Caption contest definitely needed

I don't know why this website reminds me of this movie's poster, but it does. 

Where are the jobs on the Medicinal Chemistry Jobs List?

A quick compilation on the Medicinal Chemistry Jobs List shows:

California: 37
Massachusetts: 15
New Jersey: 1
Pennsylvania: 4
Connecticut: 2
All other states: 11

Quite a few of them in the Bay Area, it seems. 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 70 positions

The experiment is three weeks old! Doing my best to track down all open research-track medicinal chemistry positions. At the moment, the list has 70 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Check out the other bottom tabs on the list for various notations and side experiments.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States (this will likely change), computational positions (this will likely change as well), process positions (coming soon....), academic positions (will likely be included about a year from now?), industrial postdocs (maybe someday soon.) 

A trial: the Chemistry Faculty Jobs Forum

Because the open thread has gotten more unwieldy, I have opened up this web forum ("Chemistry Faculty Jobs List"). Feel free to join/post!

It's a trial - I will be monitoring it and seeing how much spam it gets, etc. If people move over there, I may close the open thread, but that decision won't be made anytime soon. Enjoy! 

2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 531 positions

The 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated mostly by Andrew Spaeth, with minor help from me) has 531 positions.

Have you had a Skype/phone interview (or an on-site) with a position on the Faculty Jobs List? Please add the date of the interview to the open thread. The open thread is here.

Do you see anything that needs correcting? Please leave a comment in the open thread, or e-mail me at chemjobber@gmail.com

As the 2017 Faculty Jobs Open Thread has gotten longer, the Blogger software that this blog is run on has added a new wrinkle: when you initially load the thread, it loads only the first ~220 comments and then has a "load more" button near the bottom of the page near the comment box. Only after pressing that button does it load the latest comments. (Actually, it takes three clicks of that button now. Sigh.) 

Ivory Filter Flask/Daily Pump Trap: 12/17/16 edition

A (very) few of the positions posted at C&EN Jobs over the last few days:

Dayton, OH: Wright State is looking for an assistant professor of analytical chemistry. Offered salary: 62,000.00 - 67,000.00.

IDA - STPI Science Policy Fellowship Program: Interesting program for B.S./M.S. chemists looking at a career in science policy.

San Diego, CA: UCSD is looking for an assistant professor to perform NMR research: "Candidates with research interests in Biological, Materials, or Chemical NMR Spectroscopy are particularly encouraged to apply, especially experimentalists with a strong focus on addressing fundamental structural questions about macromolecules and supramolecular assemblies using the most up-to-date NMR methods. Applications to biomolecules and their complexes, novel materials and assemblies, nanoparticles, and surfaces and interfaces are all of interest."

Riverdale, NY: Manhattan College, looking for an assistant professor of biochemistry.

Newark, DE: The University of Delaware is seeking a M.S./Ph.D. chemist to oversee their analytical and physical chemistry teaching laboratories.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a happy 2017. Back on Tuesday.

Radio show today at 2 PM Eastern

Call into the show at (845) 277-9235 or leave a comment, and I'll send you a Skype invite.

What do you want to talk about? We're mainly focusing on #chemjobs issues today. 

The View From Your Hood: Christmas tree edition

(got a View from Your Hood submission? Send it in with a caption, and how you'd like to be credited at chemjobber@gmail.com; will run every other Friday.)

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 73 positions

The experiment is three weeks old! Doing my best to track down all open research-track medicinal chemistry positions. At the moment, the list has 73 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Check out the other bottom tabs on the list for various notations and side experiments.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States (this will likely change), computational positions (this will likely change as well), process positions (coming soon....), academic positions (will likely be included about a year from now?), industrial postdocs (maybe someday soon.) 

Chemjobber and friends, Friday, 2 PM Eastern

Want to talk about chemistry jobs tomorrow (Friday, December 23) at 2 PM Eastern? Click here to hear the show.

Want to be on the show? E-mail me: chemjobber@gmail.com

Want to call in? The number for guests is (845) 277-9235. Talk to you then! 

Daily Pump Trap: 12/22/16 edition

A (very) few of this week's postings at C&EN Jobs:

Weinheim, Germany: I see Angewandte Chemie is looking for a new editor-in-chief. Do you think they have a editor's test that include making bad puns? Gotta say, I like the posting in second person:

After a broad and excellent chemistry education you have gained some thorough experience in chemical research. You are well versed in all aspects of editorial work, and the peer-review process in particular, and you have a solid understanding of journal development and the business aspects of journal publishing. You are a proven leader and teamwork is your “second nature”. You not only enjoy reading manuscripts and referee reports but also the wider literature. You will be working with other departments at the publishers and you will be in close contact with the GDCh and in particular with the journal’s Editorial Board and its International Advisory Board. Attending conferences and talking to authors and referees gives you particular satisfaction.

 San Diego, CA: Lilly looking for a Ph.D. computational chemist.

Shanghai, China: BioDuro is looking for a director of medicinal chemistry. 10+ years experience in drug discovery. 

A Chemjobber Christmas tradition

A revised edition for a new year. Print it out and send to your family -- it works!

Warning Letter of the Week: secrets, mold and toilets edition

A cordial note from the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research to Mr. Yikai Fu, the general manager of

Baoying County Fukang Medical Appliance Co., Ltd, pointing out a few problems with their facility: 

1.    Your firm delayed, denied, or limited an inspection, or refused to permit the FDA inspection.
On June 6, 2016, during the inspectional walk through of the laboratory testing area of your facility, our investigator asked you to explain the microbiological testing processes used on the [redacted] that you manufacture and distribute to the United States. Your firm’s representative stated he would not disclose the firm’s trade secrets. Our investigator explained that as part of the inspection, FDA needs to know the details of the operations, and that FDA does not disclose details of the information. Nonetheless, without reasonable explanation, the full test procedure was never provided....

4.    Your firm failed to maintain the buildings used in the manufacture, processing, packing, or holding of a drug product in a clean and sanitary condition and to keep them free of infestation by rodents, birds, insects, and other vermin. (21 CFR 211.56(a))
Our investigator documented copious amounts of unknown black, mold-like material on the floor and walls of warehouse #2. In addition, our investigator observed standing water on the floor and live insects at the entrance of the same warehouse. This warehouse is a storage area for [redacted] used in the production of your firm’s [redacted]. The poor conditions in your facility could compromise the quality of the products you manufacture....

5.    Your firm failed to provide adequate washing facilities, including hot and cold water, soap or detergent, air driers or single service towels, and clean toilet facilities easily accessible to working areas. (21 CFR 211.52)
There was no adequate washing facility accessible to working areas at your site. Additionally, the only toilet facility on-site contained visible sewage and had no running water. This toilet facility is shared by production, quality, and administrative personnel at your facility.

