A Weekend in Review: Amsterdam

I have been receiving notices from some people very closely related to me that I have not been posting enough...so here is my weekend post.

[science-y part- skip if not interested]
The lab is going well-we've been working on a few different compounds with varying degrees of success. Most of our research group was in Cologne for the day for a presentation on another flash chromatography instrument but I stayed here and worked with Wally, our CTA (chemical technical assistant).  Once we've synthesized our molecule, we give it to her and she tests it against the enzyme to see if it actually does what its supposed to.  Our group is focused on FAAH inhibitors so they have developed an assay to test all of the molecule with. The goal is for the molecule to inhibit, or break apart, the FAAH enzyme.  I pipetted various concentrations of diluted solutions of the compounds into a little plastic capsule with a phosphate buffer solution and the enzyme. These were incubated for an hour and then put into the HPLC machine where they are tested.  The resulting peaks from the HPLC correspond to how much enzyme is still left in the sample which can be translated into how much the molecule inhibited it.  Different concentrations (1uM, 0.33uM, 0.1uM, 0.033uM, etc) are tested to see which concentration will result in a 50% inhibition, known as the IC50 value. Other factors are also tested, like stability in the body, metabolism, etc. From there, its in the hands of those big pharmaceutical companies.  If they are interested in a successful compound, they'll buy it and then produce it on a large scale in the form of a drug.  Of course that takes another few years because of all the additional testing that has to be done but that's the general idea of the process.  Make sense? Good. Moving on.

This is the paper that my supervisor and his supervisor just published on the molecules we're working on. You may or may not be able to access it but at least the abstract is there and one of the molecules. http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/md/c4md00181h#!divAbstract

Oooo pretty colors

Travel bits.
Last Thursday was a holiday so I took Friday off as well and made it into a long weekend.  On Thursday the family friends and I drove out to Schloss Nordkirchen which is a castle not far from Munster. It's called the Westfälischen Versailles, the Versailles (that big pretty castle outside of Paris) of Westfalen. It was finished in 1734 and built for the Fürstbischof Friedrich Christian von Plettenberg-Lenhausen.  In the 1950s, the land bought it and now its the Fachhochschule fur Finanzen Nordrheinwestfahlen, the finance school of this bundesland.  People go to school and live in the castle.  How cool is that?!

 

And a massive garden. I can just picture the students having classy parties with parasols out there.

On the way back we stopped at Burg Vischerring.  We were trying to think of the English translation for burg but couldn't think of the right word.  It's somewhat of a small castle but used as protection.  Similar to a military fort? Either way, it's cute and has a little moat and a bakery where I bought rosinenstuten, my 3rd favorite bread, after broetchen and baguette.

Friday morning my cousin and I headed towards Amsterdam with a stop in Arnheim for some shopping.  Lunch was Dutch frites and fricadel and a stroopwafel for dessert. Frites are thicker fries with a variety of sauces but I prefer just mayo.  A fricadel is something to a bratwurst or sausage. and stroopwafelen are a delicious waffle with caramel.  I could live off them.

Yummmmmmm

The grocery store had these convenient little scanner things- you scan your items as you go along and pay at the end.

We headed towards Amsterdam for the evening and met up with my friends Lea and Michelle for dinner at an ethopian restaurant.  Lea is a friend from high school studying in Groningen, a city in northern Holland while Michelle is another high school friend that I've known since 6th grade.  It's crazy how we all happened to be in the same city at the same time.  At this restaurant you order a few different things and it comes on a big pancake like thing on a platter with different sauces.  We had chicken, fish, beef, and a vegetarian one.  There was another pancake like thing that you used to pick up the food and eat. So yes we ate with our hands.  It was very different and also very delicious.

Saturday morning my cousin and I visited the Anne Frank Museum. We had to wait quite a while because many people had the same idea but the museum itself was nice.  It is an exhibition through the house where Anne Frank and her family were hiding during the Holocaust. I'd say it's worth a visit but only if you get there first thing in the morning so you don't have to wait that long.  Unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures inside but here are some other pictures of Amsterdam.

This is the room we stayed in....yes 10 people total. It was pretty quite though...until they started packing up at 7 the next morning.

Hey look I'm in a picture

The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around the city.  We had planned on taking a walking tour but that fell through so we made up our own.  The houses along the canals are adorable and I definitely plan on taking a canal tour when/if I visit the city again.

The locks on bridges trend has made its way here too

And I think that's enough for now. Thanks for reading! And as always, let me know if you have any questions about what I'm doing, or Germany, or anything.