Melvin De Jesus Flores

NMR Saved Despite University Damage During Hurricane Maria

12 Jul 2019

In this video interview, find out how one dedicated scientist at the University of Puerto Rico kept his lab’s prized Bruker NMR running in the wake of one of the most destructive hurricane seasons on record Dr. Melvin De Jesus Flores describes how his efforts following Hurricane Maria in 2017 led to him successfully saving his NMR at the University of Puerto Rico - this story was originally covered by SelectScience in the editorial article - How I Saved our NMR from Hurricane María Devastation - for which Flores was awarded a Scientists' Choice Award, along with Bruker.

My name is Melvin De Jesus. I am working for the University of Puerto Rico as an instrumentation specialist. I am in charge of the NMR laboratory in the university. In our university, the NMR is used for the undergraduate students in different project. So, we have many research project. One of the most important project we are running right now is a project of Dr.
Margarita Ortiz. She doing some research that are linked to the Alzheimer's Disease. She is creating new drugs that have to be very useful for the disease. And we have also some project with UPenn University by the program, PREM. So, the NMR is used by these other students that are creating new boron system for conductivity properties on their system with boron materials.
Hurricane Maria impact our lab, leaving the lab without power, so most of the instruments get damaged over there because humidity inside the laboratory. So, there was water inside the laboratory. Outside the laboratories in the roofs we have all the related things to the instruction system, air condition system, all of them were destroyed by the hurricane.
So, it was a big challenge for us to keep the laboratory working after the hurricane. After Hurricane Maria, I have to bring nitrogen to the lab in the second floor. So, as you know, a big nitrogen dewar, so, it's big enough to put in the second floor with our elevators. We were without power, so I had to took the nitrogen in small dewars and bring the nitrogen through a funnel inside the magnet, so.
The risky part of all this job is that I have to keep the NMR safe without ice block generation in the nitrogen port of the system. So, in that way, I just keep the NMR alive, just bringing the nitrogen to the second floor using a small funnel, so.
After last year, what he have improved is that we have now laboratory with air condition after more than 10, 11 months without air condition. So, the elevator was without working for about eight months. Right now, everything is working, we have air condition in our lab, we have elevator system.
So now I can bring the nitrogen to the second floor and do the filling the way it should be, so. Well. Our futures? I want to be very optimistic. So, I see a stronger university system, so prepared for the next hurricane season, and I see better facilities for our university, especially for our Department of Chemistry.