Count me as a bit surprised that the CFR lays out the requirements for a toilet facility at a cGMP plant, but there it is! Huh. 

2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 527 positions

The 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated mostly by Andrew Spaeth, with minor help from me) has 527 positions.

Have you had a Skype/phone interview (or an on-site) with a position on the Faculty Jobs List? Please add the date of the interview to the open thread. The open thread is here. 

Do you see anything that needs correcting? Please leave a comment in the open thread, or e-mail me at chemjobber@gmail.com

As the 2017 Faculty Jobs Open Thread has gotten longer, the Blogger software that this blog is run on has added a new wrinkle: when you initially load the thread, it loads only the first ~220 comments and then has a "load more" button near the bottom of the page near the comment box. Only after pressing that button does it load the latest comments. (Actually, it takes three clicks of that button now. Sigh.) 

Does your department allow graduate students to have outside employment?

An old tweet/poll from this summer: 

PIs, does your department have rules on outside part-time employment for your graduate students?

Explicit rule against: 40%
Implicit rule against: 15%
Up to the PI: 17%
No rule against: 28%  

242 votes

Not talking about secondments to industry, etc. I'm talking about grad students moonlighting driving pizzas, etc. 

It seems pretty reasonable to me for schools to discourage outside employment (pizza delivery at night, etc.), but perhaps I have a limited imagination. If I were a PI, someone would have screwed up -- but if I were a PI, I'd be pretty unhappy if you had a swing shift at McDonald's down the way. That said, maybe PIs don't care?

Anyone have a strong feeling one way or another? Curious if folks have stories around this. 

Daily Pump Trap: 12/20/16 edition

A few positions from recent postings at C&EN Jobs:

Cambridge, MA: RaNA Therapeutics is looking for a Ph.D. scientist to be a drug delivery researcher. Looks interesting.

Salt Lake City, UT: 6th Wave Innovations Corp is searching for a Ph.D. polymer chemist. 5+ years experience for Ph.D., 10+ for M.S. "Well versed in the area of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), including imprint modeling and imprint extraction from synthesized MIP."

Reston, VA: USGS is looking for a chemist to be a QA specialist " to implement, maintain, and manage a comprehensive program-wide Quality Management System (QMS) in EERSC Research Laboratories." Posted salary: 77,490.00 - 119,794.00

Lake Forest, IL: Pfizer looking for a senior group leader for a mass spectrometry laboratory; M.S./Ph.D, 5 to 8 years of monoclonal antibody experience is desired.

"Research Triangle Park": AgBiome, once again looking for a formulations development chemist.

Ivory Filter Flask: 12/20/16 edition

A few of the academic positions posted at C&EN Jobs:

North Andover, MA: Merrimack College is searching for an assistant or associate professor of analytical or physical chemistry.

Jonesboro, AR: Arkansas State University is hiring an assistant professor of organic, bioanalytical or bioinorganic chemistry.

Myrtle Beach sounds nice right about now: Coastal Carolina University desires an assistant professor of biochemistry; it's near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Loretto, PA: Saint Francis University is inviting applications for what looks like a lecturer position? "Non-tenure track faculty." Biochemistry or forensic chemistry desired.

"Germany": The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is looking for postdoctoral researchers and experienced researchers who are looking for fellowships to study in Germany.

Now that's a Last Minute Lecturer (Ashland, OR edition): "The Department of Chemistry at Southern Oregon University invites applications for an Assistant Professor in Physical Chemistry, limited term, to commence as early as January 3, 2017." 

On the air, again

I'll be firing up the ol' BlogTalkRadio account on Friday, December 23 at 2 PM Eastern for a couple of hours of talk. Don't know who I will have for guests just quite yet, but expect at least an hour of open lines and talk about the chemistry job market.

Got a job hunt story you'd like to tell and don't have the time on Friday? Got a topic you'd like me to cover? Call the voicemail line at (302) 313-6257 or send me an e-mail: chemjobber@gmail.com 

A valuable natural resource

Via Undark's Meera Subramanian, a pretty funny paragraph about a topic I did not know about:

Gomutra is the name in Sanskrit. Distilled cow urine, especially from young white virgin cows, has a long history in the traditional Hindu system of medicine known as Ayurveda, or “science of life.” Other men had gathered around us and they began calling out the problems that this Ayurvedic cure-all could fix: AIDS, diabetes, liver and kidney cancer, skin problems, bad breath, fever in boys! Just a couple of drops in the morning — along with a pill, someone added — and you will get better. When I asked how they collected it, they all gestured to a red bucket sitting by the door, and I gathered that there was some peon whose job was to watch the cows attentively, bucket in hand, and sprint out to capture the magical therapeutic fluid before it seeped into the desert sand.

I have to confess that I don't have a lot of experience with Ayurvedic medicine, although I've seen the term in the alternative medicine aisle of grocery stores and the like.  It's interesting to me that most cultures seem to have natural products cures of some sort; their efficacy as proven by double-blind clinical trials seems to be lacking, though. 

This week's C&EN

A few articles from this week's issue of C&EN:

• It's the "Year in Review" issue. 
• 2016 Salary Survey unemployment number for all members? 2.6%
• That same number for new graduates in 2015? 12.3% (post by Andrea Widener)
• The "quotes of the year" are worth your while. 
• Lisa Jarvis covers the less-than-great pharma news at BMS, Lilly and others. 
• Chemical M&A got put on pause for a while - I predict that it will ramp back up in 2017. 
• Ryan Cross covers CRISPR news for 2016. 
• Jyllian Kemsley recaps the Ekins-Coward incident at Hawaii-Manoa. 
• This fluorinated azides paper looks pretty cool (article by Stephen K. Ritter) 
• I don't normally link to the Newscripts page (I figure most folks go there anyway - I sure do), but I found this week's entry about both crystal-growing and a conversation between Stu Borman and Fraser Stoddart really fun. 

Quarter-inch hex bolts

A list of small, useful things (links):

• If you'd like to see the trappings of a Nobel Prize, I commend you to the #teamfraser tweets of Stuart Cantrill and others. Pretty neat to see all the pomp. 
• The Nobel lectures from a different perspective from Labsolutely.
• The organic chemistry ASAP subreddit
• I felt I learned something about the use of magnesium in cars in this post.
• If you want to feel chills, read this Janet Stemwedel case study based on the Bengu Sezen story. 
• An interesting set of opinions about applying to graduate school in the sciences.
• Nice writeup of Bode's work by SeeArrOh.
• A Dow chemist in ACS' "What Chemists Do" series.
• The ACS Division of Chemical Education has new safety guidelines for demonstrations. (post by Jyllian Kemsley)
• The latest from Stellen Fuer Chemiker.
• The Portable Chemist's Consultant has been updated.
• UPDATE: A rather wonderful rendition of "Carol of the Bells" by FID (by University of Bath chemist Andrew Hall)
• UPDATE 2: Via Twitter, a pretty fun graduate school diary.

