One Day, One Internship » medicine

Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation

Willy Franzen — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:52:18 +0000

Over the past year I’ve seen cancer do a lot of damage, and I know that I will see it do more damage as I move through life. Still, I believe by the time I’m starting to get old, cancer won’t be nearly as much of a worry as something else that we haven’t even heard of yet. It doesn’t seem all that long ago when most cancers seemed like a death sentence, but now the majority of cancers have strong treatment options. The problem with cancer treatment is that its short-term effects are often worse than those of the disease. The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation is trying to change this. They are a New York City based non-profit organization that was started by thankful patients of an oncologist/hematologist whose name is, obviously, Samuel Waxman. The Foundation is “dedicated to supporting a focused research program to develop targeted cancer cell-specific therapies with minimal toxicity, such as differentiation therapy.”

A Foundation for a Cure

I have little or not understanding of the science that Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation focuses on, but I do know that they’ve put $70 million to work since 1976. They have already had success with the treatment that they’ve helped develop for acute promyelocytic leukemia, and there hope is that their research will apply to treating many other forms of cancer too. What makes the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation unique is that their “research is not disease-specific but concept driven.” This means that they have focused on specific way of attacking cancer instead of focusing on treating a specific type of cancer, which is how many cancer related non-profits work. If you’re excited about the research that the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation is doing, you might want to consider an internship with them. Right now they have one unpaid intern position posted on Idealist. It looks like the position is most involved with the development function, so take that into consideration.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you know about Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation?

ZocDoc

Willy Franzen — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:28:51 +0000

Yesterday we talked about how regenerative medicine is making it more and more likely that you’ll be able to heal from a stupid Fourth of July injury. Today we’re going to talk about a company that makes it super simple to make an appointment for a doctor (or dentist) to check out that injury that you’re embarrassed to tell anyone about. The company is called ZocDoc, and they’re based in New York City. They’ll not only help you find a doctor or dentist who specializes in what you need, but they’ll also allow you to make an appointment with just a few clicks. You can even check up on reviews of the doctor before you book him or her, and once you’ve had your appointment, you can add a review. ZocDoc has only rolled out in a few areas so far, so you can’t find any kind of doctor in any city or town, but I’m sure that’s in the plans once the business model gets rolling.

Say Ahhhh

ZocDoc hasn’t fixed the fact that you have to wait in a waiting room before you can wait in an individual waiting room with most doctors, but I bet that their review system will bring down wait times over time. The best thing about ZocDoc is that they put a big emphasis on being able to schedule an appointment today. You get your problem taken care of immediately, and the Doctor is able to fill his or her schedule on days when there aren’t enough advance appointments. It’s brilliant, and surprising that nobody else has already conquered online booking for doctors. I also find it surprising that ZocDoc doesn’t charge Doctors a per-patient fee. New patients are key to growing a practice, so you’d think it would make sense to work with a focus on lead generation. Instead ZocDoc charges a few hundred bucks a month for the service. We’ve seen a huge boom in businesses that help local customers find local businesses, so it seems logical that the model applies to the medical fields. If you’re interested in ZocDoc, you should check out their Internships page. Right now they’re looking for interns in Software Development and PR/Marketing/Social Media. No word on whether they’re paid or not.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Advanced BioHealing

Willy Franzen — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:16:04 +0000

Last week a friend was telling me that his wife, who is in her residency, was going to have to work in the ER on the Fourth of July. I have to imagine that’s one of the most active nights of the year with injuries from fireworks, barbecues, and gunshots (especially in Chicago). All you need is a little imagination to come up with some nasty scenarios that would have ruined your holiday and left you with a permanent injury like my friend who passed out at a barbecue and now has perfect grill marks on his forearm—yes, that means he put his arm down twice. Usually these types of injuries aren’t funny, and they can be extremely traumatic with lasting consequences. Luckily, we’re entering an age of regenerative medicine in which injuries may not be so permanent. Advanced BioHealing is a La Jolla, CA based company that “develops and commercializes living cell therapies that repair damaged human tissue and enable the body to heal itself.” Their current product is called Dermagraft, and it’s a “a bio-engineered skin substitute that assists in restoring damaged tissue and supports the body’s natural healing process.” Right now it’s FDA approved to treat diabetic foot ulcers, but it appears that Advanced BioHealing also has a product called TransCyte that might be used to treat the kind of burns that fireworks or barbecues could cause.

