Spring Break
The Daily OrangeChemical bonds: Rob Doyle's team of students unites in effort to cure cancer, diabetes
By Andy McCullough
Posted: 4/17/07, 10:50 PM EST Section: Pulp
"It's great when you get along, but it's torture if you don't," she said.
Doyle keeps the mood light in the lab, whether it's by cracking jokes about saving diabetic San Diego Padres pitcher David Wells or performing impromptu demonstrations. When Petrus comes by with a jar of dry ice, Doyle, eyes gleaming, scoops up a handful and tosses it into a jar of water to watch it foam up. Stylish and clean-cut, his head is shaved bald, a thin wisp of red stubble traced around his mouth.
"They're going to spend their whole time trying to convince you it won't work," Doyle said to Nerissa Viola, second-year graduate student, after Viola came seeking his help. "So you have to have answers for their questions."
It's not as simple as developing a chemical compound and then testing it, Petrus said. They have to make sure the compounds are uniform and they know their chemical compositions.
The testing, however, can be tedious, even when they leave the lab.
Late in the afternoon one day last week, Viola tests some of the AZT compounds on the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry campus, using ESF's Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) machinery.
"It's nice to get out of the lab once in a while," Villegas says quietly as she leaves Sci-Tech.
Drums and shouts from an Iraq war protest echo through the Quad, but Viola doesn't seem to notice. Head down, she talks about how the MALDI works, how it will analyze the compounds and assess their mass. They do this to make sure all of the compounds they create are uniform and pure, Viola said.
Viola preps the compounds for the MALDI on the third floor of the Jahn Laboratory at ESF, mixing a catalyst with compounds that another grad student, Tony Vortherms, has been working on.
Using a micropipette to drop little bits of catalyst solution into the compound, she then transfers them into the little divots of a tiny metal pan.
It's a long process. Viola is careful, meticulous, her massive syringe gently clicking each time it inhales or exhales solution.
Doyle keeps the mood light in the lab, whether it's by cracking jokes about saving diabetic San Diego Padres pitcher David Wells or performing impromptu demonstrations. When Petrus comes by with a jar of dry ice, Doyle, eyes gleaming, scoops up a handful and tosses it into a jar of water to watch it foam up. Stylish and clean-cut, his head is shaved bald, a thin wisp of red stubble traced around his mouth.
"They're going to spend their whole time trying to convince you it won't work," Doyle said to Nerissa Viola, second-year graduate student, after Viola came seeking his help. "So you have to have answers for their questions."
It's not as simple as developing a chemical compound and then testing it, Petrus said. They have to make sure the compounds are uniform and they know their chemical compositions.
The testing, however, can be tedious, even when they leave the lab.
Late in the afternoon one day last week, Viola tests some of the AZT compounds on the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry campus, using ESF's Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) machinery.
"It's nice to get out of the lab once in a while," Villegas says quietly as she leaves Sci-Tech.
Drums and shouts from an Iraq war protest echo through the Quad, but Viola doesn't seem to notice. Head down, she talks about how the MALDI works, how it will analyze the compounds and assess their mass. They do this to make sure all of the compounds they create are uniform and pure, Viola said.
Viola preps the compounds for the MALDI on the third floor of the Jahn Laboratory at ESF, mixing a catalyst with compounds that another grad student, Tony Vortherms, has been working on.
Using a micropipette to drop little bits of catalyst solution into the compound, she then transfers them into the little divots of a tiny metal pan.
It's a long process. Viola is careful, meticulous, her massive syringe gently clicking each time it inhales or exhales solution.
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