How Silicones Science Takes Shape at Avantor’s Innovation Centers
Behind the Innovation with R&D Scientist Sandra Ortega
Sandra Ortega, R&D Scientist, NuSil®
Sandra has been with Avantor for 14 years, first at the company’s Carpinteria, Calif.-based Innovation Center and more recently at the Bakersfield, Calif.-based Innovation Center. Her research is focused on developing silicone materials for finished systems. She works with Avantor technicians, chemists and engineers to deliver silicone solutions to the medical device, aerospace exploration and defense system industries.
Sandra Ortega first realized her curious nature could lead to a career where she could study how things worked and improve them at age 12 when a family member became ill with ALS, a progressive, fatal neurodegenerative disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. “I remember nurses coming into the house and explaining in detail the disease and their methods that would help with care,” said Sandra. “Gaining and applying knowledge to save people or at the very least improving their quality of life, is what inspired my career in science.”
Today, Sandra is fulfilling her dream as an R&D Scientist at Avantor, where she works on the company’s NuSil® high-purity silicones business. Sandra and her colleagues work out of Avantor’s California-based Innovation Centers, technology-driven research and collaboration environments where they partner with scientists in the medical devices, aerospace exploration and defense system industries to develop bespoke solutions to their advanced technology challenges.
Examples of NuSil solutions include silicone coatings that can withstand extreme conditions – from the thin walls of a medical balloon used in angioplasty to the surface of a spacecraft – or rubbers and elastomers for tubing or molded components.
“We focus on projects capable of transitioning from the lab to large-scale manufacturing,” Sandra said. To ensure a robust understanding of a customer’s business challenge, site visits to customer facilities are a must. “It is fundamental to what we do for customers: looking at and addressing the big picture,” Sandra explained. “When customers first approach us, they sometimes believe that they can only choose a product from our website; however, they soon learn that we have many years of combined expertise in material sciences developing customizable high-quality products for many different applications.”
“With every project I work on, I see how critical our products are in improving people’s quality of life and advancing technology,” Sandra noted. “As an R&D scientist, it’s exciting to think about what the next five, ten, twenty years will bring because new and exciting customer requests continuously challenge our expertise and technology.”
To learn more about Avantor’s NuSil® product offerings, click here.