I'm so excited about this, that I just have to share!
This year to celebrate the 4th of July (I work for an American company), all of the departments directly related to R&D are being given free reign to do
whatever we want on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th. There are prizes involved for ideas/outputs that are the most fun/creative/have the most potential, and I'm really looking forward to it!
It's so easy to get caught up in the routine of work and getting things done, due to timelines and commitments, but do any of your companies do something similar? From my understanding, this is something that's an integrated part of Google, and I think it's a move in the right direction--something all companies could learn from. My department is full of brilliant people, and I've already heard of some really good ideas!
Mine so far?
1. Participate in the Harlem Shake that one colleague is organizing in one of the labs.
2. Shadow two of the girls I share a commute with (I always hear about what they do, but wouldn't mind experiencing it!)
3. Do an overnight experiment on a Controlled Release Tablet for one of our compounds.
Here's where I go nerdy:One of our typical experiments is a Dissolution-- where you put the capsule/tablet in a Simulated Gastric/(Fasted State) Intestinal Fluid at body temperature, to see how rapidly the drug dissolves/ if you get the desired release profile. There are no good models to simulate a "Fed State"
So we're going to spend the morning cooking a full breakfast (according to the FDA's guidelines: 2 eggs, 240mL milk, 2 slices of toast, 3 hashbrowns, 2 strips of (American) bacon), Blend it all up, then head to work and add this blend to a representative volume of naturally occurring gastric fluid in the
designated apparatus and let it come to body temp. If we overcome this hurdle (ie: if it's not too thick for the paddles to rotate), we'll then add the tablet, and take samples at various timepoints up to 24 hours, and measure its pH, viscosity, etc (if possible --could be that the whole thing spoils!)
We then have hurdle of extracting the drug from this complex matrix of food to get a clean enough sample for analysis. This is hurdle #2, and the one I've been challenged with. If we can get that to work, and the data isn't impossible to analyse, we will be able to compare it to data previously generated in a clinical trial!
Done being nerdy:Regardless of whether it works or not, I think it will be an interesting experiment to carry out -- Both the actual scientific experiment, and the three days of "Independent thinking"/creativity. It certainly helps that I like my colleagues, too!
Woo hoo!!!
