I went to RIBS during the Summer of 2016. I went only knowing that it was an intense research camp at a prestigious university. They really dont give you a lot of info on what the program is like on their page. So here is a synopsis of the program itself.
First, you get to the building where you stay and unpack and go eat lunch. Then you meet up with your RA group and do a bunch of boring orientations for the first two days. They were pretty important considering how dangerous the surrounding area is though.
After the orientation weekend, you go to your class. There are actually two teachers: Christopher Shonbaum and Rosemary Zaragosa. Both are very knowledgeable about research, but Shonbaum was clearly the more fun and better of the two. (you stick with that teacher the whole teaching time). They begin by teaching the basics of lab procedures such as micropipetting and basic microscopy. The program itself consists of two parts: Two weeks of teaching and lab experiments, and two weeks of a group research project. I will explain in detail what my research project was at the end of this.
Then everyday after the basic lab techniques you begin doing a multitude of lab procedures, such as fluorescence microscopy (really cool), RNAi with C.Elegans, cell cultures, and much much more.
You get to the lab at 9 and you immediately start working on whatever they have planned. You leave at around 5:30 but sometimes you stay much later than that. On the first day, you get a notebook (where you have to write in every single lab procedure and analysis of that lab procedure). You have to make it extremely organized. And you get graded on it for the first two weeks. My opinion and many others who were with me at the program believe the notebook as being the factor that made the program turn from great to mediocre. Writing in that notebook took away from the experiments themselves. You would spend wore time trying to make your notebook good for grading than actually looking at the data and actually figuring it out. I think my notebook was about 70 pages filled after the first two weeks.
However, the experiments were great and you learn SO much from it. For example, I have taken both biology and AP biology and this year I am taking genetics with that same teacher who taught me those subjects. In genetics we do a lot of similar lab procedures as RIBS and now i am basically teaching the class on how to do lab procedures… I literally know more about labs than my teacher. so if that’s what you’re looking for in a program… go to RIBS! But if you want to prepare for ap bio or something, just study at home. No program can go over everything you learn in AP bio over 4-6 weeks.
After you do the lab experiments for the first two weeks, you are introduced to the research projects. They give you about 10 different options for your research. Although, you can branch from or completely dismiss those options and choose a project yourself. You have to propose your research project to the teachers or choose one of the teacher’s projects. (Most people chose one of their projects because they were already pretty good). Some examples of projects that people did was more RNAi stuff, CRISPR, Wound Healing in Jellyfish (mine), and Synthetic biology.
The projects were actually pretty competitive to get because they just didn’t have the resources to support 8 different projects having to do with CRISPR. So some people had to get a project that they didnt really want. But it was all really up to date and interesting projects.
My project was “The effects of actin inhibiting drugs on wound healing in Clytia Hemisphearica Jellyfish”, and we basically took time-lapses of Jellyfish wound healing on a really expensive microscope. You can actually see our data on youtube if you look up “Wound healing in Jellyfish.” There is some other guy from UofC that recently posted his own timelapse, but ours is better and has cringy music to go with it. So go look at the science we did. Its pretty good data. We have two videos one with control and one with the actin inhibiting drug Cytochalasin B.
After you do the program, the instructors may invite you back to “RIBS 2”, where you go into a real world lab and help out. This is SUPER competitive. Out of the 40 people in the program, only about 5 get to go. I have yet to know whether I will be invited back or not.
Also, you are really free to do whatever you want when you’re out of the lab. Although there is an 11 o-clock curfue. But on the weekends when you don’t have to go to the lab, you can do anything from going out to the city to going to a museum to whatever.
Overall I gained SO much knowledge from the RIBS program, and I don’t regret doing it. But the notebook kinda ruined it for me. The people there were super smart as well. If you have any questions, mention me in another discussion or something.