Hello everyone! My name is Giada Amundson and I am doing organic chemistry at Scripps. This is my 4th week, with 3 weeks left of this internship. I can’t believe I am over halfway through my internship!
Monday, July 3
Today, we don’t have work because it is Independence Day, so we had a chill morning. Then, we got out of the house and went to dinner. Then we went to get chai tea and sit at the bay and watch the fireworks. We sat on the edge of the bay as the fireworks shot off above the water.
fireworks by the bay
Tuesday, July 4
On Tuesday, Natalie and I went to downtown San Diego. It was nice to visit downtown and adventure around the area. We walked around and shopped a little bit. We got lunch and then shopped some more. Then we went back to the house and watched fireworks go off all around us.
Wednesday, July 5
I started my morning by making a prep plate for my Wittig reaction. A prep plate is how you can separate the E and Z isomers. Isomers are the same molecule but in different configurations. I separated the two isomers and collected both the E and Z and then rotovapped them down into a solid. Then I made two more of my original product. It is going to stir overnight again. After lunch, I took many NMRs of the E and Z isomers from this morning. I took different types of NMRs that most of the students in my lab have never even done before. Some of the specific NMRs that I took were NOESY, COSY, HSQC, and a couple of other NMRs. These take a lot of time, and I have to code the machine to do it while my sample is in there.
Thursday, July 6
This morning, I cooled and filtered the products that I made yesterday. I took an NMR of both products and got a good yield on them. I then started making another of my Witting reactions, this time on a larger scale, so that it will be easier to separate the E and Z. Meanwhile, my mentor got another mentee, so he was showing her around the lab. She is going to be doing similar work to me. In the afternoon, I used the rotovapped solids of the isomers from yesterday, and I recrystallized them. I got nice even crystals and then I crushed them into a fine powder so that they can be used for another reaction. Figuring out how to separate both of these isomers was difficult, but now that they are separate, I can do different reactions to test them under other conditions.
Friday, July 7
I started today by cooling the larger Wittig reaction that I made yesterday. I rotovapped it down into a solid. And then, I had to add some other liquid so that I can put all of it together in a column. I had to do a column this time, rather than a prep plate because this is on a much larger scale. I put my product in almost 2 liters of solvent. For the column, I had to fill over 150 test tubes with the solvent and product mixture. After I ran the column, I had the E product come out in the first 50 test tubes, and then the Z product didn’t show up until almost the end of the column. I separated the E and Z into their distinct containers and rotovapped them into solids. I will work with these next week. We then had our weekly group meeting at 2, and since there were 3 new people in the lab this week, they all presented their previous research.
me running a column
padres baseball game
Saturday and Sunday, July 8 and 9
On Saturday, I had a nice beach day to myself. I read and swam most of the day, and it was super relaxing. We also went to the San Diego Padres baseball game that night. It was so much fun, and they won! On Sunday, we are just having a chill day at the house, and then going to dinner and watching the sunset again tonight.
Giada, it sounds like there are a lot of challenging components to your pinternship. What has been the most challenging part of your pintership? The firework picture is beautiful!
I think that the most challenging aspect of my pinternship so far has been learning how to start up a reaction. Once I run a reaction one time, then I know what I need to do for it next time.
Very interesting research! Glad you have some chill time too!