Hey there, you might wonder what is a typical day in the lab like?

Well, it can really vary from a day to another. And it is probably very different from a research field to another.
But let's try to give you a tour in a typical chemistry/chemical biology research day. Jump in my labcoat pocket, and let's go!

8:00: Entering the lab. Lab coat and glasses on! Typically we could start by checking a reaction that we let react overnight, and stop it if it is finished. We will see what is meant by "cheking a reaction" later.

We will rather start a reaction. It is like doing cooking, but a bit more hazardous! (depending what you cook and what you react...). So first we write on the lab book the reaction (the cooking receipe): which chemical ingredients we will use, what amount, and we describe the procedure (order of addition, stirring, time of reaction, temperature). This step includes reflexion because parameters of reaction (amount, order of addition...) can highly impact the reaction outcome. It also includes some (easy) mathematics to calculate the quantities! To finish, we have to think about potential undesired reactions that might occur, and possible hazard as well.

Then, as you do when making your favorite pastries, we have to find and collect the chemicals in the lab inventory in order to weight them (some are solid, some are sticky, some are liquid... many of them are hazardous). After this, settle the reaction using the right glassware. And we note all the steps and observations in the lab book

We can imagine that the reactons has to be stirred for 4h.

All this process can easily take hours depending on the reaction.

 

9h30: Let's check our mails! Because we could have some from colleagues about work, from the institution about a safety event, or it could be an invitation to a scientific congress or an alert to tell us that an important scientific paper is out.

10h: While the first reaction is going on, we could settle another one. But we could also do bibliography - This means reading other scientific papers, to be aware of what is going on around us. Because research is a global process, we always benefit from work of others and could be inspired or learn about a new issue that needs to be solved.

 

11h40: Time to check the running reaction. We want to know if everything is gong well - is it finished? Is it going on? Or is it going wrong? for his we collect a small portion of the reacting mixture and analyse it. It can consist in puting the sample in a machine that will detect the mass of the product present in the sample (we know the mass of the product we use and the ones we are trying to make). It can also consist in deposing a drop of the reacting mixture (and some references such as starting compounds) on a small plate covered with a sort of sand (silica). Then we put the bottom of the plate in a liquid and this will force the deposited compounds to migrate - the solvent is dragging them. They appear as small spots on the plate. However, all the compounds are not dragged at the same speed. Thus, by comparing the migration of the various spot, we can determine if a starting product is still present in the reaction mixture, and if new products have appeared (spots that does not correspond to those of starting products).

The process is called TLC for Thin-Layer Chromatography.

 

12h: Let's eat. It is very important. It is also a moment to share ideas and discuss issues with colleagues!

 

13h: Time for bioconjugation! We try to modify antibodies with chemical compounds that were made the week before. We need a first step of antibody reduction. Globally it is just pipeting, mixing and filtering solutions. But each step is important and takes time. Reduction takes 2h.

 

13h30: The reaction has reacted 4h. Another TCL check confirmed it is finished. So the reaction is treated to be stopped (generally adding a solvent that is non miscible to solvents used for the reaction, like oil and water). To make it simple, it allows to eliminate some undesired compounds. This is called extraction step. Sometimes it is enough to isolate the desired product and have it clean, sometimes it requires further purification. For this, we use a purification column - a cylinder containing silica (sort of sand) or polymers. The idea is that various compounds will go through this column at different speed, and thus permit to collect them at diferent time and separate them. Different fractions are collected during the process, and we will have to determine which ones contain only the product ("clean" fractions).

 

15h: The antibody reduction step is finished. So we filtrate/centrifuge to get rid of the reduction solution and keep only the reduced antibody. Then we mix it with another solution containing a chemical reactant in order to modify further the antibody. It sounds easy but takes at least 30min and we have to be careful and aware of what we do at each step. New reaction will last 2h.

 

15h30: Remember the fractions we collected after the purification column? We have to determine where is our clean product. To do this, in addition to TLC discussed earlier, we will use NMR. We will not go through deep explanations of this powerful analysis method. But briefly, it is a very big magnet that disturbs the chemical compound. Various atoms in molecule are not disturbed the same way depending on their environment. Using this information, we are able to determine the structure of the compound. Preparing the NMR sample and collecting the NMR data can take more or less time, and analysing data can take from 2min to hours if the compound is very complex.

 

16h00: The NMR data collection is on going, as is the antibody modification. We have ~1h to do other work such as starting a new chemical reaction, or scientific paper redaction if we have results to share, or we could also have to write a scientific project in order to get fundings. We will need way more than an hour for this, but every work done is not to be done anymore...

 

17H00: Time to stop the antibody modificaiton reaction. We again do centrifugation/filtration. We collect some portion of the modified antibody and prepare samples for gel analysis (we deposit drops of sample on a gel and migrate them, similarly to TLC with chemicals) or mass analysis (to determine the mass of modified antibody). The mass can be runned overnight to have result the day after, the gel preparation and running takes several hours and need to be done the day after.

 

17h45: NMR data collection is done, time to interpret/analyse the result!

 

18h: After a good news from the NMR analysis, we are tempted to start the next reaction. It can run overnight. So let's do it! And then let's go home!


PS: We make reactions to make chemical compounds. Themselves are made to solve issues - it can be an active compound such as a fluorescent molecule that allows to detect tumors, or it can be a drug that will kill tumor cells once they "eat" it. It can also be a compound that will be used to modify antibodies, like in the present project. Many other posibilities exist, but it is always to face a problem, answer a question or find a solution. And we thus need time to think about the solution we want to bring, what will be the design, the form of the chemical compound to be a good solution, and also think about how to make it (the synthesis). And for this we use our creativity and our knowledge (built through education and experience) and also the bibliography (previous work from other researchers!).

 

Of course this is an example of a typical day. But we can do more or less hours in a day, and we can spend more time on a specific task. For instance, project or scientific paper requires to work continuously for several hours, days, weeks and sometimes months! Most of the time, we can arrange our schedule as we wish (in accordance with our superior if needed).

Research career is not easy, but it is really passionating!!!

 

Below are some pictures of real TLC and gel, directly from the lab and from this project!