Sailing, Strawberries, and Bike First Aid

Lab crisis of the week.  Last week a round bottom flask with my product fell into the water bath of the rotovapper. Friday I spent all day extracting it with ether and ethyl acetate only to run it through a column and get 7% product out.  Kind of frustrating because we were hoping to divide this one up and make a few different things. So today we continued on with the next step of the synthesis using what we had and boiled the water out of the water layers from the extraction. I extracted those again and was able to get a little bit of product out of them.  I also extracted the blue paper towels that I used to wipe out the water bath and got some product out of that too. It's really dirty but product all the same.  That's real science kids.

Life crisis of the week: My second day here, I was biking home across some cobblestones and managed to get a flat tire. I found the air pumps and fixed it, no problem.  Fast forward a month.  This past weekend, we took a nice bike ride around the country side to Haus Ruschhaus and the tire decided to give out about 1 km from our destination.  After walking the rest of the way, we were able to put the bike in the car and then drive back to the house where we spent the afternoon patching up the inner tube of the tire with this little bike first aid kit. By the time I left that evening, it looked like the tire would hold up.  It had three new patches and was holding air just fine.  But then this morning on my way to the university, I sensed another flat coming and sure enough, halfway there, I was bouncing and clanking all over. I walked my bike back straight to the bike store (which is conveniently right across the street from where I live) and was able to buy a new tube.  After choir practice(more on that in a sec), we took the bike back to the family friends' house and he graciously spent the next 30 minutes taking the bike apart to install the new tube.  I cannot thank them enough. And now my bike is good to go again!

I sing in a choir! We rehearse every Wednesday night and there's a concert in a few weeks.  Now there's a story behind this choir.  This is the same choir that my parents met in 30 years ago, with the same director.  Once I found out I'd be in Munster for the summer, my dad called him and asked if I could sing with them for this concert.  He said of course and before I even knew that he had said yes, he had already announced to the choir that an American would be joining them.  There's still a few people in the choir that have stayed in Munster that remember my parents.  I'm the youngest by at least twenty years although last week we got another young person around my age. It's been a lot of fun, expecially since it's been a while since I've sang in a legit choir.

I did a lot of little things this past weekend.  Thursday I was done with work rather early so I went to the Friedensaal - literally translated peach chamber.  This is where the peace treaty that ended the Thiry Years' War was signed.  A pretty important bit of history.

 

My supervisor is a rapper.....so I went to his show on Friday night. 

Saturday, we went sailing on the Aasee.  There wasn't too much wind but it was still nice to enjoy the sun.

 

Das Ruschhaus - the house of Annette von Droste-Hulshoff- a poet 

Sunday I spontaneously decided to go to Koln (Cologne) for a few hours so I found a ride on a site similar to Zimride.   Once in the city, I climbed to the top of the cathedral and then just wandered around the city and along the Rhein. I watched some street performers while enjoying ice cream.The cathedral itself is a massive structure.  Not the most beautiful but still impressive.  It took over 600 years to be finished because the building was interrupted many times. Now there is almost always some sort of construction going on to fix it up.

So many love locks!

Monday was another holiday so I went Oma's house for coffee and cake with my aunt, uncle, cousin, and other uncle. It was practically half a family reunion. And I ate my weight in strawberries.  They're right in season right now and just so delicious. I can't get enough of them.

Monday night it practically hurricaned.  There was a massive thunderstorm an Tuesday morning there were trees and branches down everywhere.  People couldn't get to work because the train tracks were blocked.  They also canceled school for Wednesday in some areas because they determined it wasn't safe for the kiddos.  I went for a run while it was storming though and it was so great.  I came back completely drenched. Don't worry, I stayed away from the trees.  

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.

That time I almost chloroformed myself....