Can You Regenerate?

Now, my medical knowledge is pretty much limited to what I make up, so I’m not the guy to tell you all about Advanced BioHealing. You’ll have to head over to their website and delve into their Corporate Info, Product Details, and Press Releases. Once you get a feel for how Advanced BioHealing works and operates, then you can check out their Careers page. They don’t list any internships right now, but one of their Research Associate job descriptions mentions managing interns. You can reach out to the HR team at Advanced BioHealing to learn more about internship opportunities at careers@abh.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think about Advanced BioHealing?

PatientsLikeMe

Willy Franzen — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:53:20 +0000

When I was growing up, I suffered from a pretty bad case of asthma. I didn’t have scary attacks like some people do, but I had triggers that would have me wheezing for hours. Running always did it. So did cigarette smoke. Sometimes it was freshly cut grass, or some other unknown allergen. If I caught a cold, it was significantly worse because of the way my lungs reacted. I saw doctors, I got tests (I was apparently operating at half of normal lung capacity), and I tried medications. Nothing really helped, and a lot of the medications had side effects that made me feel even worse. Luckily, I eventually outgrew my asthma, but I wonder if I could have dealt with it more effectively if I had the opportunity to interact with other kids who were in a similar situation. A site like PatientsLikeMe would have been perfect. Put simply, it’s an online community for patients with similar conditions, doctors, and organizations to interact and share experiences. The Cambridge, MA based company was started in 2004 by 3 MIT engineers who had their lives touched by ALS, and it’s the kind of “healthcare reform” that nobody can argue against—by the patients and for the patients.

InternsLikeYou

My favorite thing about PatientsLikeMe is their business model. Instead of shilling for drug companies and letting them blast you with crappy ads about their drugs that have worse side effects than the problems that they cure, PatientsLikeMe has come up with a more creative approach to driving revenue. They’ve entered “partnerships with healthcare providers that use anonymized data from and permission-based access to the PatientsLikeMe community to drive treatment research and improve medical care.” That means that users aren’t only gaining an emotional and informational boost by being members of PatientsLikeMe. They’re also helping drive forward medical research. If PatientsLikeMe sounds like the kind of company that you’d like to be a part of, then you should check out their Careers page. I haven’t seen any mention of internships on their site or elsewhere online, but if you have interest in managing online communities and a background in medicine/healthcare, then it’d be hard to find a better fit. PatientsLikeMe has a You Tell Us job listed, which means that you can tell them just what kind of internship they should create for you. Pretty cool.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever used PatientsLikeMe?

WebMD

Willy Franzen — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:13:46 +0000

If you woke up this morning with a sore throat, what would you do? I bet many of you would get on the computer, type your symptoms into Google, and probably end up on WebMD trying to self-diagnose. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing (maybe we should leave the diagnosing for the doctors), but it’s how most of us operate these days. We have a remarkable amount of medical information available at our fingertips, and WebMD, which is based in NYC with a significant presence in a number of other cities, is responsible for a lot of it. They consider themselves “the leading provider of health information services, serving consumers, physicians, other healthcare professionals, employers and health plans.” If you read that closely, you probably noticed that WebMD’s business goes well beyond their consumer facing website.

A Prescription for Your Internship Search

From what I can tell, WebMD’s Consumer Network is ad supported, while they also offer paid Professional Networks, Private Portal Services, and Publishing Services that provide additional sources of revenue. I’d expect their business to continue to grow well because of their unique position. They are in the business of providing information, so they can grow as our consumption of healthcare increases, but they don’t have to worry about the threat of legislation killing their business model. One indication of this expectation for growth is the fact that they have 85 jobs posted right now—many of which are internships. These positions include Accounting/Auditing Intern (New York, NY), Accounting Intern (New York, NY), Business Analyst – Professional Media Intern (New York, NY), Campaign Marketing Intern (New York, NY), Design Intern (Portland, OR), Health Educator Intern (Indianapolis, IN), Professional Content/Editorial Intern (New York, NY), Software Development Intern (Portland, OR), and Human Resources Intern (New York, NY). There’s no mention of whether these internships are paid, but I saw at elsewhere that at least some of them are. You can apply online for any of these positions.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How often do you use WebMD?

