STSM Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon (2016)

The March 2016 became an unforgettable month. Not only because of experiencing a wonderful city and country, which Lisbon and whole Portugal certainly are, but very importantly because of gaining so many new experiences, knowledge and skills and getting to know beautiful smart people. The idea of whole adventure came along during the COST Action FA1408 Meeting in Zagreb (November 2015), where the Czech representation met the Portuguese one. Word gave a word and the plan of the mission was in the world. We had the parasites, they had the instrument. Short term mission took 4 weeks of work at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Laboratorio de Análises. I´ve prepared the pellets from the rinses of carrots
and pork meat lysates and spiked them all with famous food-borne parasites Giardia lamblia
and Toxoplasma gondii. The experiment itself was adjusted for comparison of commonly used real-time PCR method for detection and quantification and novel platform digital PCR based on DNA chips, whose testing has been the main subject of interest. All the spiked samples were isolated and DNA was tested in both instruments.
Although this STSM was my first experience with the working internship abroad, I hope in many more opportunities yet to come in the future...it brings fresh wind into a scientific life! :-)

Nikol Reslová

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