My first PhD unit at ITQB was a bit disappointing because it was all about protein structure, amino acid properties and chemical bonds, and my work is more about DNA and RNA. However, I really enjoyed when in the last week we were presented with a case study and asked to solve it using several of the techniques that we had discussed in classes.
Also, we were taken on a equipment tour to see the really cool machines used in all those techniques.
The time-resolved phosphorimeter uses a pulsed laser to study dynamic processes in chemical compounds on a time scales as short as 10 to the power of 14 seconds.
Crystallography uses x-rays to determine the atomic resolution structure of proteins.
crystalized protein being hit by x-rays ...
... and a pretty image of the crystal's diffraction pattern
(black dots are electrons)
Raman spectroscopy uses a laser beam to study chemical bonds and symmetry of molecules based on the vibration and rotation of the particles.
The NMR machine uses powerful magnets to generate strong magnetic fields that can be applied to the nuclei of atoms in order to determine the structure of organic compounds.
A "small" magnet ...
... and the second most powerful magnet ever built ...
... with its 5 gauss line. The magnetic field inside the line is more than ten times stronger than the earth's magnetic field.
We also saw a UV/vis spectrophotometer, CD spectropolarimeter and an EPR machine... but I don't want to bore you to death :)
1 comment:
haha, very nerdy, you look adorable though!
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