Hi, my name is Christa and towards the end of my third year studying for MSci Biology I took part in an SME Internship with Extracellular.
Throughout the internship, I undertook a variety of roles in and out of the laboratory working to support my colleagues and complete my own projects independently.
About Extracellular
Extracellular is a start-up company focusing on supporting cultivated meat companies to get their products to market. Cultivated meat is produced by cultivating animal cells, removing the need to raise and farm animals for food.
Extracellular does this through offering a range of services including bioprocessing development, scale-up, cell culture media optimisation and the production of cell lines for cultivated meat. Cultivated meat is an exciting new area of biotechnology with huge potential for growth.
The process works through taking samples of the desired meat, growing the cells in culture and scaling up to produce meat for consumption. Growth in this area could enable a more eco-friendly and ethical method of meat production addressing some of the current major issues within the livestock production industry.
My role
My time at Extracellular involved rapidly adapting to a new environment and picking up multiple new procedures. I am grateful for the experience as this enabled me to improve my time management and organisational skills. It also challenged me to keep up and support the rest of the team at a busy time of year for the company.
I particularly enjoyed being able to learn new techniques regarding cell analytics and data interpretation and was really fortunate to have colleagues who took the time to explain these processes to me.
Here’s a photo of me starting some cell analytics in the fume hood.
I was also able to attend the ‘Sparkies’ with my team, an awards ceremony for tech and biotech start-ups in the Southwest. Extracellular was nominated for four awards and I was hugely grateful that I was able to attend the event and share in the experience with my colleagues.
Although I had only spent a short time with Extracellular, I found it particularly rewarding to see some recognition for all the effort and hard work that the team had clearly put in to keep the business up and running.
Concluding remarks
I would encourage any current students or recent grads to look at the SME internships on offer with the university as I found my experience at Extracellular invaluable both in terms of the confidence I gained within the role and the connections I made within the company.
Some advice I would give to anyone currently undertaking or due to start an internship is don’t be afraid to ask questions! You’re not expected to know everything so having the confidence to ask when you’re unsure about something can be really helpful.
Want to be an SME Intern?
Find out more about the SME Internship Scheme on our website.
Check out our “My SME Internship” blog series to hear more student stories.
If you have any questions about the scheme, writing your application, or anything else relating to careers you can speak to us on live chat, or pop into 5 Tyndall Avenue from Monday to Friday, 10 am to 4.30 pm during term time.