If you look at the last two remote posts, you will see that I figured out how to round the mileage variable. That took me a day and a half to find and understand.
Today was a good day at work. We started the work up for another compound in the non-GMP manufacturing labs. That work up has an 18-hour stir. Once the stir began, I took Stephanie to Lab 413 and we boiled out the rotavap and began changing the oil in the vacuum pumps.
The new FTS chiller came today. It has to sit for 24 hours to allow the refrigerant and oil to settle before we can install it.
I am only working half a day tomorrow. In the afternoon Bob and I have a meeting with our construction foreman at Hempstead in Apex.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Remote Post July 31, 2018
I am currently located at
3501 Tricenter Blvd
Durham NC 27713
United States
I am 16 miles from home.
3501 Tricenter Blvd
Durham NC 27713
United States
I am 16 miles from home.
Vince Thigpen
Sent from my iPhone
Monday, July 30, 2018
Remote Post July 30, 2018
I am currently located at:
Avista Pharma (work)
3501 Tricenter Blvd
Durham NC 27713
United States
I am 15.90458652 miles from home.
https://maps.apple.com/?q=35.929193,-78.883313&ll=35.929193,-78.883313
Avista Pharma (work)
3501 Tricenter Blvd
Durham NC 27713
United States
I am 15.90458652 miles from home.
https://maps.apple.com/?q=35.929193,-78.883313&ll=35.929193,-78.883313
Vince Thigpen
Sent from my iPhone
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Quick Weekend
This morning I rose at 6:30 am, walked Buddy, fed Buddy, took the clothes down to the laundry to wash, realized that I only had $7 on my laundry card, went out in the car to the ATM to get cash for laundry and picked up breakfast at McDonald's. I also got a couple of donuts at Duck Donuts and got a new DD t-shirt for Bob. Returned to the house, ate breakfast, moved the laundry to the dryer, vacuumed the carpets, brought the dried laundry up and folded it. Put away laundry.
After I got a shower we decided to go down to Wilmington to visit with Becky and Bill for a little while. When we got there nobody answered the door! So we just sat down on the front porch. Bob read his Kindle Fire 8 and I read my iPhone 8. Becky and Bill eventually came back - they had gone out for their groceries.
I ran a script on my phone that automatically posted the last post to Blogger.com with the push of just two buttons! Right now it just posts my location and distance from home, but I would like to develop it into something that could make blog posts from text in an Apple Notes file. You will probably see these little posts for awhile as I continue working on this script.
We visited for about 2-1/2 hours and then it was time to return home. There was a lot of traffic on I-40 and we ran into heavy rains on the way back.
As soon as we got back to the house I went to take Buddy outside for his walk. There was a big wet spot on the carpet right inside the front door. He was hiding under the table, tail between his legs, shaking. He knew that I would be unhappy about this.
He got a quick walk, he peed, he pooped, and then I put him back into the house.
We went to Food Lion to get our grocery for the week. We are back from that, groceries are put away, and I am minding the SpotBot as it cleans up after my geriatric canine.
Here comes another exciting and action-packed week at Avista!
After I got a shower we decided to go down to Wilmington to visit with Becky and Bill for a little while. When we got there nobody answered the door! So we just sat down on the front porch. Bob read his Kindle Fire 8 and I read my iPhone 8. Becky and Bill eventually came back - they had gone out for their groceries.
I ran a script on my phone that automatically posted the last post to Blogger.com with the push of just two buttons! Right now it just posts my location and distance from home, but I would like to develop it into something that could make blog posts from text in an Apple Notes file. You will probably see these little posts for awhile as I continue working on this script.
We visited for about 2-1/2 hours and then it was time to return home. There was a lot of traffic on I-40 and we ran into heavy rains on the way back.
As soon as we got back to the house I went to take Buddy outside for his walk. There was a big wet spot on the carpet right inside the front door. He was hiding under the table, tail between his legs, shaking. He knew that I would be unhappy about this.
He got a quick walk, he peed, he pooped, and then I put him back into the house.
We went to Food Lion to get our grocery for the week. We are back from that, groceries are put away, and I am minding the SpotBot as it cleans up after my geriatric canine.
Here comes another exciting and action-packed week at Avista!