Intellectual Ventures

Willy Franzen — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:41:01 +0000

One of the books that I’ve been reading lately is SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. It’s a great follow-up to the original Freakonomics, and it once again shows how changing your mindset can lead you to all kinds of new ideas (this is a really important lesson for your career). One of the companies that is mentioned in the book is Intellectual Ventures, a Bellevue, WA based invention company. They’re all about ideas. Things like product design, product development, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and service all come later, and Intellectual Ventures doesn’t want anything thing to do with those processes. They just invent, invent, invent. The company isn’t tied to one specific area—they’re working on problems like stopping Malaria, preventing hurricanes, and counteracting negative effects from climate change should they ever happen.

An Intellectual Venture for Your Career

For Intellectual Ventures it’s all about owning the intellectual property. They want to come up with the ideas, make them work, and then let other companies do the rest. The business side will be about licensing the technology to the right people on a non-exclusive basis possibly including spin-off companies, but for now it’s all about building a technology portfolio. Intellectual Ventures has been actively inventing since 2003, and since then they’ve filed thousands of patents. These patent applications “span a broad range of areas including computer software and hardware, user interface design, semiconductors, biomedical devices, advanced medical procedures, digital imaging, nanotechnology, nuclear energy and advanced particle physics.” As you can probably tell from that list of topic area (and the company’s name), Intellectual Ventures is filled with extremely smart people. It was founded by two former C level Microsoft executives.

If you’ve always been fascinated by invention and you think that you have the intellect, then you should check out Intellectual Ventures’ Internships page. They have quite a few internships posted right now, and most these include a number of postings each for Laboratory Intern I, Laboratory Intern II, and Senior Laboratory Intern. There’s also one posting for a Nuclear Intern (applicants need not be radioactive). You should also note that Intellectual Ventures has satellite offices in Silicon Valley, Austin, Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore, Seoul, and Bangalore, but for now all of their internships re at the Bellevue, WA office. There’s no mention of whether the positions are paid, but I’m strongly inclined to say that they are.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you read SuperFreakonomics yet?

Doctors Without Borders

Willy Franzen — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 12:50:00 +0000

I was traveling yesterday, so I scheduled yesterday’s post and hopped on a plane. Little did I know that my server would somehow forget to do what I told it. Sorry! If you’re looking for yesterday’s post, you can find it here. (Or if you’re reading by e-mail, just scroll down.)

There are a lot of people who aren’t very thrilled with healthcare in the United States. Yes, it can be atrociously expensive, but at least we have access to pretty much any medical procedure out there. Whether it’s something very basic or something that has never been tried before, the US certainly has the medical infrastructure to get the job done. There are plenty of countries in the world where even the most basic medical care is out of reach, and there are other countries where basic medical care becomes out of reach due to a crisis. That’s where New York City based Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) comes in. They provide “aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters.” Doctors Without Borders does this by recruiting both medical and non-medical personnel to travel abroad to offer a level of medical assistance that is well beyond what is typically available.

MD Not Necessary

You don’t have to go to med school to make a difference through Doctors Without Borders. There are plenty of opportunities for lay people to get involved and make a difference. Here’s a sample of the work that Doctors Without Borders does:

In 2006, MSF medical teams gave more than 9 million outpatient consultations; hospitalized almost half a million patients; delivered 99,000 babies; treated 1.8 million people for malaria; treated 150,000 malnourished children; provided 100,000 people living with HIV/AIDS with antiretroviral therapy; vaccinated 1.8 million people against meningitis; and conducted 64,000 surgeries.

