If you find this title confusing you should. The two do not go together, but somehow at RTI the most seemingly separate of things come together in a beautiful synthesis. Each person, each member of the team, each sector of RTI, is filled to the brim with professionals that facilitate the marriage of outlandish theories in the most innovative of ways. My day was not any different. It started a little slower than normal (it was a Friday after all), but what I’ve learned about  RTI is when things pick up they never quite stop. I did some light reading in Science News, a weekly press release that covers interesting journal articles from a variety of science fields. Then Phil taught me about the tuberculosis project they are currently working on. Basically some drugs referred to as POA and PAE (one is an ester and one is an oil) were made into uniform powders using a complicated processes that I will not go too in depth into. This process is preformed in several meticulous stages to “purify” these solutions into fine powders. The drugs work by binding to an enzyme present in some strands of TB, which allows it to be absorbed into the think layers of the TB bacteria. The drug changes into its -OH form to target the TB in the lungs. The peculiar part is that, although the drug greatly reduces TB in the lungs, (where it is dispersed) it completely eradicates the disease from the spleen. How curious. Almost immediately after this explanation (which was accompanied by data and a pretty nifty slideshow), I sat in on a conference call with both Phil and an aerosol specialist named Tony. The conference call was with a representative from an video journal. There used to be a device on the market used to administer aerosol drugs for animal testing. Recently, however the company has ceased production and there is no longer anything available for this administration. RTI has created a sterile device akin to the originally manufactured to be released soon. Because the production of it is best understood with pictures and diagrams a traditional journal format would not be ideal, so they are interested in using this new video journal formatting. The conference call never ceased to be interesting, but I found myself even more enthralled in Tony, himself. I got to talk to him in length after the call and it was really interesting to hear about how he became involved in aerosols and what his prospective on modern day innovation is (plus he has written a ton of books and papers that are beyond cool). Around lunch, Dr.Rothrock, Cameron, Michelle, Phil, and I went to a Mexican restaurateur to eat lunch, where Dr.Rothrock shared her own story and described her job. Of course, the day could not go on without some final lab tests (I’m getting pretty fast with it by now) amidst some new funky tune Phil has found on Spotify! What a day! What a week!

(I apologize for the lack of pictures today, but a good portion was confidential and could not be photographed)