothermal energy which could have been an important addition since it can supply base load. While we still had to use coal at the end of the game, our whole system had decreased emissions mostly due to the implementation of more energy efficient technology. I have read in many places that switching to energy efficient devices is an easy first step in the right direction because it would have an enormous effect on CO2 emissions. The current problem with this solution is that it can be expensive for companies to completely redo their infrastructure even though in most cases it saves them money in the long run. Over all it was a great experience and a fun way to spend our class!

Pictures from London, Berlin, and Hamburg

Some Pictures of my trip to London, Berlin and Hamburg Last week!

london

london

oxford

oxford

oxford

high tea in Oxford

Big Ben in London!

London Eye

london

Hampton Court Palace

Hampton Court Palace

Hampton Court Palace- actors!

Hamburg!

Hamburg!

berlin!

berlin!

holocaust memorial, Berlin

Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

London Study Tour

After returning from my trip to London, I am even more fascinated with the world of biotech/ biopharmaceuticals. We visited several companies and university research lab among which included Oxford University and UCL (University College of London). Oxford was beautiful and we even had High Tea while there (pictures to come). My favorite company visit was to Spirogen, a biotech company recently acquired for 440 million USD by MedImmune (and other controlling companies). They have been developing new chemotherapy delivery methods using an antibody-linker-drug complex. Essentially the antibodies bind to receptors specific to cancer cells and the cell "eats" the molecule at which point the drug is released. This is the most important characteristic of Spirogen's device; other companies have had similar molecules. Spirogen has developed a drug that binds to the minor grove of the DNA helix preventing DNA replication. This essentially ends replication of the cell killing the tumor cell. Further, since this drug targets DNA replication instead of damaging the DNA directly, the DNA can't mutate to maintain growth (i.e. what happens in drug resistance in cancers). It is thought that this medication can be useful in drug resistant cancers and several versions are in clinical trials. MedImmune, the parent company has developed similar drugs for use in Leukemia and Lymphoma, both of which have had excellent results. Some of their drugs have even started the process of being approved as the initial treatment of patients (instead of for recurring/ drug resistant cancers) due to its impressive results.
While in London I was also lucky enough to go on a bike tour and see Wicked the musical. London was an amazing city and I am so happy that I got the chance to travel there and explore the presence of biotech there. I have become very interesting in exploring ways to come back to Europe to work for a year after college so all of my trips have been a great way to see where I could potentially work!

Study Tour to London

Tomorrow, my Biomedicin class is traveling to London for the week in order to visit biotech companies. We have at least one visit a day and we are lucky enough to travel to oxford for an entire day as well. During the trip we are also working in groups to make a powerpoint presentation on a research topic of our choice. My group is looking into how advancements in technology have changed the biotech industry with respect to home care and home diagnostic tools. Almost every company visit we had on the short study tour talked about the new applications they had developed for their clients to aid in the use of their products. Whether it was apps to remind patients to take their medicine or smart glucose meters that automatically deliver insulin when your body needs it. My group decided to look into how these technology developments changed the biotech industry and the job market. We realized that if everything in the biotech field is being automated, then job loss could be a concern for the future. Another cause for this is that companies have begun to outsource their drug development. While we haven't done much research on this topic yet, we are looking forward to asking the companies we visit this week about this topic.

Visit to Malmo, Sweden

Another trip my family took was to Malmo, Sweden which is a short 30 minute train ride away over a beautiful and iconic bridge. While Malmo isn't quite as large as Copenhagen, it was a nice change of pace. I am also 1/8th Swedish, which isn't much but it is still nice to say I've officially been to Sweden now! My mother is 1/4th Swedish so she was even more excited to be there. We saw a beautiful church-St. Peter's church and the King's Garden. At the end we had an awesome meal at a small pub off the shopping street in Malmo- we all got different types of fish and they were all amazing!!!