If that sounds like the kind of work that you’d like to be involved with, then you should head over to Doctors Without Borders’ Work page. You can learn more about working in the field, or you can take a look at their Paid Internship opportunities. They offer internships three times a year, and the deadlines are January 8, 2010 for Spring Internships; April 15, 2010 for Summer Internships; and August 2, 2010 for Fall Internships. Their internship positions include Access Intern, Development Intern, Editorial Intern, Executive Intern, Field Human Resources Intern, Foundations and Corporations Intern, Human Resources, Systems Intern, Major Gifts Intern, Marketing Intern, Planned Giving Intern, Press Intern, Program Intern, Public Events Intern, and Web Intern. You can find full descriptions on the internships page, and you can apply by sending a résumé and cover letter to internships@newyork.msf.org with Subject line: (Internship Title – Term). They’ll even let you apply for multiple positions, so be sure to send a separate application for each if that’s what you want to do.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Doctors Without Borders?

RxArt

Willy Franzen — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:58:48 +0000

Last night I went to an event for National Coaching Fellows (I’m on their board). It was held at an art gallery, and it went extremely well. For the past few years, the organization has been struggling to feel legitimate (that’s a common problem with startups, non-profit or for-profit). Holding an event at a place with expensive art on the walls made a drastic difference—it felt real. Even though I’m not all that interested in art, there was no doubt in my mind that the art on the walls played a huge role in the mood of the event. RxArt is a New York City based non-profit that is taking advantage of this effect in a very different way. They curate contemporary art exhibitions in healthcare facilities to “relieve stress and anxiety, while increasing appreciation for contemporary art” for patients and staff. Considering how cold hospitals and doctor’s offices usually feel, I think this is an amazing idea.

An Rx for Your Internship Search

Being a patient sucks. No matter how much better off you’ll be after going in for treatment, you never actually want to be in a medical facility. RxArt will never be able to change that, but they can make the process a little more pleasant. Through a variety of projects and working with a number of contemporary artistsRxArt is improving everyday people’s lives. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the health outcomes of people who are cared for in RxArt facilities end up being a tiny bit better than those in places with bare walls. I don’t know that we’ll ever seen an epidemiological study of RxArt’s effectiveness, so for now we’ll have to go off of their stories. If you’d like to be a part of those successes, then you might want to consider interning for RxArt. Right now they’re looking for an unpaid Intern (Idealist posting) to help with various tasks around the office. You can apply by sending a cover letter and résumé to diane_brown@rxart.net.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of RxArt?

Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Willy Franzen — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:37:30 +0000

There are countless celebrities who support charitable causes. There are many who throw their full support behind a single organization; however, few celebs are as personally invested in their charitable work as Michael J. Fox is. Why is he so invested? Because his life is on the line. He is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, “a degenerative disease of the brain that often impairs motor skills, speech, and other functions.” If you’ve seen Michael J. Fox on tv lately, you’ve seen what Parkinson’s does to the human body. It’s a tragic disease that will hopefully be cured due to the work of the New York City based Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. As an accomplished actor and someone who is living with Parkinson’s, Michael J. Fox is the perfect person to lead the fight against the disease.

Outfox Parkinson’s

The MJFF’s mission is pretty simple; they are “dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease within the decade through an aggressively funded research agenda and to ensuring the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson’s today.” The Fox Foundation has already funded $142 million in Parkinson’s research, but they’re clearly not satisfied stopping there. To accomplish that, they need a top notch staff, so it’s no big surprise the they’re hiring interns. If you head over to the MJFF’s Internships page you’ll see what’s available. Right now the Fox Foundation is looking for a PD Online Research Intern, and they also have an Accounting Internship posted on Idealist. You can apply by for either of these positions by sending a cover letter and resume to foxjob@michaeljfox.org. Both internships appear to be unpaid, and there also seems to be the possibility of applying for an unlisted internship.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research?

Public Library of Science

Willy Franzen — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:15:25 +0000

Most scientific literature isn’t what I’d call an easy read, so I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you aren’t beating down the doors to get your hands on the newest research papers. Unless you are a big consumer of research literature, then you probably don’t care much about the openness of scientific and medical publishing, but you should. Open sharing of information can significantly promote innovation, and who can argue against wanting more advances in science and medicine? The Public Library of Science is all about open sharing, as they are a San Francisco, CA based “nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world’s scientific and medical literature a public resource.” They were founded in 2000, and since then they’ve been pushing for scientific and medical journals that “are immediately available online, with no charges for access and no restrictions on subsequent redistribution or use.”

