H. P. Eiduson' Division of Field Operations U.S. Food and Drug Administration
1 I
Anatomy of an institute FDA Institute for advanced analytical chemistry
The scientific community agrees that it is essential for professional chemists to keep up to date on modern techniques and advances. Analytical scientists of the Food and Drug Administration have found that FDA's long-standing program of in-house training, coupled with attendance a t scientific meetings, seminars, and university courses, is no longer adequate for this purpose because of the agency's rapidly increasing responsibilities and the growing complexity of the techniques required to carry them out. FDA therefore decided to collaborate with a university to provide a suitable refresher course. The following specifications were established: The course must be laboratory-oriented, covering as many of the latest techniques in analytical chemistry as possible because of the tremendous variety of our malytical problems and the corresponding variety of techniques and instruments required to salve them. The course should provide adequate training not only for om present responsibilities but also for a research pro-
' Technical Liaison to the Institute.
gram to develop new approaches to future problems. The students will be FDA chemists, all of whom have a t least the B.S. degree and who have varying lengths of analytical experience. The course will be a continuing program with an enrollment of 30 students per session. After the type of program and curriculum has been agreed upon, the university will have complete academio freedom in teaching.
An agreement was drawn up with Georgetown Uuiversity of Washington, D.C. to conduct such a course, to he called "The FDA Institute for Advanced Analytical Chemistry." The University provided three laboratories for the exclusive use of the course and a fulltime Assistant Professor of Chemistry to be responsible for the immediate direction of the Institute plus one additional full-time, and several part-time, faculty and teaching fellows. The University furnished a mass spectrometer. FDA purchased and retained title to $222,000 worth of additional equipment, including gas chromatographs, atomic absorption equipment, spectrophotometers (ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and near infrared, some of them recording types), nuclear magnetic resonance equipment with a time averaging com-
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puter, polarographs, titrating apparatus, fluoro-microphotometers, thin layer chromatography apparatus, disc electrophoresis equipment, pH meters, constant temperature baths, balances, pumps, ovens, and allied equipment. The University provides an academic grade for each student according to its usual criteria and awards graduate credits a t its own discretion. FDA reserves to itself the decision to withdraw any FDA student from the course because of unsatisfactory performance. Several positions in each course are reserved for scientists from industry, other agencies (federal, state, and local), the academic world, and foreign countries. The Institute has now been in operation for two years, and the Ninth Institute is now in progress. In addition to FDA scientists, students include two WHO fellows (one each from Panama and Malaysia), three state scientists (North Dakota, Alabama, and New York), the third scientist from the Canadian government to enroll in the course, two industry scientists, and one from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The current twelve-week, intensive curriculum is shown in the table. Curriculum of the FDA Institute
Leo Lure (hrs) Electronics Electrochemistry Powder X-rav Statistics " UV-Visible Spectroscopy I R Spectroscopy Optical Rotatory Dispersion Mass Spectrometry NLMRSpectroscopy Computer Techniques Flame Photometrv-Fluorometrv Gas ~ h r o r n s t o ~ r < ~ h ~ Thin-Layer-Electrophoresis "Research" Project Seminars Examinations (4) Totd ~~~
~
~~
Recitsi Labors, t.ion tory (hrs) (hrs)
2 4 5 1 5 6 2
6 6
6 4 4 10
..
2 10 4
..
!l
...
20 24 6 10 20 4
1
6
10 2
20 10 40
.. ~
~
..
The first week includes only lectures. Each week thereafter each student receives 4'/* hours of lecture, 6 hours of recitation, 16 to 21 hours of laboratory work, and about 1 hour of seminars. The fifth course suhstituted Computer Techniques (2 hours of recitation and 4 hours of labnratory) for radiochemistry, which was part of the original curriculum. The data taken during a UV experiment are examined with the aid of Georgetown's IBM-1620, Mark I1 Computer.
All students attend lecture sessions simultaneously; they are divided into two groups of 15 each for recitation periods and six groups of 5 each for laboratory periods. Each laboratory group works on a different experiment during any one period so that the equipment is utilized to the maximum. The "research project" portion of the curriculum is actually devoted to the attempted solution of a problem, chosen by the student and approved by the faculty, by applying the knowledge and instrumentation of the Institute. Those not choosing a project are given an unknown organic mixture for complete qualitative and quantitative identification utilizing principles covered in the course. At the end of the first year of operation, the program was evaluated by the students and their FDA supervisors. As we expected, there were some complaints (chiefly about the intense pressure and pace of the worldoad) and some suggestions for improvement, hut the overwhelming majority of the responses were favorable, and both students and supervisors felt that the advantages far outweighed the disadvantages. Some of the chief benefits mentioned were: broadened thinking, greater confidence in the use of instruments and a greater tendency to employ them in solving problems, greater insight into both the capabilities and limitations of the various instruments, improved quality of in-house training, improved stature of FDA in the scientific community, increased motivation for scientists to remain a t FDA because of opportunity for career development and personal stimulation toward self-development. We have concluded from our observations and the evaluations that the Institute is generally meeting its objectives of increasing the depth of knowledge of FDA scientists and keeping them abreast of the latest advances in techniques of analytical chemistry. The majority of the evaluations do point out, however, that the Institute cannot and should not take the place of other, more specialized training courses at local universities, professional meetings, seminars, industry schools, etc. As a result of experience with the Institute we are convinced that this type of advanced education involving operating laboratories and a university is an excellent aid in keeping analytical chemists abreast of their science. We have expanded this cooperation to courses administered by the University of Rhode Island and the University of Pittsburgh in the field of drug manufacture, and by the University of California at Berkeley in the field of criminal investigation for FDA inspectors.
Answers to "Elementary" Quiz, page 588
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