ERASMUS+ summer visit

Hi! I’m Büşra, a 6th-year medical student at Selcuk University in Turkey, and this summer I had one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life which is a traineeship at the Erickson Lab at the University of Helsinki.

I’ve always been fascinated by cancer research, but I wanted to see what really happens behind the scenes —the actual science that drives new discoveries. When I came across the ONCOSYS research program and then found the Erickson Lab, I felt like I had discovered the perfect place: a team that works across wet-lab experiments, spatial biology, clinical data, and cutting-edge technology, all under one roof.

Finding the Erickson Lab was truly a stroke of luck for me. When I first learned about ONCOSYS and saw the cancer research being done, I immediately started digging deeper to find out which lab I could work with. The moment I visited the Erickson Lab website, I thought, “This is it.” My traineeship journey happened through the Erasmus+ program, and when I received the very first reply from Dr. Erickson, I was over the moon. But in reality, that was just the beginning of a much more challenging road.

I applied for Erasmus funding, and when it was approved, I continued full speed ahead. The visa process, however, was a challenge on its own — waiting until the very last minute without knowing whether it would be approved was the most stressful part. On top of that, balancing all of this with my ongoing medical school internships made this period intense and sometimes overwhelming. During this time, we had live calls and kept in touch regularly, and in the six months leading up to my arrival, Dr. Erickson helped me at every step. That support truly gave me strength.

My work focused mainly on the wet-lab side, and from day one I was welcomed into the team. Veera and I became a small “core team” . She was sometimes my teacher, sometimes my guide, sometimes like an older sister, and sometimes just a good friend. I also learned so much from the rest of the group; everyone shared their knowledge and experience openly.

I still remember my first days , I didn’t even know how to hold a pipette properly. And when they told me, “By the end of your time here, you’ll be able to run an entire protocol from start to finish by yourself,” I honestly didn’t believe it. But it happened! After just two months, I could confidently perform techniques like IHC on my own.

Of course, not everything went perfectly . Sometimes things failed, sometimes problems came out of nowhere. But instead of feeling stuck, I learned how to approach problems differently, how to troubleshoot, and how to stay calm when experiments didn’t go as planned.

The Erickson Lab isn’t just about experiments — it’s about the people. This is a place where science feels exactly as it should: curious, collaborative, and full of energy. I came in nervous about whether I could learn so much in such a short time, but I left with new skills, a deeper passion for research, and a group of people I’m truly grateful to have met. It felt like home to me.

Long story short, Erickson Lab is one of my biggest “I’m so glad I did this” moments.

Büşra

(This blog post was fully written by Büşra, and posted with her approval).