Ninhydrin. Bitches.

When taking Organic Chem lab (first semester), you do a lot of BS'ing. Especially when you have a lab instructor that doesn't really give a crap about what you do. This semester, however, I had an AWESOME lab instructor (Alison) who was ridiculously helpful, so I actually understood (almost all of) the experiments we were doing, could visualize the mechanisms behind them, and actually thoroughly enjoyed lab this second semester. As it turns out, Alison is a awesome BADASS and used to do forensic science and all sorts of awesome shit like that. ALSO, she is a climber/hiker/photographer/explorer extraordinaire. And if I wasn't an awkward fucktard, I would have asked her to be my friend after the semester was over. She's THAT cool, that I actually had thought processes of wanting to make FRIENDS with someone.

That was a HUGE side note to what I actually wanted to talk about, and then what I wanted to talk about even more. In organic chem lab (second semester), you do a few experiments that hopefully turn out well, do a couple of lab reports, and then you're given three unknown substances (be they solid or liquid) to identify. Guiding you is your raw instinct, undying desire to go to veterinary school, and a lab manual that says things like "The acetyl chloride test is unreliable for alcohol compounds with six or more carbons", meanwhile, EVERY unknown we get IS a compound of more than six carbons. The lucky ones have "Secret Agent Lenny Man" on our side, who tells us things we should ALREADY know such as "cool that shit slowly, don't just shove it into a bucket of ice" and "none of those tests actually tell you ANYTHING" and "you are all morons, but after this semester, you're all going to be slightly different morons". It's great character building. Thanks to Alison's neverending patience with my "PLEASE SMELL THIS DOES THIS SMELL LIKE ORANGE BLOSSOM? DOES THIS SMELL LIKE PEPPERMINT? WHY DON'T MY DERIVATIVE TESTS GIVE ME A SOLID COMPOUND" and Lenny's kind words of advice, I got all three of my unknowns correct for this lab semester, which is AWESOME and EXCITING and makes me feel like I DO SCIENCE.

So as a celebratory activity, here's the mechanism for ninhydrin. This shit is pretty cool, just like everything else I talk about. When you've got a bunch of amino acids and you want to know what's in your shit, you throw them all into this "Gel Electrophoresis" thing, and then according to the pH in the thing and the isoelectric point (more on this below) of the amino acid, they'll migrate to and fro and end up somewhere (in a very exact spot) on this "piece of paper" depending on what the amino acid is. Ninhydrin is the reagent to see this shit moving, as delicately put by Lenny. And it has a mechanism, a way that this purple shit (orange for proline, i think) tells you what's good. And here's a (horribly ugly because my board isn't big enough) rendition of said mechanism:

A nice and BIG photo for all of you to admire. There's an assload of proton transfers that goes on, and the end result I don't even have on the board. Because there's no room. So if you're THAT curious about the end result, I recommend googling in.

I mentioned that I would talk a bit about isoelectric points. Lenny taught us an excellent technique and I'll try to explain it in my own way that helps me visualize it. By using the board. again. But not now. Maybe later.