Meet our Interns - Louisa Azizi
Louisa is a medical student at Karolinska Institute and expected to graduate summer 2024. After writing her master thesis about genetics and ALS in 2022, Louisa continued to conduct research within the field. During spring 2024 she registered as a PhD student at Karolinska Institute at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, focusing on precision medicine in ALS heterogeneity visualized through genetics and imaging.
Describe yourself and what you do:
My name is Louisa Azizi, I am 24 years old medical student at Karolinska Institutet. During the fall of 2022 I my thesis project at the Karolinska ALS Research Center.
Why did you want to do an internship at the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Group?
I choose to do my thesis project at the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Center because of the professionalism and passion the group had about the research area. Their passion intereged me and opened my eyes for ALS research.
How long did your intership at the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Group last?
My intership lasted for 6 months.
Describe your internship project, research questions, documents used (ex : TakeCare, ALS/MND Registry, data-base, etc...).
My project was to describe the Stockholm areas ALS cohort with respect to their genetic mutation, focusing on the C9ORF72. This was done with previously collected data in the ALSrisc-project. I didn’t need to work in any patient journals in Take Care or the ALS/MND registry.
What did you learn during your internship at the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Group?
I learned how to work in STATA as well as doing my own statistical analyses.
What challenges did you face during your internship at the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Group?
The challenge I faced was with the statistical analyses as I had never operated in STATA before and was not familiar with some of the analyses that was required in my project. I was able to overocome this challenge with help from the group members which resulted in me being comfortable with concepts that I challenged with before.
Are you satisfied with your overall experience at the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Group? If yes, please share with us what you enjoyed the most during your internship. If not, please share what did not meet your expectations so we can improve ourselves.
Yes. Mostly I enjoyed the work envoirnment with regards to the people in the group. The group was helpful, welcoming and kind but also pushing me to evolve and improve my scientific knowledge, writing and thinking.
Please share with us what is the key information or learning experience you will keep from this internship.
The most important learning experience is that a written paper has to be reviewd and edited several times, therefore it’s important to start early and put in time and effort to the actual writing of a project.
Would you recomment the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Center to a friend or colleague?
Yes, with the greatest recommendation!