What is your favourite enzyme?  Why?

Trypsin! It was the enzyme made by (Nature/God/Evolution/Sigma) to digest proteins into 'mass-spectrometry-compatible-peptides'!

 

What is your favourite book? What is the most recent book you've read?

Favourite book: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... of course.

Recent book: Falling Up, by Shel Silverstein. The more I read it, the more I like it.

 

What is your favourite amino acid? Why?

Glycine, it's the easiest to remember!

 

What are some of your hobbies?

Soccer (it's more like a religion than a hobby in Argentina!)

Baking... in search of the perfect bread and bagel!

The djembe!!

Mass Spectrometry... Yes, my work is also my hobby!

 

What is your dream vacation?

Anywhere I can get there on a bicycle.

 

What is the coolest project you've worked on in lab?

Working in a cod aquaculture farming project in St. Alban's, Newfoundland, to determine sexual maturation of the fish using proteins, liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. Working in the fish cages in March was not only cool, but also very cold!!!

 

Tell us about a mistake you've made in lab.

I wouldn't know where to start! As a PhD student, I remember I once blew an electronic board on a mass spectrometer because I accidentally inverted the polarity of a voltage setting... BOOM!!! a $20.000 board made toast. I earned my supervisor's full swearing vocabulary. Luckily, it was covered by instrument's guarantee!!!