Giada Amundson, Organic Chemistry at Scripps Research Institute, Week 1

Hello everyone! My name is Giada Amundson, and I am interning in the Chemistry department at Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California. I am in the Engle Lab, under Professor Keary Engle. For my 7 weeks at this lab, I am going to be using organic chemistry to invent new reactions which can possibly be used as more efficient ways to build medicine.

I am so grateful to be here, so I just wanted to start this off with a big thank you to PinHead as well as Scripps Research Institution for setting me up on this amazing opportunity. And a thank you to you all as well, at home reading this, and being able to go on this journey with me. 

Monday, June 12

Today was my first day in the lab. When I arrived I was able to receive my badge to let me into the buildings around campus. Then I met my mentor, Skyler, a Postdoctorate, as well as the lab’s safety officer. In the morning, he went over all of the safety procedures, where the chemicals are in the lab, and how they form reactions here. They use different ways to structure chemicals here than in my high school honors chemistry class, so Skyler taught me how to use this structure for a little while. There are students from undergrad to post doc here, so at lunch I was able to talk to some of the other people working in the lab, and learn more about them, and why they decided to go into this field. After lunch we got to start our lab that we will be focusing on for the time I am here. We followed a procedure that we came up with, and had to do the math to come up with the measurements we were going to use. Then we got to mix the chemicals, and use the Rotary evaporator (Rotovap for short) for the first time. The Rotovap is a  machine that condenses liquids to solids faster. We then got a solid that was not quite crystallized, so we diluted it in a liquid. We are going to come back tomorrow, and hope that all of the liquid evaporates, so that we have our solid product.

After work, I went to at dinner with my mom while she was in town, as well as the beach to watch the sunset. It was my first of many sunsets here in San Diego.

Tuesday, June 13

Today I came into the lab, but our liquid had not yet evaporated, so we heated it up to get rid of the liquid, trying to form a solid. Meanwhile, my mentor showed me some of the work he is doing personally. He taught me how to use the column system, which separates the non-polar and the polar compounds for his project. It was an automated robot doing the work, so it was super interesting to watch. After watching him for a while, we checked back in on my project. We tested it after it had become solid using the NMR machine. An NMR test shows the structure of a reaction (pictured below). It helps you see if you have a product based on a graph. The NMR showed that we did not have our product, so we did the reaction again. This time we experimented using half of one of the chemicals. After the process and another NMR, we still did not get the product, so we decided to think about it overnight, and hopefully come to a better solution the next day. 

NMR graph

Wednesday, June 14

This morning I got to watch a student present his PhD. It was super interesting to see his research and see how a PhD presentation would go. After that meeting, we went back to work. We tried to set up yet again another reaction. And when we tested it the first time it was a product. Then we tried to isolate the product from all the unnecessary chemicals, by adding more liquid. When we took an NMR after the liquid was added, but our product almost disappeared. Our mixture of acetone and hexane must have dissolved our product. So we set up another reaction, and this time, we let it stir and heat overnight. If you haven’t figured it out already, this is the chemistry process. You do an experiment, you don’t get a result, you change it. Then you just keep trying and trying until you get what you need. 

reaction on heating and stir plate

Thursday, June 15

We came into the lab today and got directly to work. We got our product, after using the Rotovap again. This time, we got crystals, so it looked promising so far. The NMR of it showed that it wasn’t a product. I am learning how complicated this process is. It is hard as well because we are coming up with brand new reactions that havent been used before. I shadowed my mentor for a bit before he had a meeting, which I attended with him. It was about how the job process works and how to get a job after you have your PhD. It wasn’t specifically for a PhD though, I learned a bunch of information about applying for jobs as well. We went back to the lab. This time, we tried to use a different phosphonium, but used the same reaction process. We let that sit overnight, again. We realized that letting it sit overnight has a higher percentage that it works. 

Friday, June 16

Today, right when I got into the lab, we had a meeting to meet a new potential Postdoctoral  student. Getting to see her research was very interesting. After the meeting, we checked in on our solution that we left overnight. We filtered it, and got a solid, after using the rotovap on it. We still did not get our product. We had many more meetings that day. It was almost the weekend, so we didn’t want to start another reaction, so I just worked on some more practice problems to grow my knowledge on the chemistry used in this lab. We had our weekly group meeting at 2. At this meeting, one person explains what they are working on, another presents a new research paper, and another provides a practice sheet of problems to solve. These chemistry problems were very difficult, but it was cool to talk to other students about how to solve the problem.

When we got home, we made breakfast for dinner. We had a movie night as well, which was a nice way to wind down from the week.

Saturday and Sunday, June 17 and 18

I went to the beach on Saturday with the other PinHead students that I am living with. The beach was a little crowded, but it was nice to have just a chill, perfect day by the beach. It was nice to have the opportunity to bond more with the girls. Then on Sunday, we are just having a chill day at the house, and plan to watch the sunset on the beach tonight.