Open Up Your Internship Search

The Public Library of Science has three main goals that are hard to argue against:

Open the doors to the world’s library of scientific knowledge by giving any scientist, physician, patient, or student – anywhere in the world – unlimited access to the latest scientific research.
Facilitate research, informed medical practice, and education by making it possible to freely search the full text of every published article to locate specific ideas, methods, experimental results, and observations.
Enable scientists, librarians, publishers, and entrepreneurs to develop innovative ways to explore and use the world’s treasury of scientific ideas and discoveries.

If you love science and think the open source movement is one of the coolest recent social movements, then an internship at the Public Library of Science would be a perfect fit for you. You can check out all of their available opportunities on their Jobs page; however, there’s only one internship available right now. They’re looking for a paid MarCom Intern who is ” extremely online savvy, eager to learn, enjoys doing background research, writing and be able to work independently.” You can apply for a job at the Public Library of Science by sending a resume and cover letter to jobs@plos.org with the job title as the subject line. The internship is 6 months long, and the deadline to apply is June 12th.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of the Public Library of Science’s push for openness?

Shriners Hospitals for Children

Willy Franzen — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:49:17 +0000

We hope you had a safe Independence Day. Unfortunately, every year people get hurt during the celebration. Fireworks are a lot of fun, but they can result in some really nasty burns and injuries. Since we encouraged you to blow stuff up yesterday, we thought we’d counter that by featuring a non-profit organization that helps children who endure severe burns. The Shriners Hospitals for Children do exactly that. Who are Shriners? They wear funny hats. They drive little cars in parades. They’re Freemasons. And most importantly, they help kids through their hospitals. That’s going to be our focus today, since college students likely aren’t that interested in being part of a fraternal organization that seems like it has an average age north of 60. Then again, you probably got all hot and bothered about your college’s greek organizations and secret societies.

What Do Red Fezzes Have to Do with Burn Treatment?

So, a group of Freemasons decided to start a non-religious fraternal organization for fun and fellowship based on a Middle Eastern theme, what the heck does that have to do with kids and burns? Somewhere along the way the guys in the organization decided to do some serious philanthropy, so they started Shriners Hospitals for Children which “is a one-of-a-kind international health care system of 22 hospitals dedicated to improving the lives of children by providing specialty pediatric care, innovative research and outstanding teaching programs.” Their three focuses are orthopedic care, burn care, and spinal cord injury rehabilitation. Over Shriners Hospitals for Childrens’ 86 years, they have provided free medical care to more than 865,000 children. Wow.

Do Interns Have to Wear the Funny Hats?

Although Shriners Hospitals for Children has entry-level jobs at their headquarters in Tampa, FL and in their hospitals in Boston, Canada, Chicago, Cincinnati, Erie, Galveston, Greenville, Honolulu, Houston, Salt Lake City, Lexington, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Northern California, Philadelphia, Portland, Shreveport, Spokane, Springfield, St Louis, Tampa, and Twin Cities, they only appear to offer internships at their hospital in LA. These internships are unpaid, but they’re offered in a plethora of disciplines including Human Resources, Nutrition, Physical Therapy, Prosthetics/Orthotics, Public Relations, and Nursing. There are no specifics listed as to when the internships typically occurs, which makes us think that these opportunities are offered year round (including the fall). The method of application varies for each internship, so be sure to look at the full descriptions to get all the details.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you ever seen the Shriners drive their little cars around?

Cato Institute

Willy Franzen — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:05:59 +0000

Ok, we realize that today’s internships are going to sound a lot like yesterdays. While the Heritage Foundation identifies itself as a conservative thinktank, The Cato Institute considers itself more of a non-profit libertarian public policy research foundation. We usually wouldn’t repeat, but we were running down the list of Greg Mankiw approved internships, and Cato’s internship website blew us away. It’s fantastic. Their deadline for Fall internships is July 1, so we couldn’t even save them for next weekend if we wanted to.

What is the Cato Institute?

