You Play To Win The Game!

"You play to win the game!" - Herm Edwards


One of the most classic and iconic lines from a professional sports coach.  And it really sums up why we play sports and games.  Those of us who have that competitive nature instilled within us find ourselves playing to win at everything we do.

For those of you who know me, I enjoy playing sports (and games but this post is about sports specifically).  And you also know that I am a very competitive person.  I love to win and hate to lose.  For the past six years of my college career I have participated in intramural sports at Purdue but last night I finally won a championship and got my IM Champs t-shirt.  For those of you outside of Purdue you probably won't care.  But as you walk around campus you see the distinct IM Champs shirts and really the only emotion you get is jealousy.  I wanted a championship so bad and I have been close in the past but finally, Team IPPH won 4v4 Sand Volleyball last night.  Look at my past teams...

I have played intramural basketball every year since Junior year of high school.  Starting way back in high school when Team 4.0 (as in GPA) beat the "Dream Team" assembled by now MLB closer Drew Storen, I knew I wanted to win intramural championships.  It is the ultimate who wants it more playground.  And basketball has been elusive for me to this day.  I have been on teams where I was nothing but a bench player who scored one bucket a game, to this last season when I led the team in scoring 15 ppg. But every year something goes wrong.  One year we lost to a team called the "Backstreet Ballers" and every player had nicknames that were Backstreet Boys' songs. A couple years we had a guy named Stu who accounted for 90% of our offense and we thought we couldn't lose if we get him the ball.  Turns out Stu can only do so much when it feels like he is playing 1v5.  Another year we had to play 4 on 5 in the tourney because of exam conflicts.  It just never worked out.

Justin Siller - Purdue QB and WR.
Also, intramural QB and center fielder.

I have also played tablet tennis, walleyball, and ultimate frisbee.  I made it to the finals of the team table tennis championships my freshman year and this last year made it to the final 8 in men's open table tennis. And my overall record in the BPPL (Brownsburg Ping Pong League) was 93-27.  So I take my table tennis seriously but so do a lot of people around here.  Looking back, walleyball and frisbee were just for fun, but at the time I really wanted to win.  I played flag football for four years and had a couple good teams.  My Junior year, my floor team from McCutcheon made it to the semi-finals of the dorm league before being upset on the second to last play of the game.  And my Senior year I played center for a team that had a guy at quarterback named Justin Siller.  Yeah, the same guy who led Purdue to a win over Michigan in 2008 and finished his senior season this last year as the leading receiver for the Purdue football team.  Evidently that wasn't legal for him to play and they waited until the middle of the playoffs to tell us (we were 5-0 and if I remember correctly were beating people by an average of about 30 points).

That same football team with Siller got me the closest I had been to wining a championship in a while the following spring in softball.  I was by far the worst player on the team and currently 4-5 of those guys now play for the Purdue Club Baseball team.  We lost in extra innings of the semi-finals of the Men's Open league. Since then I have been playing more and more softball, and starting this summer I will play in an actual Men's league in Lafayette (read as much more serious with an 18+ game schedule and sponsors and such).

Team IPPH - GFS Champions

That brings me to last night.  Our rag-tag sand volleyball team went undefeated and played a team in the finals that hadn't won a match in 3 years until they won 3 straight to get to the finals last night.  Honestly, there wasn't much drama outside of a 2 hour rain delay.  We handled them from the start and took care of business.  But I finally got that IM Champs t-shirt!  I remember writing about my softball team one of the first posts in the blog.  Well, better late than never, right?

This summer our department here in the College of Pharmacy (IPPH) is going to be playing sand volleyball again, basketball, and softball.  So the opportunity to win is there, but I the pressure is finally off of my shoulders and hopefully that will lead to more wins (and of course more fun).

Sacred Ground

Well everyone, it's Friday again.  It seems as though I forget about my this blog until Friday and then I remember that I want to put up some links.  However, today I probably should not be taking time out of the day to right a blog post but I have had an incredibly productive 10 days (more on that in a moment) and I really just want to spend a few minutes trying to put some thoughts down in cyber space to share with you all today.

Like I mentioned, I have essentially been on a 10 day school/work week.  Fall break was last Monday and Tuesday (10th and 11th) and thus I had a short week last week.  But as fate would have it I was asked to teach over the weekend, essentially eliminating my "weekend."  Thus I have been on campus from about 9-5 every day since last Wednesday.  Now, don't let that fool you, being a graduate student is also very flexible and I have had my fair share of down time.  But still, 10 straight days of being in the lab and constantly working on multiple projects has been yearning for a break.

