Teaching going on

Since the academic semester is fully going on, I have also my yearly teaching duties to take care of. This year, I'm teaching in a new class, well, I have taught in this course 11 years ago... but the content is still the same. It is a course for first year students and it is their first organic chemistry laboratory work course. What we will learn there? Firstly, the synthesis acetyl salicylic acid and purifying it by re-crystallization. Then identifying it and its purity by measuring the melting point. Secondly, to identify the main functional groups in the organic molecules with specific detective reactions. And thirdly, to separate a mixture of compounds based on their solubility/lipophilicity (extration) and boiling points (by distillation). Most of all, the main topic is to work safely in the organic chemistry laboratory. After full week of working with 20 years younger ones, I feel so refreshed. 😂 Another week to go!

P.S. The figure is not related to this weeks' teaching.

The group is getting bigger and bigger

We have had a change in the research group size lately. Firstly, Santosh, who was with his personal funding for the past 2 years, is now a full staff member, working mainly on the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation project and neuronal drug delivery. Then, in the beginning of this month, also Sema Tuna Torunoglu from Turkey started as a postdoc. We were lucky to get an employment assistance funding for her and currently are we are applying personal grants to get her postdoctoral research going on. 

Then, in September, 2 new Ph.D. students Adela (from Czech Republic) and Ville (our own Pharmacy student) started, in Jane and Aatos Erkko project and Sigrid Juselius project, respectively with (pro)drug analysis and proteomics (Adela) and molecular modelling (Ville). In the Juselius project, the neuronal drug delivery is also the main aim, but the approach is different. And of course, Janne, Ahmed, Hamed and Andy are continuing with their Ph.D. works, but this semester they all have had extra helping hands in the lab also, as we have had the pleasure to have so many ERASMUS students in our group. 

Agathe from the University of Grenoble Alpes (in France) started already in August to work with Andy, then also Anna from the University of Barcelona and Palbo from the University of Valencia joined our group in early September, to work with Hamed and Andy. So they all are doing (pro)drug synthesis. What a medicinal chemistry team we have! 😀 To add up, also Heini, our Pharmacy Master student started to work with her synthesis thesis couple of week ago. But back to the ERASMUS students, in mid-September, Petra from Charles University (Czech Republic) came to work with Janne and now this week, also Yanis from France started to work with Janne with (pro)drug analysis. I must have forgot someone... But anyway, I superhappy and proud of our joyful but productive team! 😍 Now I'll have the challenge to keep up with you, guys!

Ruska 2022

This year we had the second DrugTech Ruska Event, and again in Koli, like last year. This year we were little bit later than last year and the actual Ruska, the autumn colors, were almost gone, while last year, we were too early and the colors were not yet visible, everything was still very green. Anyway, nice scientific presentations mainly focused on the innovation possibilities of our research. And of course, some leisure time in a beautiful scenery.

Sports Afternoon

This week our university organized a sports afternoon, which means that all the staff can go to do some sport activities on the afternoon and no teaching was allowed during that time. This action is part of the UEF occupational well-being and there was a wide variety of different exercise options available both indoors and outdoors, and arranged by external partners. Our technicians picked up an escape room and there was just enough space for me also to join the game. Don't ask, whether it was sport or not, but at least in this room our heartbeats were accelerated. The story was about lunatic teachers, but at the end the students were the ones who made them go crazy... 😂 So closely related to our jobs too!