Interview Essays - Signal Transduction, Wong, G Protein,

Interview The Interview For my interview, I interviewed Jennifer Wong, a scientist in the development of analytic chemistry. In her occupation she purifies and analyzes proteins, as well as characterizes the proteins. She works for Panox located at 10301 Stellink Houston, TX 77025. For this company Dr. Wong analyzes proteins in order for her company to market drugs that will later help patients with certain diseases. Right now her company has not yet marketed any products yet, but they are still in the process. To arrange for the interview, I first asked my cousin, Tracy Bui, who is in the biochemistry field, but she referred me to her co-worker who had been working for that company longer. I could not visit her laboratory because I was not an authorized employee. So in order to accomplish my interview I had to resort to a telephone interview. The following are the questions and answers in the interview with Dr. Jennifer Wong. Q: What is your educational background or training? A: Dr. Wong has a bachelor in chemistry, a masters in chemical engineering, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and also including analytic chemistry. Q: How much education do you believe a person should have in order to excel in this profession? A: ?You need to graduate from high school and college at least,? said Dr. Wong. Although Dr. Wong went to obtain her Ph.D., she does not believe that a person has to go that far in order to obtain a job in her field. Dr. Wong went that far because she thinks that higher education will help a person become more experienced in this field. Q: What preparations did you take to obtain this job? A: Dr. Wong first worked for a different company and then she went through a professional placement agency that gave her an interview with the company. She found the professional placement agency on the Internet and sought more information about it. At that time the company was looking for experienced scientists. After they looked at her experience and her resume they hired her. Before Dr. Wong applied for this job, she had ten years of experience. Q: Why did you choose this field of work? A: because as a high school student, I enjoyed chemistry,? said Dr. Jennifer Wong. As she began to explore analytic chemistry while getting her Ph.D. she was interested because in this field she was able to do something she loved and help other people at the same time. Dr. Wong liked chemistry and decided to go into biochemistry. When she came to the states she wanted to continue her education and eventually she was led to choose a career in analytic chemistry. Q: What type of research do you do? A: Dr. Wong analyzes proteins in order for her company to market a product. She characterizes proteins in order for her to see if the human body will take in a certain drug. She examines the proteins for impurities. Usually the drug they want has to be an injection or oral drug. On average it takes about ten or more years before a product will be on the market. At the current time her company has not yet been able to market any products yet because the process is a long time. The product must pass the FDA regulations and must have clinical tests as well. Q: What kinds of instruments/technology do you use in your work? A: In the protein lab there are many different types of tools used to drill proteins and analyze them as well. The electrophoresis is a separation technique that is based on the mobility of ions in an electric field. She uses this in order to separate DNA or proteins. The HPLC, a high performance liquid chromatography, is another tool used to separate compounds or the proteins that are dissolved in solution. Many different types of solvents are used when she uses this instrument such as citric acid. An IES is a type of drill used to analyze proteins. Q: How do you spend your time at work? A: In a typical day she does experiments by testing proteins that her boss wants her to analyze. She does lab work for about six hours. Then she either does paper work that is