Dr. Garnet E. Peck, Professor Emeritus
Purdue University, IPPH

With that said, I want to take a minute and discuss my experience at the 9th Annual Peck Symposium.  The Peck Symposium is hosted by the IPPH Department here at Purdue to honor Dr. Garnet E. Peck for his contributions not only to Purdue but to the world of pharmaceutics.  Dr. Peck is the lab instructor for the class I teach (I mainly teach coating, that's important for this next part).  Now I understood that Dr. Peck has had quite the impact on pharmaceuticals working with everything from tableting, to encapsulation, to coating.  But I did not know that he was essentially the pioneer of latex-based coatings that have been used in pharmaceuticals for thirty years.  So when I am teaching the coating lab and Dr. Peck walks into to inspect our work and says, "Those tablets look good!" that is more than just a professor telling you that you're doing it right.  To me, that is like Derek Jeter telling me I am a good hitter!  It is absolutely an honor to be working with someone of the caliber of Dr. Peck.  So yesterday was an eye opening day for me and my teaching experience.  But there is more...

The symposium featured speakers from across the country as well as a couple Purdue professors (including my own major prof. Dr. Taylor).  These speakers are from some of the top Universities/companies for both Pharmaceutical Sciences and research in general, including; University of Kentucky, University of Wisconsin, Johnson and Johnson, University of Connecticut, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of South Florida.  And I understand that when you are invited to speak at a conference that you humbly talk about how honored you are to speak at the event.  But, on multiple occasions the speakers kept referring to Purdue as "sacred ground" in the field of solid state chemistry (SSC).  I know that Purdue has been a leader in the SSC for pharmaceuticals but it astonished me that these people from across the country saw this opportunity to speak at Purdue as one of their most honored experiences.  I may take being at Purdue for granted some days but today I truly feel blessed to be at Purdue University studying at the "sacred ground!"

All in all, it was an inspiring day for myself and the rest of the grad students who attended the symposium.  Next year I will have a poster with some of my work presented at the symposium as a warm-up to the AAPS National Convention.  

Enough of me blabbering on.  I have only a couple fragments for you all this week...

-Two words, Quantum Levitation.  Check out a quick link here, but the video is freaking catnip for science nerds!!!

-I found this site on fluid dynamics and it is a great way to spend 5-500 minutes watching awesome physics videos of fluids.  I particularly like the bouncing water video (scroll down a little and you'll find it).

-

Fragmented Fragments

Alright, so I have been quite busy the last week and I am sorry but I do not have enough links for a full fragments.  However I will give an update on a few things happening around Purdue and elsewhere...

-Next week is the 9th Annual Peck Symposium at Purdue University hosted by our department (IPPH).  This year will focus on amorphous and crystalline solids, which is basically everything that our lab covers.

-Dr. Steve Byrn, a professor here in our department, is the chair of the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology and Education (NIPTE).  It consists of 10 Universities and last week the FDA awarded them a very large grant, up to 35 million dollars!

-Thanks goes to my brother Jacob (and Yahoo) for finding this awesome video of Dude Perfect and Brodie Smith in a trick shot showdown...it's pretty awesome!

-Twitter blew up last night with the announcement of another big recruit coming to Purdue for basketball...and there's even talk of a fab five (I'm looking at you Gary Harris)!

-This weekend I am teaching a regulatory class for industry professionals.  It is the same class that I teach during the school year, just crammed into three days.

-Lastly, I am headed to the West Lafayette at Lafayette Central Catholic football game tonight.  Both teams are undefeated (8-0) and both teams are number one in the state in their respective classes (WL-3A, LCC-1A).  Tonight's game is for a year of bragging rights, an undefeated regular season, and a conference title as both teams are in the Hoosier Conference.  Shout out to my pal Tommy for getting me tickets, considering they've sold 4500 for a high school football game!

Friday Fragments (9/30/11)

Well this week has been quite the crap-shoot of productivity.  At the times when I needed to be productive and get stuff done, I wasn't able to focus between the upcoming football, ridiculously ever-changing weather, and random activities around the lab.  And other times when I had time to just sit back and relax I decided to to go big instead of go home (my ass still hurts from plyometrics on Tuesday but whatever).  So, I have about an half hour to burn before my last requirement for the week on campus, my major professor's is giving a seminar to another department...and there's free refreshments!

