The quantification of talent hoarding in companies

Via the Marginal Revolution blog, this interesting economics observation by Dr. Ingrid Haegele: 

Most organizations rely on managers to identify talented workers. However, because managers are evaluated on team performance, they have an incentive to hoard talented workers, thus jeopardizing the efficient allocation of talent within firms. This study provides the first empirical evidence of talent hoarding using a unique combination of personnel records and application data from a large manufacturing firm. When managers rotate to a new position and temporarily stop hoarding talent, workers’ applications for promotions increase by 123%. Marginal applicants,who would not have applied in the absence of manager rotations, are three times as likely as average applicants to land a promotion, and perform well in higher-level positions. By reducing the quality and performance of promoted workers, talent hoarding causes misallocation of talent. Because female workers react more to talent hoarding than males, talent hoarding perpetuates gender inequality in representation and pay at the firm.

Having scanned the paper, I see that it's of a very large German manufacturing firm. I can easily imagine talent hoarding happening, i.e. managers saying to their employees "you're good, so I want to keep you working for me." At the same time (and I confess that I haven't read the paper closely), it feels like there's also "talent stickiness" (?) in the sense that people like working in a successful group and are incentivized to do so. That might also be difficult to quantify...

C&EN updates on impacts to chemists in Ukraine

Via Chemical and Engineering News, this update on how Ukrainian chemists are impacted by the Russian invasion (article by Laura Howes , Michael McCoy , Alex Scott , with reporting by Leigh Krietsch Boerner):

...Chemists who work with Ukrainian research chemical firms have also expressed disbelief and solidarity. Ed Griffen of MedChemica is team leader of an initiative called COVID Moonshot, which is working to develop a COVID-19 antiviral. Griffen had been in discussions with the team about visiting an Enamine site in Kyiv. Enamine is a founding member of the COVID Moonshot group, and it has “always gone above and beyond in just getting the job done,” Griffen says in an emailed statement. “Obviously we’re all extremely worried about our team in Kyiv,” he says. “We will stick by them as they have stuck by us.”

Enamine is one of several Kyiv-based companies that supply building block chemicals and compound libraries to the world’s drug companies. The company has partnered with many chemists across the world, says Brian Shoichet at the University of California, San Francisco. Shoichet says an Enamine scientist is currently on sabbatical in his lab and they are now “scrambling” to get him immigration status and grants so that he can stay at UCSF and be paid. Additionally, “we have friends with whom we speak regularly, and who are on many of our papers, now anticipating the arrival of an invading army in their city. It’s a fraught moment,” Shoichet says.

Enamine hopes to reopen on Monday, Feb. 28, according to a statement and video the company posted online. The firm notes that its supply facilities in the US and European Union remain open and can continue to supply building block chemicals.

Life Chemicals, another company that is currently shut down, employs about 120 people in Ukraine, half of whom are chemists. The firm closed its offices and production site in Kyiv for at least Thursday and Friday, Feb. 24 and 25, according to Vasily Pinchuk, the firm’s vice president of sales and marketing. “We will see what will happen on Monday,” he says.

Pinchuk, a Ukrainian who is based in Canada, says martial law is in place, and it is not safe to move around. “There have been air strikes on Kyiv,” he says. “We hope that this nightmare will end.”

Most Life Chemicals employees are still at home in the Kyiv area, Pinchuk says, although some with small children have left for what they hope will be safer places in the western part of the country.

Companies like Enamine and Life Chemicals emerged in Ukraine and Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, when chemists who worked for the state were forced to find new opportunities in the private sector.

Building block and compound library synthesis continues to be a good career path for chemists who graduate from universities such as Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Pinchuk says.“We have a very high level of education,” Pinchuk says of Ukraine, “and very good chemists, and the overhead is less than it is in the US. We can do any kind of synthetic medicine projects that can be asked of us.”

Can't imagine what it would be like to attempt to keep a company and its employees afloat during these kinds of conditions. Continued best wishes to Ukrainian chemists and readers. 

Have a good weekend

This week has been a little bit stressful, but mostly okay. I hope that you had a good, productive week, and a restful weekend. See you on Monday! 

The impacts to chemistry of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Via FierceBiotech, the impact of the Russian invasion on global drug development:

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is likely to impact millions of people, not just in the Eastern European nation but around the world as drug developers might face delays in clinical trials conducted in Kyiv and elsewhere.

One biotech, in particular, called out the geopolitical tensions as possible cause for concern. Karuna Therapeutics warned today that timelines for its second phase 3 study in schizophrenia, dubbed EMERGENT-3, are uncertain because 10 of the 19 trial sites are in Ukraine. 

