国際プロジェクト実習　【ドイツ】
European Molecular Biology Laboratory
Sumiho Nakatsu　[D3]
(Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, Department of Computational Biology and Medical Sciences)

My host institution was the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)
in Heidelberg, Germany. During the six months of my stay, I worked together with other members of the laboratory in two research areas. Firstly, on the assembly and release of influenza virus-like particles from cells which were expressing different combinations of influenza viral proteins. In particular we were interested in producing particles with and without M2 protein to assess its role in virus release and structure. Secondly, I worked on the assembly and release of virus particles from WSN/33 and HK68 strains of influenza virus, particularly with the aim to produce virus particles and infected cells for subsequent study by cryo-electron tomography. Both viruses were successfully produced, and the WSN/33 strain was imaged by cryo-electron tomography. These data are now being analysed by members of the lab, and by myself.
Deciding where and when to go
To choose an institution, I asked my supervisor if he knew anyone who may be interested in collaborating with us. He then introduced me one of the team leaders in EMBL. After receiving the acceptance from the team leader, we discussed about research, and about when I may have joined. The lab I visited had sufficient funds to accept visitors, but had no rooms. The team leader suggested me to arrive in June when one of the lab members was leaving. It was about six months before my visit.

As soon as I decided the visiting date, I applied for a room of the EMBL guest house. Usually, the guest houses are always full, however, since I applied for a room in advance, and my visiting date was in a holiday period in Europe, I could reserve a single room for my visiting period. In my case, the rent was around 570 euros per month.

Upon entering, Germany does not require visa for people from certain countries. I did not need to apply for visa prior to the visit, but instead, I had to apply residence permit within the first two weeks. The procedure was not complicated, however, some employees may not speak English. Fortunately, I had no language problems.

The city I stayed, Heidelberg, is a university city and also a tourist city. Residents are from all over the world, and I could communicate with most people in English. I did not study German before the visit, however, I thought that the life would have been easier if I knew little German.

The living expenses in Heidelberg are not particularly burdensome, groceries are affordable and of better quality compared to Tokyo.