Anyway, I wasn't prepared for a Fragments this week because I have just been lazy and forgotten to save interesting articles.  Plus, I have spent a good amount of my usual time spent of science and news articles looking at the Purdue vs Notre Dame preview and fantasy football stats. See Hammerandrails.com or BoiledSports.com for good Purdue sports blogs!

Side Note: Quick shout out to my brother, Adam, is 0-3 in our fantasy league but is by far the best manager I ever had in a fantasy league.  The dude writes extensive weekly reviews about the match-ups, previews upcoming games, and has created a ton of weekly "trophies" for me to waste time looking at during the week.  It feels some much more legit when I win!  Thanks dude! (I should also note that he isn't completely terrible at fantasy football, but he drafted Arian Foster [bust #1] and Peyton Manning before the surgery [bust #2]).

I digress, so I do have a few interesting links for you to finish your week up with...

-Being in the field of pharmaceuticals I get asked the same question a lot; "Why do drugs cost so much?"  I could (and will someday soon) explain the situation and my view on how the system works and how I believe it should work.  But until then here is a very well written article to explain some of the dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry.  I disagree with the idea thrown out at the end that the industry will enter an "Ice Age" soon but otherwise it is a very good article. (About 5-10 minute read)

-If you have ever seen those annoying QR codes and wondered what reasonable application they can have, look no further.  Wikipedia is going to start incorporating them into, well, anything and everything!  The Indianapolis Children's Museum is already using them.  I personally think this is a great idea!

-AlphaDog robot project...the video speaks for itself (hint: it's creepily awesome).

-I believe I may have noted about new injection techniques earlier but here is quick article about the advancement of needles and the future of injections.  This is standard IPPH stuff.

-Lastly, if you remember back in the spring there was talk of "alien life" found on earth.  Well, if you are really hurting to waste some time, this review over at PopSci.com is a great look at the debacle that is/was the "new life" form and the subsequent fallout for the scientists involved.

Alright that's all I got right now. Oh and don't forget to Boiler Up this weekend against the Crying Irish of Notre Dame!

An Outline to Grad School

Well, my first major graduate school requirement has been assigned to me for the spring semester.  I will be giving my “first required seminar” to the department.  I am both excited and nervous already.  Because of this I feel it’s only appropriate to give a little overview of how my graduate school outline looks. I originally was going to post a new “Under the Hood” featuring my topic for the seminar (and what will eventually become my thesis work) but I want to have a large background before I write that post so that I can accurately paraphrase, because in reality I would bet none of you really care.  But I appreciate all the site views and support for my blog regardless!

Anyway, if you go onto the Purdue IPPH website it has links for the curriculum and requirements but the links just lead to under construction pages.  So I will do my best to fill you.  The Pharmaceutics Ph.D. program is considered a five year program so I will break it down into those five years and what is expected.

Year One –

• Finish any pre-requisite classes (Physical Chemistry, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations, etc.).
• Take full course load of classes that are either helpful for your future research or helpful for background in you research area (Organic Spectroscopy, Statistical Design of Experiments, Computation Chemistry, etc.).
• STAY OUT OF TROUBLE academically!

Year Two –

• Begin working in the laboratory.
• Identify area of research for thesis (non-specific).
• Give “First Required Seminar” involving a literary review of relevant topics and preliminary data.
• Take a few more classes that could aid in your work (Properties of Solids, Crystallography, etc.)

Year Three –

• Continue lab projects.
• Take one or two more classes.
• Complete an “Oral Preliminary Exam” based on your direction of your thesis work.  Sometimes this is referred as an Opening Defense.

Year Four –

• Lab experiments.
• Write thesis.
• Enjoy life.

Year Five (and Beyond) –

• Give “Last Required Seminar” over your thesis research to the department.
• Complete your “Thesis Defense.”
• Submit your final “Thesis.”
• Get a job!

So as you can see there are essentially five big milestones for the graduate curriculum (bold).  I am excited because I am finally getting to start on the first one!  I guarantee you will be hearing much more about all of these as they come and go.

As for my First Required Seminar, that involves an hour presentation to all the professors and students in the department.  It is the stepping stone into giving presentations at conferences and preparing for the grind of publishing and defending work during and after graduate school.  Needless to say, this might be the least significant presentation I ever give professionally, but it will definitely keep me up a few nights in the near future!

Friday Fragments (6/10/11)

Well, it's Friday again! They seem to take forever getting here and yet they fly right by into the weekend.  I posted some interesting links below with some comments per the usual.  But before we dive into the world wide web let me give you a quick glance at how my summer is going.

