Name: Naomi Oliver
Class Year: 2027
Major: Biology
Minor: Health Studies 

Internship Organization: University of Michigan Medical School
Internship Title:  Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship
Location: Ann Arbor, MI 

What’s happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!  

The Holinstat Lab at the University of Michigan focuses on developing novel anti-platelet therapies to combat America’s leading cause of death: heart disease. Currently, I am testing a new drug that was developed in the lab that will hopefully be an efficient treatment for thrombosis. 

Why did you apply for this internship?  

I wanted to be fully immersed in a research program that would help me gain valuable skills to bring back to Bryn Mawr. At the same time, being involved in life-saving medicine was a big deal when deciding on this internship.  

What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn’t expect? 

I didn’t expect to gain such a deep understanding of platelets and inhibition pathways! This program involves so much more than lab technique. Before learning any new assay, I learn exactly what the experiment means and why we are conducting it.  

Can you talk about the skills you are learning and why they are important to you? 

So far, I have learning platelet prep, aggregometry and western blot. Platelet prep converts whole blood from a fresh sample into washed platelets of a certain concentration. This is how we prep the cells for experimentation, and it will be an important foundational skill in any future platelet work. Aggregometry measures platelet function, and can tell us whether a donor’s platelets are fit for experimentation. Western blot is a much broader assay, and is used across several scientific disciplines. It is used to detect and identify specific proteins, and in my project, tells me if the platelet inhibition pathway has been activated.