Week in Review 5

We started the week with a setback due to contamination. While the cause was determined to be inadequately cleaned laboratory glassware, the incident revealed issues that need to be addressed. CERES will need to upgrade or obtain certain equipment (e.g. countertops, an oven, and perhaps a lab water purification system) as well as develop staff lab skills for the increased analytical requirements of the project. However, temporary fixes will likely allow for continued training on the retrieved PSDs in week 6. An extraction will be attempted on the third set of PSDs and the OSU/CERES split samples will be stored until demonstration of successful extraction and analysis can be completed.

FAO accompanied the CERES team on the final field retrieval at Pont Gendarme. Sokhna, Marie, and Anna trained Emmanuel in proper PSD retrieval which demonstrates their competence and comfort in the procedure. All equipment was retrieved from the Pont Gendarme sites.

We were delayed getting back to the Dakar lab, but expect to begin the PSD extraction on Monday the 22^nd by carefully preparing glassware and paperwork and cleaning the PSD.

I provided Cheikh with the Training Evaluations and Informed Consent forms that OSU developed for collecting the CERES staff’s perceptions of this training so he could translate them into French. He will retain them until OSU IRB clearance has been obtained.