A quick trip to Hannover!

Hannover was amazing. From the tranquility of everyday life, to observing the inner workings of the MHH or the Hannover Medical School, to just hanging out with the students that gave us places to sleep. The town just seemed like a place to retire to, nice a quiet yet at the same time bustling with youthfulness. The main reason for the visit to Hannover was to visit the MHH, which the locals pronounce as “em ha ha”, which to this day makes me laugh a bit.

It was really an amazing experience for Megan and I to be able to shadow the researchers at the MHH. The variety of research topics was astounding and even more so, how they tied it all to each other and collaborated their results. We were able to observe and even participate in how the researchers harvested spider silk for use in tissue scaffolds while at the same time learning about all of the multiple uses of said scaffolds.

The spiders were housed in a specific wing of the building, with the majority of the silk harvesting spiders located in the so cleverly named, “Spider Room”.

One of the researchers was in the process of using adipose tissue from rats and trying to differentiate it into muscle cells and bone cells, which he is successfully achieving by perfusing the natural vasculature with different growth factors and media that signals the adipose stem cells to differentiate. We were even able to watch how he harvesting the adipose tissue from a living rat. It was so cool to see how he anesthetized the rat using a tiny mouthpiece which released isoflurane and oxygen.

Though we were able to view the axolotl salamanders, famous for their ability to regenerate almost every part of their body, I was disappointed that we were not given the chance to talk with a researcher who was in that field. They had a huge room full of the little guys who were happily swimming around in fish tanks and we were even able to hold one!

Hannover was a great experience. I am really happy with how the housing situation worked out, thanks to both Dr. Wasser and Sabrina, one of Dr. Wasser’s student colleagues. They were able to find other vet students and MHH students to host us for the night and as it ended up for me, two nights. These students really made the difference in my experience and I couldn’t be more appreciative of their hospitality!