Every Sample Matters

LaboratoryEquipment.com

For Lab Director Lucy Podbielski, Each Sample Potentially Holds the Key
to Better Health

by Sara Goudarzi

In 2003, Lucy Podbielski and five of her colleagues lost their jobs when
the pharmaceutical company they worked for closed its facilities in
Skokie, Illinois. Instead of fretting their loss, the group formed
Midwest BioResearch (MBR), a research lab specializing in drug
disposition and toxicology.

Today, more than 100 pharmaceutical and biotech clients depend on MBR to
help them select and advance compounds from the discovery phase through
to drug development. Podbielski, director of laboratory operations and
sample/data handling, ensures everyone who works for the lab has the
resources they need to get their jobs done.

“Our company is involved in clinical and pre-clinical work,” Podbielski
explains. “When drugs are in development, before they get into humans,
and they’re in animals, it’s called pre-clinical work. Once it gets into
humans, we call it clinical work.”

MBR provides services in four different areas. In program services, the
facility’s consulting arm, lab personnel help monitor studies and place
these studies at various locations for clients.

“We also have a genetic toxicology group where we have some assays that
measure early on the genetic toxicity of potential drug compounds,”
Podbielski says. “Additionally, we have a protein bioanalysis group that
focuses on proteins; they work with amino assays. Finally, we have a
small molecule bioanalysis group that focuses on small molecules. They
use different kinds of instrumentation, such as mass spectrometers or
HPLCs.”

Better Health
Each week, MBR receives hundreds of samples. By directing the sample and
data handling part of the lab, Podbielski makes certain all samples are
checked in as they arrive. She also ensures each sample is treated like
the most important one and that nobody within the lab misses a beat.

Because every sample that makes its way into the lab has required either
an animal to give up its life or a person to volunteer the sample in
hopes of healing himself or someone else, Podbielski believes that each
and every sample is precious. “My goal for every sample is that we can
identify it and can get a result for it, so that somewhere down the line
some kind of scientific good can come out of it.”

Solving Puzzles
MBR is a regulated laboratory, which means the facility is required to
comply with FDA requirements. The biggest challenge, Podbielski says, is
to make sure everybody follows the procedures that have been put in
place by the regulatory agency. “Trying to get 40 people to follow those
processes all the time can be difficult.”

The key to meeting this challenge is communication, and lots of it. “We
use E-mail,” Podbielski says. “We have company meetings and we do
lunch-and-learn once a month,” during which employees share industry
news, procedure advances and equipment information.

Direct line managers are also very important in ensuring that everything
runs smoothly. By understanding procedures and the importance of the
rules and regulations, they can correctly guide those reporting to them.

However, what makes MBR unique, according to this lab manager, is their
team attitude. No matter what position a person has in the company, he
or she is involved in day-to-day work.

“It’s not like somebody is funding us and sitting far away,” Podbielski
explains. “The people who own the company are working in it every day. I
think that makes a difference in how we work.”

And the work is also enjoyable, Podbielski adds. “Scientific work,
especially what we do, whether it’s an animal or human study, is like a
big puzzle for me. The challenge to fit all the pieces on our end is
really a lot of fun.”

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