Meet Carolina: Inspecting the Frontiers of Stem Cells and Beyond

Lets meet Carolina! This episode was created for the purpose of the Haapaniemi lab website (https://haapaniemilab.org/). Kick back, relax, and let the waves of wisdom wash over you in this podcast episode – where learning meets laughter, and knowledge is served with a side of chill vibes. 

Venture further into Carolina's world and discover her unique perspective on the commercial side of science, gleaned from her tenure at Takara Bio Europe where she navigated the complexities of deriving human embryonic stem cells in a GMP setting. Her optimism is contagious as she navigates the dynamic changes of her PhD project, aiming for quality publications and a successful completion of her studies. And while Carolina modestly admits to having few hobbies, the depth of her scientific endeavors leaves no doubt about the intensity of her passions.

All music clips were used from the song "Jukka Tukka" after agreement with amazing band and friends 2+1 Jam band.
This podcast episode was created under the technical and official support of University of Oslo, Norway.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Open-Ear Voices, stereography and桃発 Bird's nest. My name is Karolina, polish or like half Norwegian, half Polish. You know, I guess I haven't really checked my genetics, I don't know like which percentage is what, but it should be 50 50. So my background is in medical biology. So I did that in Linköping University. So both my bachelor's and master's is in medical biology. I did my master's thesis in Gothenburg University. I worked with electrophysiology. So I worked out with microelectrode arrays technology where I kind of cultured neural stem cells and neurons and kind of assess their activity when I kind of added these different Alzheimer's associated peptides. And then I also worked with differentiation of neural stem cells to neurons to check like where this protein called NLRP2 is localized in both neural stem cells and neurons. And then I use confocal microscopy to kind of assess that. And then now I'm a PhD student at M Mahapa Nehemi lab. I work with basically the clinical translation of CRISPR protocols and the focus would be then to kind of clinically translate the hemipoidic stem cell pipeline. However, now I think it's mostly focused on really setting up the pipeline from bottom up, I think, and then kind of trying to at the same time see if I can transit this into like GMP setting, if possible, what I like about stem cells. I mean, there's so much to kind of say here, I guess. I mean I don't think there's any cell that is more interesting than the stem cell, you know, because it's like kind of, you know, it's kind of like schizophrenic cell. You know it can become anything. So it kind of starts off as being, you know, a cell that doesn't know what to do and then, depending on the environment, it can kind of become whatever it wants to be, you know, and also we can also induce them right, so we can change their environments in vitro to kind of push them into becoming different things. I think that's very cool.

Speaker 1 3:21

I appreciate myself being a morning person because I think being up in the morning is nice, because you can get your work done, you know, efficiently and be done with it, and I have no issues with people that are not morning people. But sometimes it's frustrating because you have to wait for them and I don't like to wait. No offense to anyone, and I think you know, being a morning person I don't know if this is related, but I'm also very much like I don't know the word for it, but like time is very important to me. So being on time is, you know, one of the most important things in my life. So if somebody, if I have a meeting and somebody is not on time, I get very frustrated, like there's a reason that we have put this time there. Please be on time. At least, you know, be five minutes before time, like that's the time in my opinion.

Speaker 1 4:21

So yeah, I did work in the industry. Briefly, I think it was like a little over a year. It was at Takara Bio Europe. I was a cell, a GMP cell associate there. So my purpose was essentially to derive embryonic, human embryonic stem cells. So we had these human blastocysts from IVF clinics I believe it was from Boston that we got them and the purpose was to kind of derive embryonic stem cells from these blastocysts in a GMP setting that we would then sell, which I mean for some people could be a little questionable, right, but I guess for some not.

Speaker 1 5:15

So my experience doing my PhD so far is I think it's been pretty good. I think I've met a lot of interesting and good people here and I don't think there's like it's not as stressful as I thought it would be, maybe because my previous experience has been pretty interesting, but I think it's been pretty nice. It's been pretty smooth so far. The project has changed and it's like changing dynamically, which is something you guys told me that it would probably do, and I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if it kept on changing, you know. But as long as I get some, at least one paper out of it, I'm gonna be very happy, because then I can finally finish, and if I get some more, that would be nice.

Speaker 1 6:09

My hobbies I don't know if I have that many hobbies. I've always been into gaming, which for some people is pretty weird. I don't think that's weird, you know, but I do play a lot of games when I have time and I do end up like really getting into a game and it's difficult to remove yourself. But I do try to keep myself focused on work first and then, when I have time, I do play. So one of the games that I am recently now playing is Pow World. It's kind of like a Pokemon style game that involves shooting as well. So it's a little more, you know, yeah, like a first player shooter versus Pokemon kind of thing. Yeah, and otherwise I play a lot of different games, first player shooters. Elden Ring recently was amazing, like I would recommend anyone playing that game. It's, you know, the story is very fascinating. And I mean, other than that, I do have other hobbies. I mean I don't just play games, I do hang out with my pets, I do listen to music like all other humans do, I guess and I watch TV.