In this world there are two kind of postdocs: some are hired for a specific project and are focused on that, others are jolly helping here and there. I am, ladies and gentleman, a jolly.

I’m Vittorio Saggiomo, a postdoc in the BioNanoTechnology group at the University of Wageningen (in the sunny, sunny Netherlands). As a jolly, I’m working on PDMS microfluidics chips, coacervate micelles and (quite a lot) of devices with chemical sensors for soil, animal food, and recently, malaria vectors.

As I tend to swear a lot, in this blogpost I’ve censored myself changing the word f*ck with frak (Doctor Galactic: I’m partial to frell myself).

Fig 1. Example of the research going on in my university…

Fig 2. Mosquito farm

Monday starts like all my Mondays: the alarm clock buzzing on my night table, me thinking that it’s Sunday morning and relaxing a little bit more in the bed. Between 10 and 15 minutes later I finally realize that it’s not Sunday and I have to rush to the university. Welcome, first frak of the week.

Our building is probably the only laboratory in the whole of the Netherlands that is uphill (here it’s called “the mountain”) and when I’m late I try to bike as fast as I can. Entering the corridor of the building is like finishing the marathon, with coworkers cheering me up and giving me water. In a chaos of people screaming my name I finally enter my office with only 30/45 minutes of delay. Then I usually need 10/15 minutes to recover from the high speed biking uphill, and to get my heartbeat on a human level and to try to breath again.

Turn on my computer, 20/30 unread email, 10/15 “frak I completely forgot about this” and “oh for frak’s sake” and finally I’m in the lab, my acetone smelling kingdom.

I devote the first two days of the week on synthesis. We are trying to control the core of the coacervate micelle (very huge 100 nm micelles with a soft core of chocolate (ok, maybe not chocolate, but still a soft core) for incorporating and releasing drugs on command (hopefully our command). I put a couple of reactions on the notes of Metallica and/or AC/DC.

I spend the rest of the day supervising (or trying my best to) two master students.

Fig 3. Fairy dust synthesis

Tuesday is purification day. I love column chromatography, I find it extremely zen and relaxing. And it gives me an awesome excuse not to do anything else -“come on dude, I cannot stop my column, I’ll come to you later”-. TLC, rotavap, NMR, and then i can choose between: “fraking hell, why you don’t want to work?”, “what the frak are you?”, “for frak sake, who on earth is doing a 2 h proton NMR?”.

Then I try not to get mad at one master student because he believes that his column didn’t work because the size of the capillaries is wrong. Between a colloquium and a coworker that MUST show you at least 10 youtube videos the day passes quite easily. Tuesday after work is also squash night with my boss. Perfect for stress reliever and for legs related injuries.

Fig 4. The eye of Sauron

Wednesday is PDMS and devices day. Since I came in this lab I have fallen in love with PDMS, an extremely nice polymer for making microfluidics chips, stamps for microcontact printing and bouncing balls. I spend most of the day playing around with PDMS, using different crosslinkers, checking the swelling and the stability, pressure and so on. We are currently applying for a patent on a discovery we made last year and now are waiting to publish it. Usually on a Wednesday I also discuss a little bit with the boss. It happens more or less randomly, but most of the time it is on Wednesday. My boss’ office is between my lab and my office and when I walk from one place to the other I can clearly hear someone screaming my name.

The discussion goes often like this (I’m currently working on many different projects and I’m extremely picky on which new project I can accept):

Boss: Maybe we can do this…

Me: No.

Boss: Yes.

Me: No.

Boss: Yes.

Me: No.

Boss: Yes.

Me: No.

The discussion can go on for hours. The first that lowers his eyes loses.

When I’m finally back in the lab I can start soldering wires, checking resistances and programming Arduino and Raspberry Pi. It’s not chemistry but it’s quite entertaining.

Fig 5. Maybe a pinch more crosslinker.

Fig 6. Maybe even more crosslinker.

 

Fig 7. Pinky microfluidics.

Thursday is terminator day. The day of the machines. Now NMR, now fluorimeter, now AFM. The synthesis of new sensor would be useless without some in-depth characterization. In this day the amount of fraks climbs to the top. Swearing at a random machine is one of my favorite hobbies. When Skynet finally takes control of the world I will be one of the first to be murdered (or enslaved). The time lost in understanding why a machine is not properly working is way more than the time used for the real analysis. Today is also a day of squash with my colleagues. Time for shoulder related injuries.

Fig 8. 8-bit AFM.

Friday is group meeting day. I usually clean a little bit in the lab, write down the stuff I did in the week and program what I’ll do the following week. The group meeting starts after lunch and no one knows when it will end, but usually we finish very, very late. Beer, alcohol and junk food are more than welcome during the discussions. BBQ in summer time. We also use 10 minutes of our time collectively swearing at a random referee number 3.

Fig 9. Group meeting.

Saturday and Sunday I try to read some literature, writing/correcting/rewriting papers,grant, patents and blog posts.

….and from my side, that’s all folks. Feel free to contact me for info, news, fun or just for swearing together.

 

Author biography:

Dr. Vittorio Saggiomo is a post doc, working at the University of Wageningen under Professor Aldrick Velders. He was born in Naples (Italy) where earning an M.Sc in Organic Chemistry in 2007. He then moved to Kiel (Germany) pursuing a Ph.D. working on Dynamic Combinatorial Chemistry. In 2010 he moved to Groningen for his first post doc in the field of Systems Chemistry, before heading to Wageningen. Find about more about him at: www.vsaggiomo.com/

Blogs at Labsolutely (http://www.labsolutely.org/) & creates videos on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/user/vsaggiomo)

Follow @V_saggiomo