Did you know...
most standard glass is an amorphous solid.
I'll explain next week!

A month into the summer and I am beginning to progress into to the grad research life.  I just finished a two week course on Pharmaceutical Solids.  The course, however long and monotonous it could have been at times, is quite motivational towards jump starting your own research projects.  Basically, the course consists one hour lectures taught back to back (sometimes up to 7 in a day) by a professor or scientist who is an expert in that particular field.  It is inspiring because all of the lecturers speak of when they were grad students and how they have progressed in their respective careers.  It is a privilege to have been taught by these people and I only hope I can do them justice with my own work.

Speaking of my own work, slow and steady seems to be the way to go.  I have just begun taking small amounts of data for my first study and I am slowly learning the ropes of working in the lab.  Some days it feels like being thrown to wolves because I am told what to do, not always how to do it (such as ordering new Nitrogen tanks).  But, I push aside my pride, ask someone who knows, and I get the job done.  Eventually, I won't feel like the new guy but for now I continue relating this time to that of freshman year of marching band or my first week of RA training.

The Pharmacy Building at Purdue (RHPH)

All in all, life in RHPH is going well.  Next week expect a piece on amorphous solids as that is what the majority of my research will entail  to some degree.  Ok, now for the reason you clicked on the link....here are your time-wasting fragments for today!

-A man from Berlin has been functionally cured of HIV.  It is quite remarkable and undoubtedly will lead to great advances in HIV research but the technique used to cure him was a bone marrow transplant (which can be fatal) and was intended to cure his leukemia, which it did.  The cool thing is that they discovered that the donor is one of the 1% of people in the world who is inherently immune to HIV.  I'll let that sink in for a moment.

-Dinosaurs, Dragons, and Chickens?  A paleontologist wants to create a dinosaur from a chicken by turning on old genes within the chicken DNA.  Thus, he wants to create the chickenosaurus!  And in Malaysia, the skeleton of a rare lizard has been unveiled, which resembles the modern day dragon.  And it is rightfully named the Malaysian Dragon.  Unfortunately, it is just a sculpture made from chicken bones.

-Yes this is a real sign in Indianapolis, Indiana.  It's a sad day to be Hoosier.

One of Intel's Atom Processors and a penny.

-And finally, in computer science news, Intel released news about it's upcoming line of processors.  It plans to defy Moore's law with it's line of Atom processors.  Moore's law basically state's that computing functions improve at an exponential rate over time (i.e. processing speed, memory capacity, chip size, etc).  Intel plans to make the new Atom chips which will improve faster than the predictions of Moore's law.  I don't know whether to be excited, scared, or both.




TGIF!

My New Lab Office!

I have finally been given an office space in the lab at the Pharmacy Building.  Until now I have been in temporary office space in the building.  Honestly, my new space is not that much better than my permanent space, but hey, I'll take it.  I took a few pictures on my phone, which means they are a little blurry.  The space is new for Taylor's lab group and I will be sharing the space with at least one other person (probably a visiting professor).

 Door into office...across from the Dean's Office!

The space needs to be rearranged...

I believe that is a chalkboard, I'll have my own chalkboard (kinda)!

There is a little lab bench but I believe it may end up holding a fridge and microwave, LOL.

My favorite part, the door has an actual sign on it for Research in IPPH.

So there are a few things I like about this new space.  First, it is on the 1st floor of the Pharmacy building.  Now the lab and the rest of Taylor's lab group offices on in the basement, but I will have air conditioning (shhh, don't let them know that).  Second, I am more of an independent worker, so having a space that only houses 2 or 3 people total will be best for me in the long run.  One negative is that it does not have a window but most labs in the building do not have windows, that's just the design of the building.  I will post new pictures once I am moved into the lab and have my desk set-up.  

Let's Get It Started (again)!

Well, well, well! It has been a while since I have posted anything, and all 3 of my followers have probably given up on this blog. However, I am back and have a mission. I will continue to give an inside look into my graduate school studies and the interesting people, places, and things I get to be involved with. But I will also publicize and promote anything science related that I deem interesting or significant.

One more thing, I will post a new writing every Sunday night (could be very early Monday morning) and I hope to get to the point where I post a paragraph or two every day. It is ambitious but I believe it is doable. So, let's get back to the grind...

