News

04/06/14 | Thank you to everyone who assisted with shipment to Pakistan

Dear All,

Just a quick message to say thank you to everyone who volunteered to pack
all of the instrumentation that was shipped to Pakistan.

The instrumentation is now at sea and will be landing at Karachi port
any day now.  The systems will be used to assist with the development of
a National Centre for mass spectrometry accessible by all Pakistani
academics hosted by the International Centre for Chemical and Biological
Sciences (ICCBS) at the University of Karachi, Prof. Dr. Muhammad Iqbal
Choudhary is the director of the centre.

Prior to the shipment leaving the UK Almas Khan (RORO trustee) and I
visited the ICCBS at the end of April to meet with Professor Iqbal to
discuss the proposed donation and organise the finer details of the
shipment.

A large Luton van with tail lift was hired early evening on the 7th May
from Hebden Bridge and then driven to Liverpool to collect the two
tandem quadrupole mass spectrometers and other associated spares that
were in storage at the Rose Howey cooperative in Liverpool.  Dan, Aymi,
Jen, Mally and Mike Low (RORO Trustee) assisted with loading the van in
Liverpool with the instrumentation and it was driven back to Hebden
Bridge that evening pending onward carriage to Manchester in the
morning.

The container was scheduled to arrive at the Mill, University of
Manchester at 14:00Hrs with a two hour window to load it, the container
was not loaded onto the ground (an additional charge of £500) and we did
not have access to a loading bay.  I drove the van to the University
early in the morning and moved all of the equipment that was not to be
shipped out of the van and into the RORO store room at the Mill.  In the
meantime the QTOF Micro and Shimadzu AXIMA were moved into the
University stores in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB)
thanks to Cat, David and Howbeer.  Once I finished unloading everything
apart from the mass specs to be shipped I drove the van to the MIB to
collect the AXIMA and QTOF.  There were a few issues loading the QTOF
but we got it in and secured in the end.  The main problem was with the
AXIMA - it was to tall to fit into the Luton van...  The instrument was
very heavy but we could not tip it up to fit it in, the only solution
was to secure the AXIMA to the back of the van with the tail lift open. 
We then proceeded with caution exceedingly slowly back to the Mill to
meet the truck carrying the 20 foot container.

Jakub (University of Manchester, RORO volunteer) and I then proceeded to
move the mass spectrometers onto pallets and load them into the 20 foot
container.  We had to park the van at the top of some steps so that the
tail lift would go into the container when the truck reversed up to the
steps, the AXIMA was moved very smoothly into the container and had a
very safe journey all things considered.  The other two LCT Premier mass
spectrometers were still in the lab at the Mill and were then moved down
and loaded with Nick Rattray (RORO Trustee) into the container.  The
other smaller items including the rotary pumps, computers and HPLC
systems were loaded and Jakub packed quite a few accessories into a box
that fitted very neatly into the back of the container.  The driver of
the container truck also helped us and gave us some pitta bread and
chapatti which was very kind of him.  The container was then sealed (by
this time it was poring with rain, typical Manchester weather!) and the
job was complete.  In total we hand moved more than two tonnes of
equipment, phew!

A big thank you to Professors Roy Goodacre and Professor Doug Kell for
the donation of the QTOF Micro and AXIMA MALDI system from the
University of Manchester.  GSK for the donation of the Quattro Ultima,
Waters UK for the donation of the Quattro LC.  Thank you to the chemical
analysis team, Clinical operations and global software support teams
from the Waters Corporation for the donation of the two LCT Premier mass
specs, Alliance HPLC and 2777 autosamplers.

Once the container has arrived at ICCBS Almas and I will return to
Pakistan to install the instruments and provide training on how to use
the systems.  Sayed Asghar (Managing Director of Kamstec International,
official Pakistani distributor for the Waters Corporation) has kindly
offered his support during the installation and training period.

A full report post installation and training will be published on the
RORO website in due course towards the end of June 2014.

Thanks again for everyone help and support for this project.

Best regards,
Giles

Giles Edwards
Founder Trustee/ Technical Director