Again, an open invitation to all interested in writing a blog, a hobby that will bring you millions thousands hundreds tens of dollars joy and happiness. Send me a link to your post, and I'd be happy to put it up.

Have a good weekend! 

Help for a senior medicinal chemist?

From the Medicinal Chemistry Jobs List open thread, a good set of questions from Anon5:21: 

Consultant looking for med chem position. 35+ years experience at major Pharma plus Academia. Responsible in large part for 2 drugs on market. Ran a group of over 20 people.

I am at a crossroads in my life and about to be laid off at 60. I would like to keep going and it would really help me financially. But I get the feeling that there is just nothing out there for a Ph.D. organic chemist to do at this age. I know this is an increasingly common situation and wonder what others in similar straits have done in their post-layoff existence.

Readers, any thoughts? Continuing to be a consultant and/or starting one's own medicinal chemistry company are my two ideas; unfortunately, I don't think they will solve Anon5:21's financial concerns. 

Will you do better than your parents?

Credit: FiveThirtyEigh

From Ben Casselman at FiveThirtyEight: 

In 1970, according to the research, conducted by Stanford economist Raj Chetty and several co-authors, roughly nine out of every 10 American 30-year-olds earned more than their parents did at the same age, after adjusting for inflation. In 2014, only half of 30-year-olds could say the same.1 The slowdown in mobility shows up in all 50 states and is true across the income spectrum. The biggest declines were among the children of middle-class families.

I have to say that this is literally true for myself, in that my father, when he was 30, was working as an engineer already, and I was in the middle of my graduate school/postdoctoral training. That said, it will be interesting (he said quietly, hopefully) to see what our respective inflation-adjusted earnings will be at 50.

I also wonder if this is true for chemists. For example, how are entry-level or mid-career Ph.D. chemists doing, compared to their cohorts 10, 20 or 30 years ago? I don't think we have good data on this, even as I remind us that the median ACS member (in 2014) has lost ground against inflation for over a decade.

Perhaps a bit overcredentialed?

I suspect this is an error, but if so, it's a funny one from Global Blood Therapeutics:

Chemistry Lab Technician 

Position Summary 

Working closely with Medicinal Chemistry, Chemoinformatics, Discovery Biology and DMPK, the technician’s primary duty is to support the daily operation of discovery research at GBT. 

Responsibilities

• Organize chemicals and reagents
• Organize and track GBT internal compound inventory
• Register samples from CROs
• Coordinate screening compound acquisition & testing
• Coordinate shipment of compound samples for external testing
• Dispense samples for biochemical assays and biological studies
• Alert chemists for re-synthesis if compound stock is running low
• Track and refill solvents for HPLCs and LCMSs...

Skills, knowledge, experience 

A bachelor or master degree in organic chemistry with 5+ years medicinal chemistry experience in a drug discovery setting

Surely this is an error. I have a very difficult time believing this is the state of the Bay Area chemistry job market that they can command a M.S. chemist for a technician position? 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 68 positions

The experiment is two weeks old! Doing my best to track down all open research-track medicinal chemistry positions. At the moment, the list has 68 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States (this will likely change), computational positions (this will likely change as well), process positions (coming soon....), academic positions (will likely be included about a year from now?), industrial postdocs (maybe someday soon.) 

What is it like to interview in the UK in industry?

So I know what it's like to do an industrial interview in the US in person. It's something like this:

• You show up the day of, in your finest rumpled suit. 
• You meet your host and maybe take a short tour of the facility. 
• You give a talk of some kind. 
• You answer some questions from your audience. 
• You go to lunch with a slightly new group of people on the company dime.
• You go back to the place and talk to various people for the rest of the day, usually in 30 minute portions. 
• You might have dinner with a new set of people. 

There might be some differences in order or length, but this is the general structure. 

What's an industrial interview like in the UK? I've never been on one, so I couldn't tell you. I've heard rumors of examinations at the board, but nothing concrete. Readers, please, enlighten me. 

Daily Pump Trap: 12/15/16 edition

A few of the industrial positions posted at C&EN Jobs:

Wilmington, DE: Incyte, looking for entry-level Ph.D. medicinal chemists.

Neenah, WI: Georgia Pacific looking for a chemist to join their analytical R&D team. M.S., 3 years experience desired, Ph.D. preferred.

You'll be able to go to Gators games?: Interesting Ph.D. biochemist position from Firebird Biomolecular Sciences:

Senior Scientist, Firebird Biomolecular Sciences, LLC, Alachua, FL.  $48,000 per yr. Research using laboratory in vitro evolution (LIVE or SELEX) with unnatural DNA and RNA analog.  Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Genetics or rel field; 2 yrs exp as Biomolecular Scientist.  Must have peer-reviewed publications in nucleic acid chemistry, molecular biology, and LIVE-SELEX. 

One presumes this is a H1b-related ad, but who knows?

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show (respectively) "1000+", 380, 9,246 and 30 positions for the search term "chemist."

LinkedIn shows 2,219 positions for the search term "chemist" and 14,037 for the search term "chemistry." Job titles from LinkedIn - first with quotes, and the second without: Analytical chemist: 178/245 . Research chemist: 32/41. Synthetic chemist: 13/387. Medicinal chemist: 13/34. Organic chemist: 59/40. Process chemist: 12/40. Process development chemist: 6/7. Formulation chemist: 53/49. 

After the meeting with Solozzo, the Corleone Family met with some consultants

With vaguest of apologies to Deloitte (part of this ItP post) 

2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 514 positions

The 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated mostly by Andrew Spaeth, with minor help from me) has 514 positions.

Have you had a Skype/phone interview (or an on-site) with a position on the Faculty Jobs List? Please add the date of the interview to the open thread. The open thread is here.

Do you see anything that needs correcting? Please leave a comment in the open thread, or e-mail me at chemjobber@gmail.com

As the 2017 Faculty Jobs Open Thread has gotten longer, the Blogger software that this blog is run on has added a new wrinkle: when you initially load the thread, it loads only the first ~220 comments and then has a "load more" button near the bottom of the page near the comment box. Only after pressing that button does it load the latest comments. (Actually, it takes three clicks of that button now. Sigh.) 

