Bio Marin experiance reflfection
Bio Marin is a company that specializes in developing and commercializing drugs for rare, genetic disease. They have given hope and cures to many people worldwide with extremely rare diseases. An example of their success is Vimizim®, a prescription to Morquio syndrome. It is a disease that affects your metabolism in which the body is missing or does not have enough of a substance needed to break down long chains of sugar molecules. These chains of molecules are called glycosaminoglycans. While I was there, I went to 2 different areas of the complex. The first area in the facility primarily focused on cell culture. The scientists there were working with Bioreactors that cultivated the growth of "immortal cells". Immortal cells are cells that mutate to avoid senescence and keep on dividing for extremely long periods of time. This allows scientists to conduct experiments and observe results. Laminar flow cabinets were used hand in hand with Bioreactors to keep samples and other sensitive material sterile to avoid contaminative spores. Unfortunately, our group was running out of time and couldn't explore the HPLC (High Pressure Liquid Chromatography) station. We did get a look at the important process of Analytical Chemistry. In fact, our guide specialized in Chemistry, and worked in the department. I learned a little about their methods and instruments used to isolate, identify, and quantify matter. Basically they went through series of sophisticated processes to give a measure and palpable value to matter. My favourite part of the whole experience was simply learning it all. I was curious (still am) as to how Biotechnology and its similar studies was used in the real world. Learning a vast topic such as Biology (literally: study of life) was cool, but failed to answer my many burning questions about the interesting specifics, and most of all, its affect in the real world. Thats why I thought it was really cool to perceive the realistic side of things (stuff I might be doing out of school). I would have liked to spent more time, and delve deeper rather than scratch the surface of the different sciences. Analytical Chemistry sounded very abstract though it's purpose is to quantify things as we know it. And who wouldn't get excited when the term Immortal cells popped up? I can't help but think how interesting this particular topic could be.