People
‘There's Water Pouring Into the 600'
BY TERESA PITMAN
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| Valerie Robertson stands atop the newest addition to U of G's Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Centre, the 800 spectrometer. Photo by Martin Schwalbe |
Last summer, Valerie Robertson was playing golf in Nova Scotia when her BlackBerry rang. She knew that meant trouble.
“On the other end of the line was a student saying: ‘There's water pouring into the 600,'” says Robertson, manager of U of G's Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Centre. A tap accidentally left on had caused flooding that threatened to shut down at least one of the facility's six NMR machines housed in the science complex. “I told him to try and cover it, and I started making calls.” She doesn't mention whether she finished her golf game.
When you're responsible for managing something as high-tech as U of G's NMR spectrometers, being on-call — no matter where you are — is just part of the job. Things can and will go wrong.
First question: What do you do with an NMR machine? Although this equipment is familiar to a range of researchers on campus and certainly to chemistry students — Robertson provides training for new students in that department every year — it's a mystery to most of the rest of us. You might peek through the windows of the science complex and see the giant white cylinders with rounded edges quietly working away but still be no closer to understanding what they do. Yet these machines represent the cutting edge of science.
Here's a simplified version: The NMR spectrometers use intense magnetic fields to allow researchers to study the physical, chemical and biological properties of matter. The magnetic fields are created by superconducting wires that have to be extremely cold — four degrees above absolute zero for the five smaller NMR spectrometers and just two degrees above absolute zero for the new 800 machine. (That's cold. Absolute zero is -273 C.)
The wires are kept that cold by immersing them in liquid helium. When the 800 spectrometer was installed a year ago, Robertson says the magnet “got a bit balky. They often do when you first start them up.” What she means is, things blew up. As the heat from the magnet was transmitted to the liquid helium, it rapidly turned into a gas and began to fill the room with white helium clouds. This did some damage to the building's air conditioning and required repairs to get the exhaust system back up to scratch.
But don't imagine that her job consists mainly of dealing with disasters. Most of the time, she's making sure that things like this don't happen by doing regular maintenance and trouble-shooting small problems. She also co-ordinates and manages use of the six machines with the help of technicians Peter Scheffer and Joe Meissner.
“The spectrometers are used by students, mostly graduate students, and faculty and also by external people — companies needing to have samples analyzed,” she explains.
Despite the huge size of the machines, especially the 800 (part of the side of the building had to be removed to install it — check out the facility website at nmr.uoguelph.ca for photos showing how it was brought in and set up), the samples they analyze are remarkably small. The item to be studied — either in solid form or dissolved in a special liquid — is inserted into a tiny tube. The tube is then dropped into the middle of the magnet, where a computer program records and helps analyze the results. Some tests take a few minutes; others last for days.
“We never let the machines sit idle because it would be such a waste,” says Robertson. “They run all day and all night.”
Some researchers using the spectrometers are analyzing samples or conducting studies about the structure of certain molecules. Others are researching the NMR process itself and trying to develop new tools and techniques that other scientists can use to make their own studies more effective.
Besides overseeing machine maintenance, Robertson has a variety of administrative responsibilities that include co-ordinating the schedules of people who want to use the spectrometers, training students and faculty and supervising them as needed, managing the billing and budgeting for use of the facility, talking to external companies that need information about how they can use the equipment, and researching and purchasing new or replacement equipment.
Her experience in this field dates back almost 40 years. “I got my first job in 1969, working with an NMR spectrometer that was jointly owned by McMaster and the University of Toronto. They kept it in Mississauga halfway between the two schools. The machine was a 220, and before that the largest ones had been 60s, so it was very exciting. We were seeing results that no one had ever seen before.”
After six years with that program, Robertson stopped working for another six years to raise her two children. “Fortunately, not a lot happened in the NMR field during those years,” she says.
When she was ready to return to work, she joined Roche, a pharmaceutical company, where she worked closely with Bruker, the company that makes the spectrometers. But after 12 years, Roche decided to close its Canadian research operations, and she was once again looking for an NMR lab to manage.
Fortunately, U of G was looking, too. Robertson took the Guelph position in 1993 despite being less than impressed by the work environment. “We had this horrible lab in the basement,” she recalls. “Water would come pouring down on our heads periodically.”
That memory just makes her smile now, though, as she looks around her current lab.
“If you do what I do, this is the most fabulous facility you could possibly have. NMR technology is just amazing. You can learn so much.”