Faculty looking to switch to PUI from an R1

Via the comments on the Faculty List open thread, Anon9:25 AM has a question:

A question for those looking at PUI/lib arts institutions: I'm currently at a large state school as an assistant prof in my fourth year, and the department culture is rapidly moving away from a teaching emphasis to a research emphasis. When I started, I got about $150k in startup and two small fume hoods, with the expectation that I would repay my startup with external funding and publish 0.5 papers/year over our 6 year tenure track. Now, the expectations have shifted to >$300k in grants and at least 10 papers. I don't mind the metrics, but I came back to academia from industry because I wanted to focus more on the educational aspect of the professorship.  

I'm thinking about applying to faculty positions with a teaching emphasis next year, but I don't know what the current state of the field is. For example, will PUI's value my prior research/industrial/teaching experience, or are they looking for newly-minted PhDs and recent postdocs? What are the research expectations and associated startup packages? FYI, I'm actually not opposed to starting over on the tenure track at a PUI/lib arts school. Thanks in advance for any input.

An interesting set of questions. Can anyone help? 

Daily Pump Trap: 12/13/16 edition

A (very) few of the industrial positions posted on C&EN Jobs: 

Richmond, VA: Altria is looking for an analytical chemist:

The successful candidate will provide technical leadership in planning and executing analytical method development and validation for the analysis of constituents in tobacco, e-liquids, and e-cigarette aerosol using liquid chromatography, gas chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. Additionally, the individual will have experience in external engagement with relevant scientific organizations such as ISO, and FDA.

Ph.D. preferred, 5 years experience.

Dallas, TX: I knew this person existed, but I've never seen an ad for it:

SmithGroupJJR is an international idea-oriented design firm that is committed to creating inspiring places that enrich the human spirit... Our expertise in providing thoughtful and innovative solutions keeps SmithGroupJJR at the forefront of architectural, engineering and planning firms around the world.  

The Dallas office of SmithGroupJJR is looking for a Science and Technology Studio Leader to join our team. Our practices offer local and national projects of all sizes including opportunities with our other offices. We are seeking a highly creative, ambitious and experienced professional who is interested in setting a new architectural standard through the leadership of a growing practice that has a tradition of excellence.

Looks like they're looking for someone with experience in designing R&D facilities. Someone, get hired as this person so you can go throughout the industry, burning all the documents suggesting open offices.  

Ivory Filter Flask: 12/13/16 edition

A few of the academic positions posted at C&EN Jobs:

Kent, Ohio: Kent State, still looking for faculty positions. "Exceptional candidates from all areas of chemistry are encouraged to apply. Current departmental needs exist primarily in organic chemistry, analytical chemistry and chemical biology."

Miami, FL: Florida International University is looking for an assistant professor of organic chemistry, "with Nuclear/Radiochemistry Focus."

Lawrence, KS: The University of Kansas is looking for an "industry liaison director" for their Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis. Looks like a good position for the right industrial chemist; starts at 83k, which probably isn't bad.

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso: Someone's looking for a computer-aided drug discovery postdoc (at UTEP.)

Lancaster, PA: Franklin and Marshall is looking for a visiting assistant professor; looks to be gen-chem oriented. 

Commenting note

The spam filter is hungrier than usual recently; if your comment has been swallowed by the spam filter, e-mail me at chemjobber@gmail.com and I can usually get it to cough it up. 

Job posting: senior scientist, organic synthesis, Pacific Biosciences, Menlo Park, CA

Via random clicking, an interesting production position:

Pacific Biosciences is looking for a Scientist/Senior Scientist, Organic Synthesis to manufacture our fluorescent compounds. In this position the person will work on process optimization, scale-up and manufacturing of the targeted compounds. The candidate will need to be capable of performing activities required while developing and optimizing the synthesis and purification processes associated with our dye labeled compounds for yield, performance and quality. This position requires in-depth relevant experience in organic synthesis with the capability to support and maintain robust, reliable and accurate processes in manufacturing.   

This person will interface with a broad range of functional groups, and needs to have good communication skills. As a developer, this person will be responsible for correlation of processes and physical specifications to system performance metrics... 

Position Requirements:         

• Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry with 3+ years of relevant experience in Pharmaceutical industry. 
• Extensive experience in organic synthesis, process optimization and scale-up.
• Experience in fluorescent dyes and nucleotide synthesis is highly desirable.

Full posting here. Best wishes to those interested. 

The return of Andrew Liveris

Via Chemical Week, a report of an old bugaboo for the blog (article by Robert Westervelt): 

US President-elect Donald Trump has named Dow Chemical chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris to head his advisory council on American manufacturing. Trump made the announcement at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on 9 December, calling Liveris a leader “committed to returning jobs to the United States.” 

Liveris announced at the event that Dow will build an innovation center in Midland, Michigan, focused on leveraging silicones technologies across Dow's product line, that will involve approximately 200 R&D jobs in Michigan, including 100 newly jobs while repatriating 100 from other Dow facilities to Midland. “We chose Michigan, our home for more than 119 years, because of the highly skilled workforce in the state and because we believe the incoming presidential administration understands the importance of R&D investment and its multiplier impact on US manufacturing jobs,” Liveris says....

As long-time readers will know, I have disliked a lot of Liveris' rhetoric about the mythical STEM shortage.

It will be interesting to see if Liveris goes elsewhere in the Trump Administration. 

This week's C&EN

There was a double issue of C&EN last week, so no issue this week. Doesn't mean the news stops, though:

• "China tightens grip on hazardous chemicals" (article by Jean-François Tremblay)
• There must be a field of academic study about the best way to set up or strengthen a regulatory regime. Is it just purely actual enforcement? Is it paying the inspectors enough that they cannot be bribed? 
• Fascinating chiral extension of Matteson boron homologation (article by Bethany Halford)
• Assuming the accusations are accurate about a dispute between a former UCSB grad student and L'Oreal over a hair care product, it does not look good for L'Oreal. (article by Marc Reisch) 

The View From Your Hood: Grenoble, France edition

Grenoble, France
Credit: Isaac Martens

From reader Isaac Martens: "I'm at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, looking over the banks of the river Isère at the foot of the Chartreuse valley in the southwestern Alps. This is the 'bad' view, the other sides of campus have a couple castles and two more mountain ranges."

(got a View from Your Hood submission? Send it in with a caption, and how you'd like to be credited at chemjobber@gmail.com; will run every other Friday.)

Google brings in $76 billion dollars a year?

