Behind the Scenes: Meet the Avanti Innovators
At the core of Avanti's mission is our dedication to delivering the purest lipids and exceptional customer service. What truly distinguishes Avanti is our remarkable team. We're excited to highlight the exceptional contributions of a different employee each month, from chemists and engineers to GMP operators. Every team member is crucial to Avanti's success. Keep reading to learn more about these outstanding individuals who propel Avanti's excellence!
- What is your current role in QC, which QC group do you work in, and what instruments do you work on a day-to-day basis? I currently serve as the Team Lead for the Analytical Method Development and Validations group within the QC department. We primarily develop and validate new analytical methods for CDMO projects when a research product goes to GMP manufacturing. I mostly work on developing the primary purity methods using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography systems (UHPLCs) with a variety of detectors, including charged aerosol (CAD), evaporative light scattering (ELSD), ultraviolet (UV) detectors, and even mass spectrometers. I also work quite a bit with nuclear magnetic resonance NMR) spectroscopy to characterize and quantify various sample components.
- How long have you been at Avanti? I have worked at Avanti for about 4 and a half years, I started in January of 2020.
- Why did you choose Avanti and how does working at Avanti help you hone your analytical skill set? I originally chose Avanti in part because I was looking for an industry job in this area to be closer to my girlfriend (now my wife) as she was finishing graduate school. I thought it would be a good fit because I spent the majority of my PhD working on isolating, synthesizing, and characterizing terpenoid natural products and their derivatives. Although they have a unique biosynthetic pathway, terpenes are technically a class of lipids and analyzing them is very similar to analyzing the types of lipids Avanti makes.
Avanti has helped me hone my skill set because of the capabilities we have in the analytical laboratory. We have state of the art UHPLCs, NMRs, and many other types of analytical equipment, so I have been able to learn new techniques. Working on applying the principles I learned in graduate school to pharmaceutical applications has allowed me to grow as a chemist, and I’ve also learned a lot about the manufacturing process as well.
- Which analytical instrument at Avanti do you find the most interesting and why? NMR is undoubtedly the most interesting analytical technique because of the level of structural information it provides about a compound or sample. Analyzing the various atomic nuclei (proton, carbon, phosphorus) can provide you insight into your molecule that no other technique can. In many ways, interpreting the data is like solving a puzzle, so I’ve always found it to be fun.
- Are there any instruments you would like to train on in the future? At this point I’ve trained on most of the techniques in the lab, but the one I don’t have a ton of experience with is inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). This techniques allows us to detect heavy metals in the samples using a beam of ionized gas that is hotter than the surface of the sun!
- Are there any current any innovations in the analytical field that excite you about their potential applications at Avanti? There have been a lot of advancements in bench-top NMR technologies in the last few years that I think could benefit our manufacturing processes in both research and GMP manufacturing. It could provide incredibly fast real-time data to help monitor reactions and test for undesirable side products while your reactions are still running.
- Outside of Avanti what activities do you like? I spend most of my time outside of Avanti with my amazing wife Michelle and our four adopted kitties: Athena, Ares, Apollo, and Artemis; they certainly keep things interesting. I love being out in nature, so hiking is probably my favorite hobby. I’m also very into fitness, sports, and playing guitar. In the last few years (as I’ve gotten older) I’ve become fairly obsessed with landscaping and golf, which perhaps it’s the fate of us all…
- Are you currently binge watching any tv shows? Or have you recently? Well, like most of the rest of us I’m currently into House of the Dragon, and really excited for the next season of Rings of Power. I know they both deviate from the books but I love their production quality and my inner nerd just can’t resist. I also recently binge watched The Wire and it may be one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
- If you could have dinner with 3 famous people (living or dead) who would they be? I’m a huge sports fan, so I’d love to have dinner with Troy Polamalu from the Pittsburgh Steelers; he was my favorite player when I was a teenager. I love nature and nature documentaries so Sir David Attenborough would definitely be on the list; I could listen to him talk for hours. I’m also a music lover, and my favorite artist at the moment is Jason Isbell, he is a phenomenal storyteller so I think he would have some interesting things to say.
- What would your dream vacation be? This is the toughest question by far… I would say my dream vacation would be either hiking in the Southern Alps of New Zealand or going on Safari in South Africa with my wife. Hopefully I’ll be able to do both at some point in my life.