Lab story of the week. I was doing an extraction last week with chloroform and almost knocked myself out with the fumes. Now we do work in a hood so that we don't inhale but I had it pretty open because it's hard to do extractions when it's down since you need to shake the separatory funnel.  When I opened the bottle to pour some in, I got a big whiff of it and definitely felt a little light-headed. I pulled the hood down though and that solved the problem. Lesson learned. I also broke my first round bottom flask.

This past week I continued to work in the lab like usual.  On Friday, all docentes met with Professor Lehr to talk about the research they've been working on.  Since I've been doing a lot of the experimentation for the past two weeks, I got to give our little spiel. Didn't go too horribly. I'm still getting used to all the chemistry terms in German. The pronunciation throws me sometimes.

Picture time! I spent my first weekend with our family friends that live right outside of Muenster.  They have been wonderful in helping me get adjusted to the day to day life and taking me to see different things around town.  Friday afternoon, I took a walk around the Botanical Gardens behind the Schloss, which is an old castle but houses a lot of the University offices now. Saturday we went to the Aasee (the big lake), stopped by the three places my parents have lived, and Muehlenhof (an outdoor museum).

In the background you can see two of the many cathedrals of Muenster.

My parents' first apartment together

Last Thursday, I went to the zoo! We have a "brother dorm" on the next street over and sometimes they host events/plan trips together.  This time it was a night tour of the zoo. Unfortunately since it was so late, a lot of the animals were asleep but we're planning on going back during the day sometime.  It poured right before we were supposed to leave so it was rather wet and a little cold compared to the beautiful weather earlier that week but we still had a lot of fun and I met some more people. The amount of times I've had to explain my life story is ridiculous.

This past weekend, I took the train to Marl where my aunt and uncle live.  My cousin was home for the weekend so we went to Duesseldorf and did some shopping. I had my first doener, which is a delicious Turkish fast food sandwich with either chicken or lamb, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a cream dressing.  Delicious. It reminded me a lot of churascoes from Guatemala.  After taking the train back on Sunday, I took a nice long bike ride to Kinderhaus, a little town a few kilometers north of Muenster.  It is on the list my parents made me because that's where they got married! Quick history fact: Kinderhaus (translation: children's house) originated as a hospital for lepers to stay at.  Since they had to be kept away from the healthy public, they went there to get treatment. There was a little museum to look through that had all sorts of information about it.

That's the church!

I love the Fachwerk-style architecture- the white with brown posts and a red roof. It's typical German Ruhrgebiet-farmland

And here a bunch of random pictures that I've taken over the past few weeks. I enjoy getting lost wandering around town on my bike or walking and then I find these random places.

There was a beach volleyball tournament set up in front of the Schloss this weekend. Casual.

The little kitchen on my hall

Prinzipalmarkt-an area with a lot of shops and it's just beautiful.

The flat part on the left is for you to wheel your bike up/down. It's rather handy.

And one last one- this is my new second-favorite dessert, ice cream still being the first. Strawberries from the market and vanilla vla.  Vla is a sort of pudding from Holland and it's so so so good. 

The First Few Days

 I have arrived and survived the first few days! I haven't taken very many pictures yet so this one's a little word heavy but pictures will come soon! Future posts will be less words and more pictures.

  

Obligatory sunrise from the plane picture

I landed on Saturday afternoon and went straight to my Oma's house. We went to church-the same one I was baptized at when I was a baby.  They’ve redone the inside since the last time I was there but this year is the 100-year anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone.  I always find it fascinating that the churches are so old over here compared to the churches in the US that are completely rebuilt every 30 years. The chapel is over 1,000 years old.

The church (Picture from here)

My grandmother's backyard

Sunday evening I moved into my room at the Studentinnenburse, which is a dorm-like building run by nuns.  There is no “on-campus” housing in Europe in general.  The university itself is kind of spread out across the city making dorms kind of difficult.  Instead you have student housing like this one- sometimes organized by the city, sometimes private.  There are also WGs (Wohngemeinschaften).  They are normal apartments that groups of students rent together, very similar to what we have in the US.  You can also rent a single room apartment with a kitchen and bathroom but those can be on the more expensive side.  Where I’m living I have a small room – and I mean small- to myself and share a bathroom and kitchen with the hall of girls.  I believe there are 15 of us on the hall? Everyone has a cupboard and a shelf in the fridge for all their stuff. 