At the other end of the drug pipeline, this tweet from Ukraine-based chemistry services company Enamine: 

Today, Russia started a full-scale war against Ukraine. We believe in our soldiers and we stay strong. We have to postpone our services till Monday, February 28. We hope you take this short-term disruption with understanding.

I cannot imagine what kind of disruption is going on in Ukraine, and what kind of disruption the future holds. Best wishes to the people of Ukraine. 

21 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, curated by Brian Struss, there are 21 new positions for February 23. The jobs can be viewed on the website or spreadsheet.

Don't forget to check out the Common Organic Chemistry company map, a very helpful resource for organic chemists looking for potential employers.

There's sodium azide in the BinaxNOW kits

Via the Miami Herald: 

The chemicals vary among kits and companies, but sodium azide is “the most common chemical,” the center said. 

A small amount of the chemical — a concentration of 0.0125% — is used in the BinaxNOW kit, for example, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 

Ingestion isn’t the only way people have been exposed to the chemical. In at least one case, a couple dipped their nasal swabs in the reagent liquid and then swabbed their nostrils, causing “irritation of the nose,” according to the National Capital Poison Center.

I did not know that, but I suppose I'm not particularly surprised, seeing as how there's a fair bit of use of azide in biochemical assays...

Polymer chemist turned soy sauce maker

From Google News searches for the keyword "chemist":

NORTH STONINGTON, Conn. — North Stonington could stake the claim that they are “Flavortown”. Bob Florence thinks so.

Florence is a trained polymer chemist who has worked for companies like Apple and GE all over the world. But four years ago, Florence started Moromi Artisanal Shoyu, “Moromi” for short– a high end soy sauce that is now finding its way into store shelves and restaurants. 

“I started making soy sauce out of curiosity,” Florence said. He even ventured to Japan to learn from some of the master soy sauce makers and decided to take the leap and bottle his own product back home.

Moromi, which translates to “mash” in English, is a combination of Florence’s passion and professional knowledge as a chemist. The small batch artisanal soy sauce is made inside an industrial building where Bob has all the high-tech machinery and barrels needed to produce Moromi, which now comes in seven varieties.

“This is an art,” he added, “It’s very similar to beer making -- in beer what you’re doing is using yeast to drive the reaction and what you’re doing with Koji, (the mold responsible for creating soy sauce) is that Koji is just a different mold, a different organism to make good stuff.”

Food manufacturing seems to be one of those classic backup careers for chemists later in life...  

The 2022 Faculty Jobs List: 569 research/teaching positions and 100 teaching positions

The 2022 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 569 research/teaching positions and 100 teaching positions. 

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

On February 23, 2021, the 2021 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 292 research/teaching position and 48 teaching positions. On February 25, 2019, the 2020 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 541 research/teaching positions and 70 teaching positions.

To see trending, go to Andrew Spaeth's visualization of previous years' list.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Go to the fourth open thread. Here's the third open thread. Go to the second open thread. Here is the first open thread. The first open thread was closed on November 10, 2021.

Here is Sean Edington's status summary spreadsheet.

Don't forget to click on "load more" below the comment box for the full thread. 

Coming: The 2022 Chemistry Job Scramble

Copying last year's Chemistry Job Scramble, Andrew Spaeth and I will be putting together a job market scramble to open on the week of March 7 for registration of employers and job seekers. This is an attempt to create a "thick" market for both job candidates and potential employers, especially those who did not get a faculty position this year. The basic contours: 

• Registration will open for one week, starting March 7, 2022. It will close on 11:59 PM Eastern, March 12, 2022. We will register both potential employers and job candidates.
• Potential employers will be required to post a position with an intent to hire before September 30, 2022. 
• Job seekers will have to attest that they have not accepted a position with another employer. 
• On March 14, job seekers will be offered access to the list of potential positions. They will not be offered access to the list of job seekers. 
• On March 14, potential employers will be offered the list of job seekers. They will not be offered access to the list of potential employers. 
• There will be no matching by Andrew or I - simply the provision of potential openings or candidates. 
• Access to the list will be revoked after 2 weeks. 
• This year, there will be an opportunity for a "signal" for job seekers; job seekers will be allowed one opportunity to send a short message (140 characters) to a single employer. 

Questions? Ask them in the comments, or email us at chemjobber@gmail.com. 

Chemistry Bumper Cars

Check out the latest moves here! 

To submit information, click here or e-mail chembumpercars@gmail.com

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 32 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 32 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady and @nmr_chemist. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

Things are hard for tech firm recruiting

Via the New York Times, this rather remarkable set of anecdotes: 

On some of her very long days, and most of her workdays of late are very long, Tiffany Dyba, a 39-year-old recruiter in New York, recalls with a little nostalgia a hiring job she once held at a luxury-fashion designer.

