Wow, it's been long while since my last post! I've been pretty busy lately, what with a change in home circumstances so that my sister and I pretty much have to cook and fend for ourselves, and the fact that I've been 'working' over the summer break 5 days a week, which is the topic of this post today! So yeah, over the 2014/2015 Australian summer break, I had the opportunity of working in a chemistry lab at my uni as a summer research student. To say the least, it's been a pretty eye-opening and interesting experience this past one and a half months.

The lab I'm with is interested in natural product chemistry. To be specific, we look at the compounds that nudibranchs (pronounced nu-dee-brahnks), a type of mollusc, use as a defensive mechanism. These organisms are wonderfully colourful and pretty and produce clear coloured compounds when extracted.


How beautiful! (I found this picture on Google haha, it's not mine)

Nudibranchs get some of these chemicals from their sponge diet and so lab work is concerned with extracting compounds from these specimens and elucidating their chemical structures via various techniques like H-NMR (proton nuclear magnetic resonance), HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) and other more complex techniques I haven't actually had much contact with.

Now to the lab work: those who know me would know I'm a self-confessed introvert. I like my silences, independence and being left alone with my thoughts. (Don't get me wrong, I also do enjoy my time surrounded by people, but I need time to 'recharge') However, right at the beginning, it was all about extracting crude compounds, preparing samples for NMR, running samples for NMR, collecting fractions after separating them, have a lonely lunch in between. Repeat. I realised that I did not want to spend the rest of my life (i.e. job) in the lab for most of the day before heading home and doing that all over again. Spending time in the lab can be very lonely work. (I did manage, though, to appreciate the 9-5 workday my parents went through, and the certain freedom on weekends since I had no work or assignments to bring home). In fact, although I comforted myself by saying that I was contributing in solid scientific research, I found myself looking forward more to the little conversations and interactions I had with my work mates. The time in between for things to dry and such was time where I could learn about the other people working in the same lab I was. The little chats, the one or two lunches we had together - they will probably be what I remember most fondly when I go back to the ups and downs of being a uni student.

However, after going back into the lab after the Christmas break, I got into the more analytical side of things. I experienced some of the thrill as I managed to personally figure out one of the compound in my extracts after weeks of just being told what I had in my extracts. What originally were literally just lines on a page became pieces of a puzzle as I began to see patterns that helped me identify the features of a compound. Just the other day we saw a spectrum that suggested a new compound in one of my extracts. In fact, we are still in the midst of figuring that out as I type this and if it does in fact turn out to be a new compound, my name would be likely to get a mention in a research paper. Imagine that!

Research is hard work. I truly realise now that to get one or two new compounds, I would have to go through almost mind-numbing and routine lab work for that to happen. I would need discipline. I would need good time management to ensure that my tasks are completed on time and that I am working as efficiently as possible. I would also need patience, as 'results' are not always immediate. I would also need discernment in order to realise that not every path has to be pursued, that I should put something down so that I can pick something else up. I would also need to be organised - I have extracted various nudibranch/sponge samples and have identified almost 10-15 known compounds, with many more vials in between to keep track of. It's almost a logistical nightmare!

With just less than two weeks of summer research left, I am beginning to grow a little sad that this journey is ending. I will surely miss the people there, who have been so friendly and helpful. And the work itself has proved to be fairly rewarding.

For me, the point of doing summer research was to see if I was suited to life in the lab. This experience has definitely helped me see that it is both hard work and rewarding, but something I don't think I would want to do for the rest of my life. (Unless perhaps it is the research topic that disinterests me??)

The saga continues...

Labels: experiences, research, science, summer, thoughts