First Week in the Lab

I´ve settled in quickly to the rythm of my new job here. My researching is going well despite having no real expertise in information technology. But if there is one thing I can do better than anyone here in the lab it is speak, read, and write English, and since my searches are all in English (being the international scientific language), I feel well-qualified in that regard.

A typical day goes like this:

Wake up at 6:45 (already sunny and hot--to me at least)

Eat breakfast (some combination of bread, cheese, eggs, bananas, or yogurt)

Catch the bus (the 123, 127, or 177--I don´t know where all the rest go but apparently its not where I want). Buses here are quite different from buses in Seattle. There is no time schedule, you just flag the bus like you do a taxi, and if he´s not going too fast (they drive pretty aggressively here) than he´ll stop and you can jump on. It´s a quick transition, and if the bus starts to leave as you get to the stop a typical strategy is to slap the bus and yell as you run along side, then jump on when he slows down (just tried it yesterday, worked great). People also frequently get on and off the bus in the middle of traffic, if we hit gridlock pedestrians just navigate through the cars, and get on and off buses. Much of the way the buses run here seems common-sensical, more efficient, and more user-friendly. Yet maybe our stifling rules in the States are there for a reason; here is what happens to buses that get out of control in Brazil:

Over-excited bus driver combined with twisty road.

I found this bus while on my way up to the statue of Christ the Redeemer. The bus had completely taken out a large tree and a thick concrete+rebar telephone pole.


Arrive at work at 8:00. Here is our awesome crew at the INT lab:

 Left to right: Me, Javier, Dr. Viridiana Santana Ferreira-Letão, Cristina, Patricia, Livian, Anete, Lorraine, and Lucia. This is my whole lab except for Ana, who is in and out due to school.

Christina, Anete, Lorraine, and I are all new, so we´ve been getting all the introductory tours and meetings together.

Above is our HPLC (High Peformance Liquid Chromotographer) and Javier preparing to run some samples. We use the HPLC to find the concentrations of different molecules suspended in a liquid sample, for instance the concentration of disaccharides and monosaccharides dissolved in a sample of water. The HPLC works by pumping the samples through a steel column filled with a powder of some kind that works as an ion filter, slowing but not stopping particles with different charges and seperating particles of the same type into batches. These batches are then measured by UV reflection to determine the concentration.

Javier is currently working on a project trying to find a cheap and easy short-cut to produce disaccharides from monosaccharides for use in the ethanol production process. This part I´m still not 100% clear on but I think that the fungi grown in the lab (used to produce the enzyme which degrades sugars in the hydroloysis step) require disaccharides. These fungal enzymes normally breaks sugars down from larger to smaller components, but if added to a solution saturated with monosaccharides the reverse process can be achieved, yielding disaccharides. Afterwards Javier adds baker´s yeast, which will ideally consume only the monosaccharides, leaving the disaccharides alone, but in reality it hasn´t been working like that. Javier is testing different methods (incubation time, temperature, shaking, concentrations of inputs) to maximize the net gain of dissaccharides, and uses the HPLC to analyze the results of each trial.


Lunch break from 12 to 1. Last week I went out for lunch with a couple of my co-workers, to a couple different places where you load your own plate and pay per kilo. ~$7-8 for lunch was pretty normal, but this weekend I made a big dinner of rice, beans, and greens to take to work for lunches:

Most people here bring food and I figured it would be a more economicaly sustainable choice.

On Thursday we had Professor James Clark from York, UK, visit us here at INT in Rio and talk about his work with Green Chemistry. It was an interesting lecture, and since he presented in English I was able to understand completely, and help translate for my colleagues. The focus of his talk was the importance of finding renewable alternatives to the petroleum-based chemicals we have become so dependant on. Everything from computers to chairs contain things like flame retardents, adhesives, and other synthetic materials that we make with petroleum.

His solution is to develope biorefineries that can process waste biomass (corn husks, orange peels, green coconut shells, cofee grounds, etc) into the basic constituents of these chemicals. This would serve a number of purposes, such as limiting our reliance on non-renewable sources and therefore ensuring we won´t suddenly run out, reducing our waste, and diminishing pollution via use of "biochemicals" that will break down in the environment rather than persist like many current chemicals and biomagnify to cause damage to plants, animals, and ecosystems.

This is not a novel idea, the basic technology has been here for decades. But the status quo is becoming less and less sustainable. Pressure to change comes from increasing petroleum prices, increase costs of dealing with waste, increasing energy costs, stricter legislation, and increasing public concern. As incentive mounts to change our ways people like Dr. Clark want to be well-positioned to capture and channel the transition into "Green Chemistry." As the economic and other incentives come into play and get more people involved, the efficiency and technology will follow. Or so is the hope.

 

You can see me on the far left of the first pic and far right of the lower pic.

Other interesting ideas from Dr. Clark included tapping into our waste for valuable resources. Landfills have become more concentrated sinks for precious metals than many mines around the world, and if we took advantage of plants that naturally soak up and collect metal we could essentially mine our trash.

It was an interesting lecture and when I asked some questions at the end I think Dr. Clark was suprised to hear me speaking; the first thing he said was "that doesn´t sound like a Brazilian accent." I think I was the only foreigner present in the audience.

Catch a bus back home a little after 5:00, go for a run on Botafogo beach right next to my apartment building. Dark by the time I get back inside. I´ve moved to a different apartment building since my first blog update, my roommates Adriana and Andre were moving out and I had to go too. Now I´m staying in an apartment in the same neighborhood, Botafogo, but closer to the beach and to where I catch the bus. I have two roommates here too, Ligia and Biannca. They are both super nice and put up with my ignorance (like how I get yelled at every time I close a taxi door because apparently Americans all slam doors shut) and my odd cooking (adding red pepper flakes to beans??! and making banana bread?--I had to try but with all the ingredients so different here and no measuring devices it turned out...different).

 

My new bedroom, the permanent bed being a noticeable improvement over my last room. I even have my own bathroom and shower, which quite ingeniously have been combined into the same small space so every time I take a shower I am rinsing down my toilet.

 

Unlike my room, the living room is quite spacious.

Go to bed between 11 and 12.




My pilgrimage to the statue of Christ

I spent most of Sunday walking through Rio and then running up the switch-backing streets to the top of Corcavado, the famous statue of Christ overlooking Rio. Many cars passed me, probably wondering why the heck I was running up there. In Washington it seems quite common to hike up high places like mountains to get epic panaramic views, and the harder the hike the more enjoyable the view. Here that sentiment is not so common. But it sure was worth my run to get the views from up there.