Everyone keeps a few numbers in their head. For some folks, it's batting averages, the price of a

Coach bag, the number of touchdowns thrown by a quarterback in a season (ol' #18 sure did) or the price of a house in the right neighborhood.

Over the last decade or so, I've always kept Pfizer's revenue number in my head. In 2015, that number was 49 billion dollars. I've also known the vague range of the NIH budget number ($30 billion is the number that sticks; the NIH reports $32 billion for FY 2016.) 

I don't know why, but I was caught a bit by surprise to learn that Google's annual revenue is $76 billion dollars, according to this Bloomberg Businessweek article: 

Over the 12 months ended in September, Google’s ad business accounted for 89 percent of Alphabet’s revenue, or $76.1 billion. As one ex-executive puts it, “No one wants to face the reality that this is an advertising company with a bunch of hobbies.”

Wow - that's a lot of money from clicks and YouTube ads. (Of course, Apple looks over at Google's incoming revenue and says "ho hum.")

UPDATE: Both commenters astutely point out that gross is not net - oops. (I did know that, I promise!) Changed headline from "makes" to "brings in."

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 47 positions; also, the current open thread.

The experiment is one week old! Doing my best to track down all open research-track medicinal chemistry positions. At the moment, I've found around 47 positions.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States (this will likely change), process or computational positions (this will likely change as well), academic positions (will likely be included about a year from now?)

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments" that works, too.

Not your typical high school chemistry teacher

What is it about high school teachers
and jackets? Credit: Elliot Richman/C&EN

In this week's C&EN, a profile of Elliot Richman, a Ph.D. chemist who became a science writer and then a high school chemistry teacher. (article by Ryan Cross)

(It would be interesting to know what percentage of high school chemistry teachers have advanced degrees in chemistry, and what percentage of them started teaching immediately after school. I suspect that it's lower than the median high school teacher.) 

Daily Pump Trap: 12/8/16 edition

A very few of the positions posted at C&EN Jobs:

New York, NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art seeks a research assistant; B.S. in science, "general chemistry and organic chemistry lab experience preferred."

Kansas City, MO (?): SynTech Research seeks a senior analytical chemist; B.S./M.S./Ph.D. with significant LC and GC experience desired.

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show (respectively) "1000+", 382, 9,401 and 34 positions for the search term "chemist."

LinkedIn shows 1,959 positions for the search term "chemist" and 13,012 for the search term "chemistry." Job titles from LinkedIn - first with quotes, and the second without: Analytical chemist: 172/231. Research chemist: 28/37. Synthetic chemist: 12/362. Medicinal chemist: 10/28. Organic chemist: 28/53. Process chemist: 35/43. Process development chemist: 6/7. Formulation chemist: 41/45. 

What do we think of "manuscript in preparation"?

Via Twitter, a fair bit of deprecation of "manuscript in preparation" or "manuscript submitted" for CVs and resumes. Does anyone disagree? It seems to me something that can be useful occasionally, but is probably not very helpful overall.

Hiring managers (academic, industrial or governmental), please chime in. If you could tell us what kind of hiring you're a part of, that would be great. 

Good rantlet

Via the Faculty Jobs Open Thread, a good rantlet from a search committee member: 

Here's a bit of a rant from my experiences on a search committee this year: 

1) Directed @ interviewees: Take 5 minutes and look up the SPECIFIC NSF/DOD/DOE/NIH program that you think might be interested in funding your research. It's really easy, but I'm surprised by how many people haven't given any thought to programs, solicitations, etc. Also, I've found that candidates who have put the time into creating an extensive, line-item budgets are usually ranked higher than those with nebulous budgets. My school doesn't offer a million dollars in startup, so we have to see if a) you can get a research program going using what you're given and b) have you really considered the details of setting up a lab. If you get the job, that line-item budget then becomes a supply list and you'll be glad that you put the time in up front. 

2) Directed @ my faculty peers: You've got to stop assuming that every candidate should be walking into an interview with a Nobel-worthy set of ideas that are going to change science forever. How many of us are actually working on one of the projects that we proposed during our interviews after 3-5 years? The straw poll that I took in our department was about 10%, meaning that most research doesn't work and eventually evolves into something different (and perhaps more interesting). Give these candidates a break and try to look for a track record of perseverance and initiative. 

3) Directed @ the 95% who didn't get an interview: I know it sucks that we didn't call you, but that's on us. There's a lot more that goes into consideration of an applicant besides CV, research plan, and letters of recommendation. We do take cover letters and personal statements seriously. We've passed on candidates with 50+ publications and interviewed others with 3, based solely on the fit with existing departmental needs. Getting an academic job is the biggest crap shoot out there, so don't take it personally if you don't get a call back. There are no "ringers" in this business anymore. 

My advice to those of you looking primarily to teach at the college level would be to dump your research postdoc and start hitting the lecturer/adjunct/visiting professor circuit. A lot of colleges with a teaching emphasis place a higher premium on your teaching credentials, as opposed to years as a postdoc. There's a reason why faculty at research schools who are denied tenure often move to teaching schools--they have extensive relevant experience and are often a great value.

The amount of debate around the path from "visiting professor" or "teaching postdoc" to "tenure-track assistant professor at a PUI" is fascinating to me.  

The 2015 Survey of Earned Doctorates is out

The 2015 Survey of Earned Doctorates is out. Here's the data on graduates in the 2015 academic year and their post-graduation plans. I've taken a screenshot, here's the data in PDF and Excel format. 

2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 508 positions

The 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated mostly by Andrew Spaeth, with minor help from me) has 508 positions.

Have you had a Skype/phone interview (or an on-site) with a position on the Faculty Jobs List? Please add the date of the interview to the open thread. The open thread is here.

As the 2017 Faculty Jobs Open Thread has gotten longer, the Blogger software that this blog is run on has added a new wrinkle: when you initially load the thread, it loads only the first ~220 comments and then has a "load more" button near the bottom of the page near the comment box. Only after pressing that button does it load the latest comments. (Actually, it takes two clicks now. Sigh.) 

Daily Pump Trap: 12/6/16 edition

A few of the positions posted at C&EN Jobs:

"Washington, New York, Palo Alto, Chicago": Steptoe & Johnson LLP looking for a patent agent or a technical specialist.

Kalamazoo, MI: Will someone please take this "Director - Process Technology and Engineering" position so they'll stop posting it?

Opelika, AL: Wanna work at a vitamin manufacturing plant? Pharmavite is looking for a "Supervisor, Product Safety & Sanitation."