Remote Post July 29, 2018
I am currently located at:
110 Bristle Cone Ct
Hampstead NC 28443
United States
I am 134.85965932 miles from home.
https://maps.apple.com/?q=34.379988,-77.693255&ll=34.379988,-77.693255
110 Bristle Cone Ct
Hampstead NC 28443
United States
I am 134.85965932 miles from home.
https://maps.apple.com/?q=34.379988,-77.693255&ll=34.379988,-77.693255
Vince Thigpen
Sent from my iPhone
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Rear View Mirror
Today was better than yesterday. We made our process go forward and some progress was made on restoring the rotovap to service.
You see, the rear-view mirror is very small and the windshield is very big for a reason. What's ahead of us is much more important than what is behind us!
You see, the rear-view mirror is very small and the windshield is very big for a reason. What's ahead of us is much more important than what is behind us!
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Rough Day
Last night we had Compound 19 in the rotovap and it was time to go home. Dave Cowan had me go back to 414 and secure the rotovap, but leave the bulb rotating. So I turned off the water bath heater and I turned off the vacuum pump and I turned off the ice water bath circulating pump. I left the product in the bulb rotating about about 30 - 40 RPM.
When I got to work this morning I met Cliff in the hallway and his lab coat was dirty. I asked him, "Okay, what happened? What's broken now?" He told me that he found the rotovap in 414 under vacuum and the bulb filled with product half way up the steam pipe. He said that he drained it down, but some of it leaked out.
I headed right down there to see how bad it was. The bulb was VERY FULL. I started heating the bath and started up the circulating pump and the vacuum pump. The vacuum pump would not pull much vacuum, so I stopped and began changing the oil in the pump.
At this point I briefly considered just clocking out and going home. It seemed like it was going to be one of those days. But if I went home, nothing would get fixed.
I texted Jeff Adams and told him, "I messed up securing the rotovap last night. I need some advice." He said he would be there in a minute. He came in and looked at it and told me that the first thing I need to do is get the vacuum pump running again and then carefully run the rotovap to condense the product down because the level was just too high. After that he said that I needed to get a razor blade and scrape up all of the dried product on the outside of the rotovap and on the stand, put it on a weigh boat, weigh it, and put the product into a plastic bag.
Jeff asked me what my other priorities were for the day and I showed him the list I had written on a Post-It Note with the tasks that I wanted to accomplish today. He approved of these tasks and I continued working.
After draining the diluted oil from the pump, I flushed it with flushing oil, drained that, and then filled it with fresh oil. I hooked it back up to the rotovap and started pulling a vacuum. I took it down to about 210 mm Hg and the distillation started. I had to be careful not to let the mixture bump because the bulb was so full.
I started to raise the rotation speed of the bulb, but the motor was making ratchet sounds. After I got all of the product in the bulb and was condensing it down the motor stopped working!
Cliff said that we will have to take the rotovap apart tomorrow to figure out what needs to be cleaned or what needs to be fixed inside of it. I hope we can fix it. Even though the rotovaps I have in non-GMP manufacturing are ancient, they would be VERY EXPENSIVE to replace (about $40k). He recommended moving the product to the other rotovap in 413.
I had to unhook the chill water hoses from the condensers and move the ice water bath to 413. I hooked the ice water circulation up to the rotovap in Hood 413-2. Then I ran some tubing from the vacuum pump under the vacuum oven next to the hood, got my dry ice trap installed, and moved the bulb full of product over to the other rotovap. As soon as the vacuum pump began pulling the pressure down, the distillation started. A small success!
With my razor, I scraped all of the dried product off of the first rotovap and collected it on a tared weigh boat. I had a small pile, but when I put it on the scale I was a little dismayed to see that it only amounted to 5 grams. Maybe the amount spilled wasn't so bad after all.
Chad came in to help me because there was a delay in GMP manufacturing this morning. He helped me get glassware cleaned up, he refilled our bucked of wet ice, he retrieved DI water for me so that I could make the 10% and saturated NaCl solutions that will be needed tomorrow, and he watched the rotovap work while I went to the restroom and got my order from Receiving.
I started an acetone boil out on the 100-liter reactor and got a vigorous reflux going, but it did not remove all of the residual material inside. I rinsed it repeatedly with the warm acetone using the peristaltic pump and later I used fresh acetone from the bottle. Later I rinsed some of the material off with methanol.
