Now in its second year, the QB3 Biotech Undergraduate Summer Internship program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, connects students with hands-on experience in the biotechnology field.
QB3 is a multicampus UC institute that supports research, technological innovation, and entrepreneurship at the Santa Cruz, Berkeley, and San Francisco campuses. QB3 UC Santa Cruz, helps bridge entrepreneurs and researchers with Bay Area industry partners, fostering startups and groundbreaking new technologies.
The summer internship program places undergraduate students in temporary, full-time roles at UC Santa Cruz labs and local biotech companies. Over 10 weeks, students work on extended research or industry projects, supported by a $7,500 fellowship.
Last year, students interned with innovative companies such as Farm-ng and RealSeq Biosciences, developing virtual testbeds for robots and studying soil metagenomics.
This year, more than 170 undergraduates applied. Of the 31 selected, 20 were Baskin Engineering students, who joined companies including Dovetail Genomics, part of Cantata Bio, and Kenai Therapeutics.
Two of these students made impactful contributions in the fields of AgTech and virtual reality—areas in which Baskin Engineering excels in research and technological advancement.
Testing health technology
As a track and field athlete, Levi Laden (B.S., Computer Science, ‘25) has seen firsthand the importance of physical therapy in injury recovery. These experiences inspired him to join Immergo Labs, a company that uses artificial intelligence and virtual reality (VR) to incorporate telehealth capabilities and enhance remote physical therapy care.
Immergo Labs was co-founded by three Baskin Engineering alumni and recently received a major National Science Foundation grant to grow the company. “It’s very cool to work for three people who came from UC Santa Cruz,” Laden said. “They’re creating an innovative company, and it’s very inspiring.”
At Immergo Labs, Laden worked as a quality-assurance and test engineer, rigorously testing both the web and VR applications. The web app manages patient profiles and appointments, while the VR app allows providers to meet clients in virtual rooms where they can monitor and track therapeutic movements in real time.
To streamline testing, Laden designed user flows to identify and document bugs, collaborated with developers to resolve them, and built automated tools to reduce the need for manual checks.
“Physical therapy isn’t something I’d initially think of with VR,” he said. “It’s a testament to how important and innovative these intersections of technology and healthcare are. It’s shown me that pretty much anywhere, there’s an application of computer science.”
The experience also prompted him to think about what’s next after graduation.
“This internship definitely changed how I’ll be looking for jobs after I graduate,” Laden said. “I’ve learned that I enjoy quality-assurance engineering and working in VR, and that’s something I want to carry forward into my career.”
Studying seed DNA
Interested in plant science, Baskin Engineering student Alice Gerchanovsky (B.S., Biomolecular Engineering and Bioinformatics, ‘27) joined Ohalo, an agricultural technology company that develops improved plant varieties to help farmers grow food with fewer natural resources while increasing resiliency and genetic diversity of crops.
Gerchanovsky implemented a procedure for sampling and extracting DNA from maize kernels. She prepared seeds, ran the DNA extraction process, and fine-tuned the method for reliable use in Ohalo’s lab.
Her work allows researchers to see which “families” of seeds—called seed lines—and which combinations of different lines—called crosses—are most promising, so they can prioritize the seeds most likely to grow strong and healthy.
“This was a vital step to understand what seeds we have without germinating them and risking disruption to planting or pollination timelines,” Gerchanovsky said. “I got to sterilize, dissect, germinate, sample, or otherwise handle hundreds of maize seeds and plants, all while working in a lab.”
She credits her Baskin Engineering courses such as BME 22L, Foundations of Design and Experimentation in Molecular Biology, with giving her the knowledge to succeed at Ohalo. Gerchanovsky was introduced to the principles of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a common laboratory technique she used extensively during her internship.
In BME 23L, she gained hands-on experience with the entire DNA sequencing process, from sampling to data analysis, using the latest devices from Oxford Nanopore Technologies—a technology with roots at UC Santa Cruz. Her familiarity with these cutting-edge tools impressed the team at Ohalo.
“It’s fascinating to see techniques that I learned previously in classes be applied to living organisms,” she said. “The skillset I am developing at UC Santa Cruz and through my internships is one that can facilitate a real future career in the field that interests me.”
Looking ahead, Gerchanovsky hopes to continue working in a wet lab and eventually pursue a graduate degree.
“I could definitely see myself staying at Ohalo or pursuing more opportunities in plant science or AgTech,” she said. “There are only so many major industries with opportunities for people in wet labs, and agriculture is absolutely one of them.”
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