Back in October, Purdue hosted the 8th Annual Peck Symposium. Named after the Emeritus Professor of Industrial Pharmacy at Purdue, Garnet E. Peck, the event highlights what's new and upcoming in the Pharmaceutical Industry. This year's event featured pediatric formulation advances and nanotechnology in drug delivery. Now, you can read the biographies and research of the presenter's here but I have a few notes of the conference that I took and thought would be interesting to share.

First, I am a naive, stupid little grad student. I know very little and also found myself to be way to ambitious about hearing what everyone had to say. There were 8 speakers who each gave 50 minute lectures on subjects well above my head, along with a formal lunch in the middle. I thought going into the event, "Oh, I can listen and take notes on interesting things throughout the day and could probably sneak out if I needed a break or two." Nope, there were just as many distinguished alumni and faculty as students and I found out really quickly that I was not prepared to sit through 8 hours of lecturing. The senior grad students lined the back of the room with their laptops while the other professors all had smart phones to occupy their time when the lectures got dry. I found myself sitting next to the department head of Purdue trying not to fall asleep, and I love this stuff! Oh well, I'll learn how to adapt to the environment.

Second, I slowly realized that I was surrounded by some of the best minds in the industry. Dr. Peck, of which the event was named for, has been around Industrial Pharmacy forever. He is the head of the lab class which I am a teaching assistant. He practically invented the idea of industrial and physical pharmacy (the name of my department at Purdue). Dr. Byrn, who was a speaker and I have taken a couple classes from in my undergraduate studies, was honored at lunch by have a volume of a Solid State Pharmaceutics Journal dedicated to him (only the second person to have this honor). Dr. Bryn is considered to be one of the father's of solid state chemistry analysis (which is the basis for my research in grad school). I feel I choose the right place to go to school for solid state research in industry. Oh, and congrats to Dr. Ei-ichi Negishi (pronounced "H. Na-gE-shE") who just won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and was one of the professors who helped develop the Spectroscopy course I am in currently.

All in all, I felt quite small in a field of which I used to feel fairly competent in. I aspire to one day be asked to speak at this symposium, because maybe then I will stay awake. As for now, I will begin my actual research in Dr. Taylor's group next semester. This semester I am finishing up some classes and I am a TA for a pharmaceutical processes course (students get to make acetaminophen tablets). I am working on a post outlining what my research will be geared toward soon, probably in the second installment of "Behind the Lab Bench!"

Behind the (Lab) Bench

As I walked on campus the other day I recognized a few sports players (b.t.w. Ryan Kerrigan is huge), I wondered what life would be like if students and future professionals were treated like star athletes in the media. So, I will be profiling some of my academic and professional ventures in a series called Behind the (Lab) Bench. I like this idea because instead writing entries in a dull, to the point voice, I can allow everyone to see how my minds works within my academic and career goals. This week...Recruiting!

Author's note: I originally wrote this piece in first person but it sounded ridiculous. So I tried it in third person, and now it just sounds only a little smug.

Ok science fans, let's take a look at one of the up and coming recruits in the pharmaceutics world.

Matt Jackson is a Midwest Pharmaceutical Science recruit for the Boilers Industrial and

Physical Pharmacy (IPPH) department. Being one of five new recruits for Purdue this, he is the only one from the Midwest which bodes well for this class as the more diversity within the

lab, the more collaboration. Matt graduated from Purdue in May of 2010 and decided on Purdue over Kentucky, Northeastern, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Matt said this about his decision, "Besides the location being close to home, Purdue's experience in solid state chemistry and close relationship with pharmaceutical industry ultimately pushed Purdue over the edge for my decision." Matt's undergrad career involved some research in the IPPH department under Dr. Taylor resulting in both a poster symposium and a published paper.

But now we focus on Matt's upcoming decision on which lab he will choose. If you follow Purdue IPPH closely, you know that Dr. Taylor has solidified her place within the IPPH department with her research in amorphous drug properties. You should also know that there is a new IPPH department head in Dr. Topp. At first, it looked as though Matt was recruited to come work for Dr. Taylor but now it seems to be a two horse race. Now Matt has shown interest in amorphous research so let's look at the tale of the tape...

Both lab groups have some research in amorphous solids and thus the science world must wait on Matt's decision. He has scheduled visits to each lab in the next couple weeks and has met with both professor's about his decision. Also, the lab must also return the favor and accept him into their lab. So we will keep a close eye on this developing recruiting trail.

See, isn't that more fun?

(If you are interested in getting the "Behind the Bench" treatment, for any profession...just let me know and we can do a Special Edition of the series!)