Chad took all of the empty acetone bottles outside to the recycling dumpster while I weighed the material in the bulb and sent Dave a note explaining what happened and to ask him how dry the material needed to be. We had white dry materials on the walls of the bulb and what looked like wet dough in the center. The net weight at the point was about 1700 grams - about twice the expected amount.
I think Dave wants to continue drying the material on the filter or in the vacuum oven tomorrow.
Around 2:30 I took a break to go get a drink. I ate my canned fruit cocktail and drank a bottle of water then I returned to the lab to clean.
I ran the vacuum cleaner in both labs and cleaned out the tracks that the sliding hood doors ride in. Later Jeff sent a message letting everyone know that he cancelled the afternoon meeting, so I used that time to mop the labs out with hot water and Simple Green.
Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.
When I got to work this morning I met Cliff in the hallway and his lab coat was dirty. I asked him, "Okay, what happened? What's broken now?" He told me that he found the rotovap in 414 under vacuum and the bulb filled with product half way up the steam pipe. He said that he drained it down, but some of it leaked out.
I headed right down there to see how bad it was. The bulb was VERY FULL. I started heating the bath and started up the circulating pump and the vacuum pump. The vacuum pump would not pull much vacuum, so I stopped and began changing the oil in the pump.
At this point I briefly considered just clocking out and going home. It seemed like it was going to be one of those days. But if I went home, nothing would get fixed.
I texted Jeff Adams and told him, "I messed up securing the rotovap last night. I need some advice." He said he would be there in a minute. He came in and looked at it and told me that the first thing I need to do is get the vacuum pump running again and then carefully run the rotovap to condense the product down because the level was just too high. After that he said that I needed to get a razor blade and scrape up all of the dried product on the outside of the rotovap and on the stand, put it on a weigh boat, weigh it, and put the product into a plastic bag.
Jeff asked me what my other priorities were for the day and I showed him the list I had written on a Post-It Note with the tasks that I wanted to accomplish today. He approved of these tasks and I continued working.
After draining the diluted oil from the pump, I flushed it with flushing oil, drained that, and then filled it with fresh oil. I hooked it back up to the rotovap and started pulling a vacuum. I took it down to about 210 mm Hg and the distillation started. I had to be careful not to let the mixture bump because the bulb was so full.
I started to raise the rotation speed of the bulb, but the motor was making ratchet sounds. After I got all of the product in the bulb and was condensing it down the motor stopped working!
Cliff said that we will have to take the rotovap apart tomorrow to figure out what needs to be cleaned or what needs to be fixed inside of it. I hope we can fix it. Even though the rotovaps I have in non-GMP manufacturing are ancient, they would be VERY EXPENSIVE to replace (about $40k). He recommended moving the product to the other rotovap in 413.
I had to unhook the chill water hoses from the condensers and move the ice water bath to 413. I hooked the ice water circulation up to the rotovap in Hood 413-2. Then I ran some tubing from the vacuum pump under the vacuum oven next to the hood, got my dry ice trap installed, and moved the bulb full of product over to the other rotovap. As soon as the vacuum pump began pulling the pressure down, the distillation started. A small success!
With my razor, I scraped all of the dried product off of the first rotovap and collected it on a tared weigh boat. I had a small pile, but when I put it on the scale I was a little dismayed to see that it only amounted to 5 grams. Maybe the amount spilled wasn't so bad after all.
Chad came in to help me because there was a delay in GMP manufacturing this morning. He helped me get glassware cleaned up, he refilled our bucked of wet ice, he retrieved DI water for me so that I could make the 10% and saturated NaCl solutions that will be needed tomorrow, and he watched the rotovap work while I went to the restroom and got my order from Receiving.
I started an acetone boil out on the 100-liter reactor and got a vigorous reflux going, but it did not remove all of the residual material inside. I rinsed it repeatedly with the warm acetone using the peristaltic pump and later I used fresh acetone from the bottle. Later I rinsed some of the material off with methanol.
Chad took all of the empty acetone bottles outside to the recycling dumpster while I weighed the material in the bulb and sent Dave a note explaining what happened and to ask him how dry the material needed to be. We had white dry materials on the walls of the bulb and what looked like wet dough in the center. The net weight at the point was about 1700 grams - about twice the expected amount.
I think Dave wants to continue drying the material on the filter or in the vacuum oven tomorrow.
Around 2:30 I took a break to go get a drink. I ate my canned fruit cocktail and drank a bottle of water then I returned to the lab to clean.
