Corine Hendrich

hte - the high throughput experimentation company is the leading provider of technologies and services for more productive research and development in the field of catalysis. Founded in 1999, the company employs around 350 people at its headquarters in Heidelberg and has been a wholly
owned subsidiary of BASF SE since 2012. hte supports international customers from the chemical, energy, refinery and environmental sectors in the development of new catalyst technologies for topics such as energy saving, clean fuels and CO2 reduction.

My work consisted, among other things, of the following tasks:

• Creation and revision of operating instructions for activities and hazardous substances as well as flow charts of the systems for marketing purposes.
• Preparation and integration of historical technology reports into a new database system.
• Involvement in preparing work documents for centralised management.
• Participation in the standardisation of work and safety documents for daily laboratory use.
• Preparation of hazard and operating instructions.
• Taking on the role of mentor for new employees.
• Clear visualisation and presentation of results including the associated error diagnostics.

• Operation of complex high-throughput systems in continuous operation under my own responsibility.
• Setting test parameters and setting up complex programme sequences for system operation.
• Process and system monitoring.
• Communication and coordination of work packages with the service departments and within the team.
• Testing of components relevant for operation, including calibration of mass flow controllers, measurement analytics (GC, GCMS) and temperature sensors.
• Maintenance of system components.
• Preparation of hazard and operating instructions.
• Responsibility for daily data evaluation and checking of results including error diagnostics and troubleshooting using in-house software packages such as myhte4, hteProcessControl, hteExperimentalControl, GC/GCMS software and Excel.
• Clear visualisation and presentation of results including the associated error diagnostics.
• Initial start-up of new laboratory systems for internal and external use.
• Support in the area of laboratory organisation and laboratory procedures as well as active participation in safety procedures.
• Taking on the role of mentor for new employees.
• Assigning and coordinating internal and external service personnel and acting as contact for English-speaking customers.
• Responsibility as company first responder, deputy laboratory responsibility for a laboratory,
  active support in laboratory organisation, participation in cross-departmental safety
  meetings.

During my time, instrAction was a service company and manufacturer of chromatography phases which specialises in the development of preparative chromatographic purification processes for industrial processes. The company with around 30 emplyees has developed a new form of separation phases together with the associated technology. Their customer base consisted of well-known pharmaceutical companies and API manufacturers from Germany and abroad.

My tasks have been:

• Screening and characterisation of stationary chromatography phases in 96 MTP format, transfer of the results into scalable column formats in a laboratory
  scale.
• Carrying out preparative protein purifications on ÄKTA chromatography systems, independent programming and testing of methods under UNICORN.
• Identification of quality-relevant phase properties such as the determination of
  dynamic binding capacities (frontal analyses), reversibility tests and packing quality determinations (HETP, asymmetry).
• Carrying out analytical determination and characterisation runs (SE and RP-HPLC, Protein A/G) on Dionex HPLC systems, independent programming and testing of sequences and gradients under Chromeleon.
• Analysing the chromatograms obtained and summarising the results.
• Handling and operation of a TECAN plate reader, carrying out and analysing ELISA determinations.
• Application of a commercially available ready-to-use gel system for SDS-PAGE
  with suitable colour methods (Coomassie staining, silver staining).
• Photometric determination of protein concentrations (e.g. A280 nm, BCAassay).
• Preparation of work instructions for determining the content of antibodies using HPLC (protein G) and for coolant monitoring.
• Calibrating test and measuring equipment (e.g. pH meters, piston-operated pipettes).
• Carrying out maintenance tasks and minor repairs on Dionex HPLC systems and
  ÄKTA chromatography systems.
• Carrying out various tasks under sterile conditions (sterile workbench).
• Routine handling of blood plasma, fermentation supernatants and endotoxin
  solutions.
• Carrying out administrative tasks such as ordering procedures and delivery and
  incoming goods inspections.
• Presentation of results in internal meetings.
• Application and transfer of regulations and operating instructions in English.

The IPK is a non-profit research institution with around 500 employees and, as a foundation under public law, a member of the Leibniz Association. According to its statutes, basic and application-oriented research on crop plants are among the Institute's tasks.

My work at the Hybrid Wheat Working Group consisted of the following tasks:

• Cultivation and maintenance of transgenic (S1) and non-transgenic wheat plants in the greenhouse and in phytochambers.
• Nucleic acid purification from plants and bacteria.
• Restriction analyses and gel electrophoretic separation of nucleic acids.
• Cloning of complex transformation vectors.
• Preparation of genomic DNA from wheat, tobacco and Arabidopsis.
• Analysis of genomic DNA using PCR technology.
• Analysis of genomic DNA using the Southern blot technique (including production of radioactively labelled probes for hybridisation).
• Histological fertility analyses by means of microscopy.
• Documentation of the experiments, creation of Excel files for statistical analysis.