Translational Research Center

Internship Department Introduction

The Department of Medical Research was originally established in 1990. Currently, there are 8 divisions under this Department and they are (1) Experimental Animal Center, (2) Division of Cellular and Immune Therapy, (3) Division of Genomic and proteomic Medicine, (4) Division of Research Resource, (5) Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, (6) Division of Cancer Research, (7) Division of Pharmacology and Toxicology and (8) Human Biobank. Each division has its unique roles and tasks, but the common goal of all these division is to promote and facilitate research. For research promotion, this Department provides core facility/paid or unpaid services to the Hospital employees. In addition, the Department also offers free consultation for experiment techniques, study design and statistical analysis. The Department is also responsible for data and sample collection and depository. With regard to education and training, this Department organizes several workshops and symposiums every year. To improve the research environments, the Department equips several common laboratories where the Hospital employees can apply for the bench space and are also allowed to use the equipments. The major of the equipments are free to access and free to use. This Department also has the administrative tasks that include the maintenances of equipments, audit research outcome/ethical issues, analysis of annual research quality and quantification, solicitation of proposals for intramural grants etc. These administrative works offers valuable data and information to the decision makers of the Hospital. After a decade efforts, this Department has become the major support and resource of research in our Hospital. The software, hardware and personnel have significantly contributed to the rapid growth of our research publications as well as research quality. The Department will continue to promote research in every aspect.

Internship Learning Objective and Training Program Outline

The department provides internship in diverse biomedical researches. The most active research topics conducted in the Hospital include signal transduction, DNA repair, and adipocytokine effects on breast cancer as well as potential drug therapy on various cancers including breast, lung, colon, ovarian, cervical, and oral cancer using both experimental and clinical approaches. The students will have the chance to involve in various lab techniques such as cell culture, Western blotting, and a variety of functional assays. The students are also expected to conduct in small-scale studies and write a final report during the internship.