I ran the vacuum cleaner in both labs and cleaned out the tracks that the sliding hood doors ride in. Later Jeff sent a message letting everyone know that he cancelled the afternoon meeting, so I used that time to mop the labs out with hot water and Simple Green.
Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Friday the Thirteenth
Day off from work. Busy day.
Bob could not have anything to eat in the morning. We went through the McDonald's drive-thru to get something for me to eat and then we headed over to Chapel Hill to keep an MRI appointment at UNC.
The MRI people were not very organized and they had a hard time finding a vein to run an IV into Bob's arm for contrast. They made him two hours late! So we were late to our appointment with Dr. Shen in Radiation Oncology.
Dr. Shen looked at the images and compared them to the ones we had taken in April and she was able to say that the lesion in Bob's pons has not grown or bled since that time. She also said that she could detect some internal changes to the lesion. So, it looks like the lesion has stabilized. It will take many months to see it begin to shrink.
Dr. Shen made another follow up appointment for Bob on October 12.
We went back to the car. We were already late for Bob's physical therapy session in Raleigh at WakeMed, but we headed out anyway and I drove very fast. By the time we got to the check-in the entire appointment was past. Bob was not charged $30 as a no-show, but he missed his appointment. His therapist made a replacement appointment for him on next Thursday.
In the mail this evening we found a small box from Parker-Warby. This was Bob's new set of reading glasses! We mailed the order in on Tuesday and the order was delivered on Friday! Fast!
Bob could not have anything to eat in the morning. We went through the McDonald's drive-thru to get something for me to eat and then we headed over to Chapel Hill to keep an MRI appointment at UNC.
The MRI people were not very organized and they had a hard time finding a vein to run an IV into Bob's arm for contrast. They made him two hours late! So we were late to our appointment with Dr. Shen in Radiation Oncology.
Dr. Shen looked at the images and compared them to the ones we had taken in April and she was able to say that the lesion in Bob's pons has not grown or bled since that time. She also said that she could detect some internal changes to the lesion. So, it looks like the lesion has stabilized. It will take many months to see it begin to shrink.
Dr. Shen made another follow up appointment for Bob on October 12.
We went back to the car. We were already late for Bob's physical therapy session in Raleigh at WakeMed, but we headed out anyway and I drove very fast. By the time we got to the check-in the entire appointment was past. Bob was not charged $30 as a no-show, but he missed his appointment. His therapist made a replacement appointment for him on next Thursday.
In the mail this evening we found a small box from Parker-Warby. This was Bob's new set of reading glasses! We mailed the order in on Tuesday and the order was delivered on Friday! Fast!
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Shutdown
Today at work we had to clean the GMP production rooms. We are trying to finish our shutdown.
Out two new-hire Manufacturing Technicians, Chad Bryant and Stephanie Raines, started work this week. They are working their way through their SOPs, but they helped with the cleaning of the rooms too.
Out two new-hire Manufacturing Technicians, Chad Bryant and Stephanie Raines, started work this week. They are working their way through their SOPs, but they helped with the cleaning of the rooms too.
I am taking the day off tomorrow to take Bob to medical appointments. Three-day weekend for me!
Vince Thigpen
Sent from my iPhone
Monday, July 09, 2018
Remote Post Test
I posted this blog entry as an email message from my iPhone 8. I should be able to post things right after they occur now. I really like my new phone!
Vince Thigpen
Sent from my iPhone
Friday, July 06, 2018
iPhone 8
Yesterday my new Apple iPhone 8 was delivered and I love it already! This pocket-sized computer can do so much and the technology is astonishing! I got this phone because my supervisor was pressuring me to get a smartphone so that I could be reached easier by text message.
Because the phone has so many different applications, I can see this replacing my camera, my notepad, my calculator, my watch/stopwatch/alarm clock, flashlight, gps, maps, mp3 player, video player, calendar, and yes, even my cellphone!
I think there are some activities that are more comfortable to do at the desk top with a larger screen, but for quick computing on-the-go, this is it! It connects to nearby wi-fi networks to download data, and if there are none nearby, it can stream data from the cellular network.
Bob likes it because I get his text messages quickly, no matter where I am at work, and I can reply promptly. Before this I left my phone in my lunch box and I would be hours before I could respond.
This weekend we are going to the Apple Store in Crabtree Valley Mall to buy a protective leather cover for it and we will spend some time getting better acquainted with this new technology.