odd statue in Malmo town square

St. Peter's Church

Hamlet Castle Visit

About an hour away from central Copenhagen Station lies Kronborg castle where the famous play "Hamlet" is set by Shakespeare. I went there with my family on a beautiful day and it was a great experience. The castle was much older than most castles in the Copenhagen area- last used in 1600s. It had a large ballroom that at the time was the largest ballroom in Northern Europe. Our tour guide was kind enough to inform us that long ago, month long parties would happen in that ballroom and it was a custom to make yourself vomit so you can continue eating and drinking all day long... The other story we heard was about Holger Danske, the fictional Danish hero that sits in the casemates of Kronborg waiting to rise in the next war and lead Denmark to victory. I included a picture below:

Holger Danske

my sister and I in front of Kronborg Castle

Second Biomed Test

Today, I had my second Biomed test. Apparently in Denmark as well as much of Europe, most schools have just one grade the entire semester- the final exam. This concept seems overwhelming to me considering I am used to a participation grade, a homework grade, and test grades. Luckily most of my classes here have adapted to the American system to help our transition here. While my first test went very smoothly, this next one was a bit more difficult. The topics covered were stem cell research, gene therapy, proteins as drugs, and genetics. I found the test to be much more specific than the previous test, but luckily with all my experience in Bio-Engineering, I have previously learned a lot about these subjects and managed to do fairly well (I think). Luckily all my classes here are pass/fail anyways but I think I am still in the mentality of trying my hardest- although its a relief when taking my exams that if its a beautiful day in Copenhagen, its OK to take a break and enjoy the sun and being abroad!
I am mostly excited to be done with my test because my parents and sister are visiting today for the next week! I haven't seen my family in over 2 months so I am very excited! While I have been to many tourist attractions already, I am still happy to do it all again with them!

Liplasome Company Visit

My visit to Liplasome was a huge success! The company has developed a very successful drug delivery system for a common drug Cisplatin. They are about to move to phase 2 trials- they are just waiting on finding the right patients. I really enjoyed this visit because I got to learn about how you develop drugs for terminal diseases-obviously the phase 1 drug studies can't be done on healthy volunteers as the side effects are so toxic. I was able to learn that they recruit terminally ill cancer patients to try their drug making it a sort of "last resort" for patients. Impressively, out of the 6 cases (all of which had improvement), 2 patients finally responded to the drug and had significant reduction in tumor size. While we never fond out about their current status, we were able to see images pre and post drug and the results were astounding. For example, a man with a tumor on his head had a gaping wound that was reduced to a red scar, significantly improving his quality of life. Further, I learned a lot about dosing for these kinds of drug. I assumed that since the drug was more targeting, dosing could be reduced and therefore this product could be cheaper; I was wrong. Instead, since the drug is more targeted, you can give patients more of the drug at a time before the toxic effects begin. This means that dosing would increase, hopefully increasing the benefits of the drug as well. While I asked if this means less treatments would be required, the CEO honestly responded that due to lack of extensive clinical trial results, they cannot know as of yet, but it is a goal of theres as it would also improve a patients quality of life. Overall I learned a lot about the challenges companies face when trying to develop a new product and I look forward to seeing what this company does in the future.

Trip to Madrid, Lisbon, and Barcelona

I was lucky enough to visit Madrid, Lisbon, and Barcelona over the past week. I have to say that Lisbon was my favorite city out of the three- probably because there were so many different unique neighborhoods that were so close to each other- it didn't hurt that I was able to go to the beach one day either. I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do either, so I will definitely be going back! Barcelona was beautiful though, the Sagrada Familia was breathtaking and Park Guell was a must see (pictures below). Of course the weather was also beautiful there everyday so that didn't hurt either :)

churros and chocolate in madrid!

royal palace in madrid

beach day in Portugal! (Cascais)

Cascais- Portugl

cliffs of inferno in Cascais (Portugal)

Sagrada Familia (Barcelona)

sagrada familia (Barcelona)

sagrada familia (Barcelona)

Parc Guell (Barcelona)

Parc Guell (Barcelona)