3.8 Summer 2009 Intern Program

Summer Intern Program:
During the Summer of 2009, as part of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, we negotiated with a local High School Chemistry Teacher, to recruit a dozen science oriented students. We employed them half-time for about 6 weeks, at minimum wage.

Training Activities:

• Introduction to Immunology and Flow Cytometry
• Introduction to FlowJo, our analysis software and our Basic Tutorial for new users
• Advanced Tutorial - Introduction to the analysis protocols we are using to design FlowDx, the new grant-funded software.

Student work:

• Students followed the Basic and Advanced Tutorial documents, providing us with feedback on changes needed to clarify our instructions and correct errors and mismatches between these documents and the current state of the software. This is important progress for creating the training documentation for FlowDx users.
• Performed the manual analysis of our use-case data (SIV) in a controlled environment against which we can compare professional analysts and our new analysis algorithms. This was completed with basic instructions and then repeated after a detailed set of instructions (Standard Operating Procedures) was compiled.
• Composed instructions (Standard Operating Procedures) instructing their peers (novice users) in the step-by-step performance of analysis processes. (These assist us in codifying tests needed to monitor the performance of the software as it evolves.)
• Organize and maintain files of their test results. (Though the protocol steps are fairly simple, the resulting data is voluminous and must be strictly organized to be of use at the analysis stage.)