Because the phone has so many different applications, I can see this replacing my camera, my notepad, my calculator, my watch/stopwatch/alarm clock, flashlight, gps, maps, mp3 player, video player, calendar, and yes, even my cellphone!
I think there are some activities that are more comfortable to do at the desk top with a larger screen, but for quick computing on-the-go, this is it! It connects to nearby wi-fi networks to download data, and if there are none nearby, it can stream data from the cellular network.
Bob likes it because I get his text messages quickly, no matter where I am at work, and I can reply promptly. Before this I left my phone in my lunch box and I would be hours before I could respond.
This weekend we are going to the Apple Store in Crabtree Valley Mall to buy a protective leather cover for it and we will spend some time getting better acquainted with this new technology.
Tuesday, July 03, 2018
Chemicals
1,4 Dioxane; n-Heptane 99%; Ethyl Hydrogen Malonate; Magnesium Ethoxide - some of the chemicals I used today to make the molecule we are crafting for Immune Design.
We drained the contents of the 20-liter reactor into a carboy and rinsed the reaction vessel with some dioxane, then we took this material over to the Buchi R220 rotary evaporator and distilled ethanol off of it. We discarded the ethanol, and then added the remaining mixture in the 20-liter rotavap bulb to the 100-liter reactor using the peristaltic pump.
We heated the resulting mixture up to 85°C and let it age for three hours, then we cooled it down to 35°C. We left the batch stirring at room temperature. It will just hold at room temperature until Thursday morning.
In between steps I kept the glassware cleaned up and I performed an Acetone boil out of the 20-liter reactor and 20-liter rotavap for cleaning. I also mixed up 4.7 liters of concentrated Hydrochloric Acid in 9 liters of DI Water to make a 2N HCl mixture. We are going to use this acid on Thursday when we perform separations.
After several purifying separations the remaining mixture will be dried of water in a carboy with Magnesium Sulfate and then we will suck the dried mixture into the rotavap using a filtered suction stick. The resulting yellow oil is just one ingredient in the compound we are creating.
We drained the contents of the 20-liter reactor into a carboy and rinsed the reaction vessel with some dioxane, then we took this material over to the Buchi R220 rotary evaporator and distilled ethanol off of it. We discarded the ethanol, and then added the remaining mixture in the 20-liter rotavap bulb to the 100-liter reactor using the peristaltic pump.
We heated the resulting mixture up to 85°C and let it age for three hours, then we cooled it down to 35°C. We left the batch stirring at room temperature. It will just hold at room temperature until Thursday morning.
In between steps I kept the glassware cleaned up and I performed an Acetone boil out of the 20-liter reactor and 20-liter rotavap for cleaning. I also mixed up 4.7 liters of concentrated Hydrochloric Acid in 9 liters of DI Water to make a 2N HCl mixture. We are going to use this acid on Thursday when we perform separations.
After several purifying separations the remaining mixture will be dried of water in a carboy with Magnesium Sulfate and then we will suck the dried mixture into the rotavap using a filtered suction stick. The resulting yellow oil is just one ingredient in the compound we are creating.
Sunday, July 01, 2018
July
I am predicting that the shutdown will end a few days late.
Then it is going to be a huge crisis to get everything put back into the rooms so that manufacturing can get started back up without the schedule slipping too much more.
I am getting a new phone. Everyone at work has a smartphone and they text each other constantly. My supervisor feels that I am "hard to reach" because he can't text me for instant answers. I have ordered an Apple iPhone 8 and it will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. I will probably quickly come to depend on it once I have mastered the apps that it comes with.
On Saturday morning we had our usual breakfast at The Egg & I. Then we drove down US-1 out past New Hill, then went north to US-64 and pulled over. I had Bob get into the driver's seat and drive for a little while on a busier 4-lane highway. He did so well I had him drive all the way home from Jordan Lake!
Jeff Adams is on vacation and he left Tom Lovelace in-charge. Jeff's boss, Ken, is also with us this week through July 4.
We do not have plans for Wednesday, July 4. Because I have to work two days before and two days after, there is no point in going out-of-town or doing anything special. I am taking a day off the week after to escort Bob over to UNC for his follow up MRI.
These two-day weekends seem sooo short! After a year and a half of three-day weekends at Burt's these shorter weekends just fly by!