Pharmacy Research Day

Yesterday we had the Research Day at the School of Pharmacy. We have been trying to organize this for a decade at least now, and during the COVID-19 pancemic we had one distantly, which was very successful. But that was, I think 2021, so 2 years ago, and at that time we lacked the social activites, obviously, which are highly needed for networking. At the end, one of the main aims of this event is not only to get more familiar what kind of research is done at the School of Pharmacy, but also to promote collaboration within the School, as the staff and projects are changing all the time. 

This year, I think it was again a success, and very well organized, so big thank you for the organizers. It also showed again, how important these events is to have, at least every second year, if not every year. 

What synthesis actually is?

I realized as we were labeling our final products, that since establishing my research group about 10 years ago, we have produced over 200 final compounds in total. 

200 compounds in 10 years may not sound a lot, only 20 per year, and 1.6 per month, but usually one compounds involves several synthetic steps and in most cases each step needs to be optimized, which means find the right temperature, solvents and other incredients, just like making a perfect cake. And then each intermediate needs to be purified that is isolated from the unreacted reagents and side products. So in that sense 1.6 per month is a pretty nice result.

Each intermediate and final compound needs also be characterized at least with NMR, but also with mass spectrometry, to make sure we really have the right compound in hands. That means a lot of information, and before we started to do everything electronically, I collected everything in these files (below)... 😂 Thanks for COVID-19, we got some sense with this issue! But anyway, I think we should have celebrated our 200, once we received it! Well, perhaps, later! Thank you chemists and non-chemists for your hard work!

1st of May

Spring is fantastic time, not only I will wake up again, but also the nature around us! Although it has been a late and relatively cold spring so far, the increasing daylight is warmly welcome! Last Friday, we celebrated the First of May in our coffee room with traditional donuts and sima, a drink containing raisins, which I can't even explain... Well, sima is a typical Finnish fermented non-alcoholic soft drink, like lemonade. But definitely home-made! 

Anyway, a tradition in Kuopio in May Day Eve is also to dip one of the University's professor into the waterpool in the market place. This year, we had the honor, and our Head of The School took the responsibility and presented our Faculty proudly. See more from the local news (link). This was the 50th professor in the history and Prof. Ketolainen was selected most likely since our School of Phamracy is celebrating 50th anniversary this year. More about that behind this link (in Finnish unfortunately). So this year will be pretty interesting and nice events are around the corner!