Postdoctoral fellowship: Postdoctoral Position Studying Soap Formation in Paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art/University of Delaware

From the inbox, a very interesting postdoc:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the world’s finest museums, seeks a postdoctoral fellow to work in a collaborative project among researchers in its Department of Scientific Research and at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of Delaware.  Both groups have been awarded a collaborative grant by the Division of Materials Science at the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate heavy-metal soap formation, a deterioration process that affects hundreds of oil paintings in art collections across the world. The proposed approach combines pulsed-field-gradient (PFG) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) diffusion, solid-state deuterium NMR, single-sided NMR, micro and nanotomography, and synchrotron XRF imaging and XANES spectroscopy experiments, the latter in collaboration with scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), to characterize the dynamics of the processes.

The successful candidate will be primarily based at the Department of Scientific Research at the Met, but will carry out work at the University of Delaware (Udel), BNL, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Travel and accommodation costs for work at the Udel, BNL, and PNNL will be covered by grant funds.  He/she will be expected to integrate into both parts of the program.  The position is initially for one year, with the possibility of funding for up to one and a half additional years. Consideration of applications will begin on December 1st, 2016.

The full posting with qualifications and contact information is here. Best wishes to those interested.  

Ivory Filter Flask: 12/6/16 edition

A few of the academic positions posted at C&EN Jobs:

Pohang, South Korea: The Pohang University of Science and Technology is looking for tenure-track assistant professors of chemistry; appears that supramolecular chemistry is preferred.

Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University is searchin for an assistant or associate professor of organic chemistry.

Here's your chance!: The University of Canterbury in Canterbury, New Zealand is looking for a postdoctoral fellow to perform carbohydrate chemical biology research.

Huh, this is interesting: "The Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at the University of Washington is seeking a Post-doctoral Research Associate with research interests in organic chemistry to support efforts to operate and optimize continuous flow reactor technology for the synthesis of drug molecules." Probably a worthwhile postdoc for someone. 

Tips for getting through to the public about chemicals

Also in this week's C&EN, a helpful article by Professor Baruch Fischhoff of Carnegie Mellon University, talking over best practices for communicating science to the public, especially with regards to various scientific issues where there is controversy:

My experience suggests that programs applying our science to communicating technology risks and benefits are often rewarded. For example, my colleagues and I developed a widely distributed brochure about potential negative health effects of 60-Hz electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from both high-voltage power lines and home appliances, just as the issue had begun to boil in the 1980s. 

As required by our science, we first summarized the evidence relevant to lay decisions and then interviewed people about their beliefs and concerns. Finally, we tested draft communications, checking that they were interpreted as intended. Among other things, those communications addressed a common bug in lay mental models: how quickly EMFs fall off with distance. We also candidly described the limits to current evidence regarding possible harm and promised that new research results would not be hidden. It is our impression that we contributed to a measured societal response to the risk. 

The EMF case had conditions necessary for securing a fair hearing for the chemical or any other industry:

• A good safety record. For example, public support for nuclear power rose over the long period of safe performance preceding the Fukushima accident.
• Talking to people. The chemical industry’s outreach programs supporting local emergency responders have enhanced trust in many communities.
• A scientific approach to communication. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is creating disclosures designed to improve trust in banking and insurance products.

Developing scientifically sound communications is not expensive. However, it requires having the relevant expertise and evaluating the work empirically. Such communication often faces three interrelated barriers among some of those responsible for its adoption:

• Strong intuitions about what to say and how to say it, discounting the need to consult behavioral science and evaluate communications.
• Distrust of the public, perhaps fed by commentators who describe the public as incapable of understanding (that is, being chemophobic).
• Disrespect for the social sciences as sources of durable, useful knowledge.

There is a kernel of truth underlying these barriers. People do have some insight into how other people think, the public can be unreasonable, and social scientists do sometimes oversell their results. To help outsiders be savvy consumers of behavioral research, my colleagues and I have tried to make our science more accessible, for example, through a Food & Drug Administration user guide and via Sackler Colloquia in 2012 and in 2013 on the science of science communications, with accompanying special issues of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA.

Professor Fischoff has raised some very interesting points. I wonder if the problem with the chemical industry's communications to the public is that this conversation is usually only happening under the shadow of various chemical industry incidents, i.e. removing the safety record required to sustain a basic level of trust.

Also, I think it's interesting that the EMF project involved trying to communicate the one essential fact (that EMG falls off dramatically with distance). I wonder if there is one essential fact (or two, or three?) that chemists need to always be communicating with non-chemists?

Interesting look into PPG

Also in this week's C&EN, an article by Marc Reisch on PPG. Fascinating to see what how many scientists and engineers at their research campus (emphasis mine):

About 20 minutes from PPG Industries’ headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh is the Allison Park Coatings Innovation Center. Set on 175 rolling wooded acres, the glass-clad research facility employs more than 280 synthetic chemists, analytical chemists, formulation experts, and chemical engineers. 

First opened in 1974, the facility just got a $7.8 million upgrade. The project added robotic paint spray booths that replicate customer manufacturing conditions along with new synthesis labs and equipment to accommodate a growing workforce. 

“We hired 45 Ph.D.s just in the last five years,” says David Bem, PPG’s chief technology officer. More researchers will be coming to the site soon. In the coming years, he says, the firm plans to hire additional chemists, including those with B.S. and M.S. degrees, as it advances work on new types of coatings. 

The Allison Park researchers are at the vanguard of a global technology force of 3,500 intended to give PPG an edge in architectural, marine, automotive, and other coatings. They are also an important piece of PPG’s plan to compete with rival Sherwin-Williams, which is set to complete its acquisition of Valspar in early 2017 and displace PPG as the world’s largest paint maker.

Will be worth keeping an eye on.  

This week's C&EN

A few articles from this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News:

• It's the "Pharma Year in Review" issue
• The Epipen mess (by Rick Mullin)
• A good reminder of the state of play of Zika (by Lisa Jarvis)
• The eteplirsen debacle at FDA (by Lisa Jarvis)
• Good article by Alex Scott about the other Cambridge biotech cluster (the one in England)
• Very interesting story by Matt Davenport about a joint Dow/UM case study where Dow provided the problem to UM graduate students, and discussed the students' solutions. 
• It would be interesting to see where these students are in 5 years - whether or not this experience changed their potential career path (unlikely?), and whether or not it made them more attractive to industrial employers (yes, probably?) 

