Today not much work was done in the laboratory. The GC run of the retrieval 2 samples at first glance showed the same type of contamination as retrieval 1. This is only a provisional statement until I can look at the chromatograms more in depth. It looks as if the reagent blank is fairly clean though. This leads me to believe that the contamination either was introduce during the storage of the LFT prior to use or during construction. I think we can come to a better conclusion when the data is actually worked up and the blank LFT from the lab is analyzed. I feel that determining where this contamination came from is an absolute must before any other LFT can be made, deployed, or processed.
I performed a thorough review of the bench sheets created during this project and found that more attention to detail is needed when filling these out. I had Anna, Marie, and Adama go over the bench sheets to verify that they were filled out correctly and fix errors that had occurred. It is obvious that some sort of error correction code system or protocol needs to be implemented such as OSU's SOP1200.
A party was thrown in my honor to thank me for my time and effort. It was very much appreciated.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Week 6 - Thursday
Today I had a meeting with Hama, Makhfousse, Baba, Amadou, and Papa Sam Gueye. During this meeting I discussed in length my summary of the training; what had been accomplished, challenges, some suggestions I had for the laboratory. This meeting lasted much of the afternoon.
In the morning we prepared the samples from retrieval 2 and started a run on the GC that will not be over until the morning on Friday. The computer froze after a few injections so we had to start the run over in the afternoon unfortunately. We are still seeing degradation of some analytes in the inlet, but chose to run the samples anyway to better facilitate training. The samples can always be run again at a later date when the inlet problems are resolved. The problem in the inlet seems most likely to be the glass wool. If I had more time I would have removed the glass wool from the liners and evaluated the degradation and compare the two set-ups. Unfortunately during the preparation of the samples which included bringing the final volume up to 2 ml, drawing off 1 mL, and inserting an internal standard spike Adama noticed that the milliliter marks on the centrifuge tubes were not accurately done. I suspect that this was caused by someones incorrect or sloppy pipeting technique. To ensure it was done correctly and to retrain the staff I marked new centrifuge tubes and we quantitatively transferred all the samples to these new tubes before proceeding. This added about two hours to the whole process unfortunately.
Anna was busy most of the day re-updating the calibration table with the new standards that were run last night. We saved this new calibration table under a new processing method name specific to retrieval two. I was with Anna helping her off and on during the day. Adama prepared the samples and seems to be more and more comfortable in the lab.
Much of the staff's time today was shared between working on this project and another project that had come in a few days earlier looking at pesticides in what I believe was peanut oil.
In the morning we prepared the samples from retrieval 2 and started a run on the GC that will not be over until the morning on Friday. The computer froze after a few injections so we had to start the run over in the afternoon unfortunately. We are still seeing degradation of some analytes in the inlet, but chose to run the samples anyway to better facilitate training. The samples can always be run again at a later date when the inlet problems are resolved. The problem in the inlet seems most likely to be the glass wool. If I had more time I would have removed the glass wool from the liners and evaluated the degradation and compare the two set-ups. Unfortunately during the preparation of the samples which included bringing the final volume up to 2 ml, drawing off 1 mL, and inserting an internal standard spike Adama noticed that the milliliter marks on the centrifuge tubes were not accurately done. I suspect that this was caused by someones incorrect or sloppy pipeting technique. To ensure it was done correctly and to retrain the staff I marked new centrifuge tubes and we quantitatively transferred all the samples to these new tubes before proceeding. This added about two hours to the whole process unfortunately.
Anna was busy most of the day re-updating the calibration table with the new standards that were run last night. We saved this new calibration table under a new processing method name specific to retrieval two. I was with Anna helping her off and on during the day. Adama prepared the samples and seems to be more and more comfortable in the lab.
Much of the staff's time today was shared between working on this project and another project that had come in a few days earlier looking at pesticides in what I believe was peanut oil.
Week 6 - Wednesday
We ran into problems with the GC today. It looks as if some of our analytes are being degraded in the inlet more and more each injection. From the Friday of week 5 to today I can see a definite progression of either lost or smeared peaks for several analytes. It is most noticeable for propanil, fipronil, dimethoate, and DDT.
Most of my time was spent working with Anna on interpreting chromatograms, manual integrations, compiling data into a raw data master spreadsheet for data work-up, and general troubleshooting of the inlet problems. The other staff, especially Adama were observing the training as well.
Adama and I vialed up new standards specifically for the retrieval 2 samples and set up a run on the GC over night. Anna should be working on reviewing the run tomorrow and updating the calibration table.
Most of my time was spent working with Anna on interpreting chromatograms, manual integrations, compiling data into a raw data master spreadsheet for data work-up, and general troubleshooting of the inlet problems. The other staff, especially Adama were observing the training as well.
Adama and I vialed up new standards specifically for the retrieval 2 samples and set up a run on the GC over night. Anna should be working on reviewing the run tomorrow and updating the calibration table.