Monday morning began my first day in the lab.  We had coffee with a few of the other professors, doctoral students, and lab assistants.  And for now, when I saw “we,” that will generally mean Helmut (my supervisor) and I.  The Pharma Institute is a brand-new building- only a year old- so they have a lot of fancy new instruments.  Lunch was at the Mensa which is cafeteria style. You can go upstairs or downstairs depending on what you like of what’s on the menu.  It’s buffet style: you grab a tray, a plate of the main dish that you wanted and then three side dishes. It was better than JMU and JMU has pretty good food.  During the afternoon, Helmut teaches the lab of the 3^rd Semester of the Pharmacy students so I watched/helped/took part in that.  They’re in Instrumental right now so I tagged along with two groups learned a bunch about GC (gas chromatography) and IC (ion chromatography).  Tuesday we did essentially the same thing, but they rotated instruments so I learned about HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) and IR (infra-red spectroscopy).  For each instrument, they had a different assignment, usually involved developing a calibration curve with 5 differently concentrated solutions and then some unknowns that they have to qualify and quantify based on that.  They record their answers in a little book and then get a certain amount of points based on how correct they were.  Within 3% error is 4 points, within 7 is 3, etc.  By the end of the semester they need to have a certain amount of points to pass.  So much of the German university system is so different so I’ll do an entire post dedicated to that as I gather more information. 

The Pharma Institute building

I started my first synthesis on Wednesday! So I am interning for Helmut, who is a doctoral student writing his thesis.  His research is around this molecule which has the potential to act as an FAAH inhibitor.  It has been determined that the molecule is effective so now it's a matter of improving it/varying small bits of it to maximize its efficiency. [skip this if you're not interested in science-y details] We heated the reagents in an oil bath, TLCed the heck out of it to figure out if it actually reacted, roto-vap, extraction, dry on silica, roto-vap and then the best part. We had a demo on an instrument that runs a column for you! You can buy pre-packed columns or pack your own but then you hook up your solvents, press some buttons, and separates your sample. It has a UV detector that detects different peaks and will fill a new test tube.  Very expensive of course but we have it for a few days to try out so we ran some of our sample through and it separated it pretty well.  Tomorrow we'll run a few columns by hand and see how they compare.  

The lab

A little bit of lifestyle: 

- I ride a bike to University every day.  Sometimes I take unplanned detours on the way back but that's ok. I get to see some of the city that way.  The amount of bikes is ridiculous. There's bike lanes and bike stoplights.  I usually take the Promenade, which is basically this big path that makes a ring around the inner part of the city.  There's trees on either side and people go running there too.  Horrible explanation but there's a picture below.

The Promenade- taking a picture while biking is difficult

- There is a little grocery store on my way back from the university where I get my groceries.  No plastic bags-everyone brings their own so I just put everything in my backpack.  It kind of limits me to that amount but it's better that way. It's on my way so just buying what I need for dinner for a few nights has been working just fine.  

One side of the grocery store

- It is cold and rainy. Not the summer weather I'm used to at all.  It's supposed to be around 70 next week and everyone is going nuts. There is a saying in Muenster that says, roughly translated, "In Muenster, either the church bells are ringing or it's raining, and when both at the same time, it's Sunday." Fortunately I have not been caught in a downpour while riding my bike but it's bound to happen. I'm getting good use of my raincoat and I have rain pants just in case.

- There's churches galore, hence the other part of that saying. There's at least 15 in die Aldstadt (~Old City, the innermost part) alone.

That's all for now! Sorry it's kind of long...a lot of general information to get out at once.  Please let me know of any specific questions or things you'd want me to include in posts.