50 mL separatory funnels

A list of small, useful things (links):

• Fun post by Carmen about red phosphorus.
• There's a lab safety Reddit.
• This post at LifeSciVC on nucleic acid therapeutics was pretty instructive (from a chemistry perspective) for me. 
• In honor of World AIDS Day, you should read Stuart Cantrill's 2012 post about his father and his becoming a scientist. 
• Some interesting thoughts by Boaz Vilozny on career development for scientists.
• Pretty cool kitchen chemistry experiment from Mark Lorch.
• I can't code (yet), and so I am jealous of Slava Bernat's doings with R.
• Fascinating review of Luke Timmerman's book on Leroy Hood by Ash. 
• 18 tips on giving a bad presentation - gotta do 'em all!
• "Moving along the pyridine ring" from Prof. Yudin
• The latest from Stellen Fuer Chemiker.

Again, an open invitation to all interested in writing a blog, a hobby that will bring you millions thousands hundreds tens of dollars joy and happiness. Send me a link to your post, and I'd be happy to put it up.

Merck to build new Bay Area R&D campus

Via my daily Endpoints e-mail by John Carroll: 

Merck has staked out a new R&D campus for itself in the heart of South San Francisco, the epicenter of the Bay Area’s biotech mega-hub. Alexandria Real Estate Equities, the builder of many biotech facilities around the country, will be breaking ground on the site soon after Merck bought into a new, 294,000-square-foot West Coast research complex at 213 East Grand Avenue. The move-in date is being set for 2019.... 

...A Merck spokesman told me back in July that a central research campus in San Francisco would also open the door to about 100 new hires. 

“We will ultimately consolidate our Oncology, Immuno-oncology, Biologics and CMR discovery work into a combined research site,” she noted at the time. “Our Palo Alto site will continue to focus on Immuno-Oncology and Biologics and Vaccines discovery until the long-term facility is up and running.” 

The western migration follows a move by Merck to reduce staff levels at its operations in Kenilworth and Rahway, NJ. The move also affected its North Wales, PA screening facility. And Merck has already picked out a lab in Cambridge, MA for its expanded work in the East Coast hub. Now it’s well along the way to doing the same on the West Coast. 

All of that fits neatly into a broad industry trend that has dominated R&D over the past 5 years. Big Pharma has been identifying central hubs, often in the mega-centers like Cambridge, MA, Cambridge, UK and San Francisco, to concentrate its forces.

It's pretty amazing to me how pharma R&D is sorting itself into either Bay Area or Cambridge enclaves. With the assumption that this is (in the long run) where most of their medicinal chemists (and process chemists?) will be located, I imagine this will have the effect of increasing wages (while gains when compared to cost-of-living will be more modest.)

Does anyone see this trend reversing? I don't. Longtime readers are probably tired of me saying this: the prominence of Bay Area and Cambridge in pharma are due to decades of billions of federal research investments in world-class universities and medical centers combined with a relatively friendly funding atmosphere for entrepreneurial adventures. What this says for other regions and their pharma/biotech hopes isn't very positive, I'd think. 

Introducing the Medicinal Chemist Jobs List

This is a "back of the hood" kind of experiment, but I'm going to try to track all the open research-track medicinal chemist positions in the US. Here's what I have so far (just 14 positions), but I have about 200-300* more to enter (by hand).

If you feel like giving me a hand, here's a Google Form that would make life a lot easier for me, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments" that works, too.

*UPDATE: Boy was that the wrong guess. It was more like 30. Well, more to come, I hope. 

Interview: Ryan Stolley, organometallic chemist, AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow and climate change policy advocate

Via random chance, I have been introduced (virtually) to Dr. Ryan Stolley, an organometallic chemist and AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow. This post has been lightly edited for grammar, and checked by Dr. Stolley for accuracy.

Can you tell us a little about your background in chemistry?  

My background in chemistry is mostly in the organic/organometallic space. I did my undergrad at a small (less than 5000 students) liberal arts school with a strong chemistry department and had the opportunity to do both organic synthesis and coordination chemistry research over summers and throughout the year. I then did an NSF REU (research experience for undergraduates) in Thailand doing natural products chemistry. This was an interesting chemistry/cultural/philosophical experience for discussion elsewhere.  

I then did my PhD in organometallic methodology developing Ni- and Pd-catalyzed N-heterocycle forming reactions. I had some pretty good success publishing a number of papers and a book chapter. I have always had a desire for some sort of public service and in undergrad was engaged in the chemistry club and was also chairman for the chemistry student advisory council in graduate school that had votes in retention/promotion/tenure proceedings and was a vehicle for student advocacy and events.  

What did you do after graduate school? What was it like to postdoc at a national lab? 

After graduate school I took a postdoc at Pacific Northwest National Lab. I was working on more nickel catalysis this time in the electrochemical oxidation of H2. Working at a national lab was and can be amazing for a number of reasons. The entire lab is research only and you work with some seriously smart people with excellent resources. However, it's not the utopia that can be often thought of by undergraduate and graduate students. 

Daily Pump Trap: 12/1/16 edition

A few of the positions posted on C&EN Jobs this past week:

Toronto, ON: Encycle Therapeutics is looking for Ph.D. chemists to perform peptide-related synthetic research.

La Jolla, CA: The California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr) is looking for synthetic postdocs; interesting that they're requiring fluent Mandarin speakers (these positions will have permanent appointments at Tsinghua University.)

Livermore, CA: Lawrence Livermore is looking for a postdoc in material science; will (ultimately) require a Q clearance.

Palo Alto, CA: Acme Bioscience is looking for a synthetic postdoc. Does anyone know anything about Acme Bioscience? I know they've been around a while... They list some H1bs-status employees on staff in 2014 and 2015... no Glassdoor entries, though. Pay is in the 47-49k range, which isn't much to write home about in the Bay Area.

A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show (respectively) "1000+", 371 , 9,393 and 30 positions for the search term "chemist."

LinkedIn shows 1,358 positions for the search term "chemist" and 13,782 for the search term "chemistry." Job titles from LinkedIn - first with quotes, and the second without: Analytical chemist: 183/240. Research chemist: 28/41. Synthetic chemist: 11/380 . Medicinal chemist: 13/33. Organic chemist: 28/52. Process chemist: 15/43. Process development chemist: 5/6. Formulation chemist: 44/48. 

Ivory Filter Flask: 12/1/16 edition

A few of the academic positions posted at C&EN Jobs:

New York City, NY: Queens College (CUNY) is looking for an assistant professor of chemistry; preference for an organic or inorganic chemist.

La Jolla, CA: UCSD is hiring an assistant professor of biochemistry or biophysics.

Memphis, TN: The University of Memphis is looking for an assistant professor of chemistry. "Desired candidates will have a proposed research program that strengthens existing activities in the department (including medicinal, nanomaterials, or environmental focus areas; see our website at http://www.chem.memphis.edu/ for additional information about ongoing research)."