The Cato Institute “was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane” and “is named for Cato’s Letters, a series of libertarian pamphlets that helped lay the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution.” The Cato Institute is all about increasing popular awareness towards questioning policy and the proper role of the government. Any public policy debate is fair game, which means that the Cato Institute is doing research in an extremely wide range of fields.

Interning at Cato

We could repeat what the Cato Institute has on their website, but that would be pointless. The Internships section of their website is way better than most companies’ career sections. They have an About section, an online application, links of interest for interns (this is an awesome resource list), frequently asked questions, and daily intern journals. There’s also a list of areas for placement within the Cato Institute – these areas include Cato.ru, Center for Bioethics, Center for Constitutional Studies, Center for Global Liberty, Center for Trade Policy, Criminal Justice, elCato.org Intern, Fiscal, Budget & Tax Policy, Foreign & Defense Policy, Government Affairs, Health and Welfare, Lamp of Liberty, Marketing, Media, and Web Content.

Interns assist department directors and research assistants with research and data collection. Some interns are assigned to the Media Relations and Development departments, where they get hands-on experience working with journalists and donors, respectively. We do our best to align interns and their preferences. All interns fulfill such responsibilities as clerical work, delivery of studies to Capitol Hill, and setting up for Cato events, including registering guests and carrying hand-held microphones at public forums and debates. All interns take active part in weekly seminars and in research and writing workshops.

The deadline for Summer internships with the Cato Institute was March 1, while the deadline for Fall internships is July 1. Those wishing to intern in the Spring should apply by Nov 1. Fall and Spring interns will be notified whether they got the internship within a month of the application deadline, while notification for Summer internships comes within a month and a half of the deadline. Interns are paid a $700 monthly stipend, and internships are located in Washington, DC.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think of the Cato Institute’s Internship site? Isn’t it fantastic?

Animal Replacement Technologies

Willy Franzen — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:00:31 +0000

Last week we wrote about Sarasota, FL based Animal Replacement Technologies on One Day, One Job. There was no indication that they were hiring new grads, but we really liked their story, so we encouraged our readers to take a look and inquire about jobs if they were so inclined. Soon after we posted, Animal Replacement Technologies founder Dr. Christopher Sakezles left a comment inviting our readers to apply for summer internships in engineering with his company (and also asking potential applicants not to cold call, but to e-mail instead). It was exciting for us to have one of Inc. Magazine’s Entrepreneur of the Year Reader Favorites leave a comment on our website; moreover, we realized that it was a perfect opportunity for us to share the excitement with our internship searching readers. If you read One Day, One Job as well, we apologize for sometimes being redundant and talking about the same companies on both sites, but we want to make sure that the internships we talk about are some of the most interesting and most worthwhile out there.

So, why is Animal Replacement Technologies a place that you’d want to intern? Because they’ve developed a product that has replaced live animals as the subjects on which surgical techniques are developed, practiced, and perfected. You can’t effectively practice surgery, unless you do it on a living, breathing thing. There aren’t too many people who are jumping at the opportunity to be cut up by aspiring surgeons, so that has left animals as the only option. Animal Replacement Technologies has responded by engineering synthetic human tissues, organs, and body parts that mimic their living counterparts. Amazingly, these “body copies” are made of mostly salt, water, and fibers. Not only do these technologies save animals from the fate of being test subjects, but they also ” provide industry with the tools required to improve test data integrity, enhance device safety, shorten the development cycle, reduce time to market, minimize risk, and increase profits.”

For a full overview of the company, you might want to read this article about Animal Replacement Technologies in Biz941. You should probably look at Animal Replacement Technologies’ own literature too. We’re totally over our head when it comes to the science behind these products, but we’re pretty sure that there are a lot of college students who would find it thrilling to be a part of this kind of project. If you have a background in engineering and an interest in materials science or medicine, Dr. Sakezles would love for you to join his company this summer. You can send your resume to info@anireptec.com.

Note: When researching Animal Replacement Technologies, don’t click any of the links to videos (.mpg) on their site, especially if you’re using a Mac with Safari. Doing so froze our computer three times for some reason that we can’t figure out. The things we go through to bring you a new internship every day…

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

How would you explain yourself if you had to go through airport security with a suitcase full of synthetic body parts?