Inés Martín-Caro

Shadowed the Carola Vinuesa Lab (T–B cell regulation, germinal-center checkpoints, autoimmunity) for 1 month; with escorted BRF access, observed licensed in-vivo procedures and assisted terminal spleen collection under ethics, safety, and data-integrity procedures.

Built foundational skills in mechanical spleen dissociation, RBC lysis, single-cell prep, MACS B-cell isolation, flow cytometry, blood cell/haematology analysis, and ELISA.

Attended lab meetings, immunology seminars, and group discussions, actively immersing myself in day-to-day lab culture.

Observed chromatin biology, cancer, and ubiquitin/SUMO pathway projects; intermittently carrying out supervised tasks.

Final week (supervised mini-project): investigated replisome dynamics and the regulation of DNA-replication machinery by ubiquitination/SUMOylation; cultured and passaged cells, synchronized populations, performed nuclear–cytoplasmic fractionation, prepared lysates, executed protein pull-downs, and confirmed targets via SDS-PAGE/Western blot—strengthening my practical lab rigor, troubleshooting, and data interpretation skills.

Shadowed an active research lab; contributed to select supervised tasks while following safety and data-integrity procedures.

Built foundational lab skills: SDS-PAGE/agarose gels, Western blot, fluorophore-based protein quantification, His-tag purification, size-exclusion chromatography (SEC), and basic bacterial genetic modification for protein expression.

Presented outcomes and defended methodology to a judging panel.

Observed projects on sepsis, cancer metastasis, and COVID-19 within the Laboratory of Tumour Immunology & Innate Immune Response.

Gained exposure to high-dimensional spectral flow cytometry and advanced imaging (confocal, electron microscopy) in clinical research workflows.