Arkadelphia, AR: Ouachita Baptist University is hiring an assistant professor of organic chemistry; "organic synthesis, physical organic, or computational organic chemistry are preferred."

Utica, NY: Utica College is searching for an assistant professor of biochemistry.

Omaha, NE: The University of Nebraska at Omaha is hiring an assistant or associate professor "in interdisciplinary STEM discipline-based education research."

Press "load more" on the Faculty Jobs Open Thread to see new updates

Hello, friends:

As the 2017 Faculty Jobs Open Thread has gotten longer, the Blogger software that this blog is run on has added a new wrinkle: when you initially load the thread, it loads only the first ~220 comments and then has a "load more" button near the bottom of the page near the comment box. Only after pressing that button does it load the latest comments.

I'm really sorry about this, especially since there's nothing I can do about it.

I'm asking you to vote, either in the comments to this post, the comments to the Open Thread or by e-mail to me (chemjobber@gmail.com) to tell me if you'd like a new Open Thread. If there is an overwhelming majority that wants a new thread, I'll be closing the old one to new comments and opening a new one.

Again, my apologies for this latest wrinkle. Thanks for hanging in there.

Cheers, Chemjobber

I hear possum bacon is yummy - I wonder if it's an antibiotic

The authors may have a conflict of interest with the opossum...
Credit: Motley et al. J. Nat. Prod.

Via the Chemistry Reddit, a really amusing source for natural products [1]:

...To obtain the large number of microbiome bacteria from diverse mammalian sources that we required for our screening process, we used an opportunistic sampling approach to explore roadkill (animals killed as a result of unintentional vehicular collisions), which is an underutilized source of microbiome bacteria.  

In our case, we focused on fresh (recently deceased) roadkill comprising mammals that are native or naturalized to central Oklahoma. Roadkill offers a convenient route to accessing microbiome bacteria since it (i) is abundant in many areas, (ii) presents the opportunity for sampling diverse animals and their associated bacteria across a broad geographical region, (iii) alleviates concerns over the trapping and testing of live animals since only carcasses are sampled, and (iv) offers the possibility to conduct chronologically dependent testing of specific animal populations over extended periods. In this paper, we present the development and application of our mammalian-microbiome-derived natural product discovery pipeline (Figure 1) and present data for several new and known depsipeptides obtained from opossum-associated bacteria.  

...Opportunistic sampling of mammalian roadkill took place over a two-year period near the University of Oklahoma campus (Norman, OK, USA). Carcasses deemed fresh (generally determined to have been struck by motor vehicles no more than 10 h prior to sampling) were selected, and those with one or more intact orifices (i.e., mouth, nose, ear, eye, and rectum) or gastrointestinal tracts were sampled roadside with sterile swabs....

Imagine the undergraduate who had to sample the intact orifice...

In all seriousness, congratulations to Motley et al. for interesting science and a novel source!

1. Motley, J.L.; Stamps, B.W.; Mitchell, C.A.; Thompson, A.T.; Cross, J.; You, J.; Powell, D.R.; Stevenson, B.S.; Cichewicz, R.H. "Opportunistic Sampling of Roadkill as an Entry Point to Accessing Natural Products Assembled by Bacteria Associated with Nonanthropoidal Mammalian Microbiomes." J. Nat. Prod. ASAP DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.6b00772

Low and negative interest rates means nuns are jumping into the market, buying pharma stocks

Is Sister Lioba doing better with her portfolio than you?
Credit: Georgi Kantchev, Wall Street Journal

Unusual story about a stock-trading nun in Germany* by Georgi Kantchev in the Wall Street Journal:

On a recent morning, Sister Lioba Zahn read the Bible, attended prayer, did the laundry and then prayed again. In the afternoon, she called her bank and started trading. 

...For over a century, Mariendonk financed itself by selling milk and candles, and through income on its bank deposits. After the European Central Bank began cutting rates, eventually going all the way below zero to their current -0.4%, Sister Lioba realized her convent needed extra income to survive. 

“With rates so low, we must get a better return if we want to sustain the convent,” says Sister Lioba, who holds the position of “cellerarin,” a convent’s version of a chief financial officer. 

Back in 2013, the nunnery’s roof needed repairing and the only car that the 28 sisters owned was nearing the end of its life. Calling her bank, Sister Lioba was offered a seven-year savings bond that carried a 1% annual return. She said she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You don’t need to have studied mathematics to see that we were going down,” said Sister Lioba, who had studied psychology. 

After morning prayer, she gathered her fellow nuns into a wood-paneled room inside the convent and showed a PowerPoint on low interest rates. Presiding over the meeting, Sister Christiana Reemts, Mariendonk’s abbess, made an observation. “Twenty years ago we could get enough money from interest to renovate our whole building,” she remembered saying. “Now the interest rate can bring tears to one’s eyes.” In Mariendonk, a decision was made and global markets had a new investor.  

Sister Lioba now runs a portfolio of roughly €2 million, or $2.1 million, from her convent office. “I started by googling what a swap is,” Sister Lioba says, referring to a derivative that allows an investor to exchange the income stream of one asset with that of another. 

Like many investors, Sister Lioba remembers the first stock she bought: Novo-Nordisk AS, a Danish drug company. She bought it in late 2013 and its value increased by around a third before she sold it earlier this year at a profit. “My only regret is why we didn’t buy some more at the time,” she says.... 

Her trading has brought her convent a 2.6% return, which isn't great, but not bad compared to negative rates. I'm guessing Sister Lioba doesn't charge much for her services... (Why not just put it into an index fund?)

*Can't get to the article? Google the headline: "Get Thee to a Brokerage! Low Rates Turn Nuns Into Traders" 

Warning Letter of the Week: testing into compliance edition

A firm reminder to the general manager of Dongying Tiandong Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. in Shandong, China from the Food and Drug Administration:

 1. Failure to adequately investigate and document out-of-specification results according to a procedure, and implement appropriate corrective actions.

...For example, according to your Deviation Handling Sheet No.07-2015021, you resampled and tested crude heparin batch Y102-1504005 multiple times, with the following results.                                           

You neither evaluated the initial sample OOS, nor conducted retesting of the initial original sample to confirm it. Instead, you resampled until you obtained a passing result.

Similarly, your initial test results for another crude heparin batch (Y102-1503008) were also OOS. Again, you resampled without justification, and accepted the batch when you obtained results within specification.

Disregarding the OOS results, and resampling and retesting without scientific justification, constitutes “testing into compliance.” This practice is unscientific and objectionable under CGMP....

I love that last sentence.