Back then, people were so eager to get her their résumés that a young woman once looked up Dyba’s photo on LinkedIn and then waited outside her office on Madison Avenue to intercept her on her way into work. On another occasion, Dyba, making conversation with a possible hire, mentioned that she had a fondness for toffee — and the next day, toffee, beautifully wrapped, appeared in her office. Back then, the people she was hiring were hungry, they were eager. There were flowers. Carefully crafted thank-you notes. Those were things a recruiter might not expect but might occasionally enjoy. A recruiter felt wanted.

...Recruiters working in technology these days do not receive candy, flowers or thank-yous. The recruiter is lucky if she can get someone on the phone — if she receives so much as an email in response. Technology workers need court no one: Along with microchips, toilet paper and Covid tests, tech workers will be recalled as one of the great, pressing shortages of this pandemic. Estimates of the unemployment rates for tech workers are about 1.7 percent, compared with roughly 4 percent in the general economy; for those with expertise in cybersecurity, it’s more like 0.2 percent. Tech employees today tire of the attention from recruiters, the friendly hellos on LinkedIn, the cold calls (which Dyba does not make). “They think we’re like used-car salesmen,” Dyba said of her quarry. To be a recruiter in tech is to be an in-demand commodity for those companies doing the hiring but to feel like something of a nuisance — like an essential gear that emits a loud, irritating noise.

I can imagine things being pretty darn hard for recruiters these days.  

Insufficient ACS awards for industrialists

Via this week's Chemical and Engineering News, this letter to the editor: 

My semiregular rant about the American Chemical Society and awards. I am an 8 years’ retired industrial chemist. I still do some consulting. I am an ACS member because of C&EN, SciFinder, and the occasional journal article. No other offerings from ACS are useful to me.

For students, here is what ACS is telling you: If you choose a career in industry, good luck. We really do not value the contribution of industrial chemists. Why do I say this? Look at the list of ACS awards. Virtually all of them go to academics or pseudo-academics, if you count national labs or places like Scripps Research. For years I have been complaining about the favoritism and bias toward academic chemists in the ACS awards program. Nothing has changed because ACS is still an old people’s (used to be boys’) network of academics.

Larry Lewis

Scotia, New York

Can't say I disagree, although I genuinely can't get very excited about this topic. Perhaps I just don't have a taste for Lucite... 

News on the China Initiative

Via the New York Times, this news on the Justice Department's China Initiative: 

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department will soon announce changes to the China Initiative, a Trump-era effort to combat Chinese national security threats, after civil rights proponents, business groups and universities told the Biden administration that the program had fostered suspicion of Asian professors working in the United States, chilled scientific research and contributed to a rising tide of anti-Asian sentiment, according to people briefed on the matter.

The likely changes, including retiring the China Initiative name, are the result of a three-month evaluation undertaken by Matthew G. Olsen, the head of the Justice Department’s national security division.

The modifications to a program that brought espionage, trade-secrets theft and cybercrime cases under a single banner comes as Beijing continues to use spies, cyberhacking, theft and propaganda to challenge America’s standing as the world’s pre-eminent economic and military power — activity that has only grown more acute...

This closing comment bears some comment: 

Andrew E. Lelling, who was on the working group that led the China Initiative when he was the U.S. attorney in Boston, was one of the program’s strongest backers. His district was filled with institutes, universities and high-tech companies whose researchers were taking money from foreign governments, and he oversaw the case against Dr. Chen, as well as the successful prosecution of a chemistry professor at Harvard who hid his affiliations and payments from China.

Mr. Lelling said his thinking on the program had changed, in part because researchers were less of a concern. “We’re now in a different place from where we were four years ago,” he said. “Deterrence has been achieved.”

I'm terribly curious to ask Mr. Lelling: "at what cost?" 

Have a good weekend

Well, this was a week! Nothing too stressful, but I'm glad that the week is over. I hope you have a great weekend, and we'll see you on Monday. 

Eric Lander sounds like not a very nice boss

I've never met Eric Lander. He's clearly a brilliant man, but he doesn't seem like a great leader of White House staffers. Via Stat News: 

...Three staffers described being made to feel like schoolchildren: In moments of frustration, they said, Lander would pointedly ask aides where they attended graduate school, or whether they’d authored academic papers. Once, three aides recalled, he left a small group of female staffers shaken after he slammed his fists on a table in an apparent fit of rage...

...Under Lander, meetings were often characterized by his own references to his illustrious academic career at MIT, Harvard, and the Broad Institute, and his reluctance to seek input from the many Ph.D.s or other experts he supervised, including those who had expertise beyond his own background in math, life sciences, and genomics. (OSTP includes several divisions that cover a vast array of topics, like climate and the environment, national security, energy, and even a small unit devoted to federal computer systems and information technology.)

I'll be honest and say that it's never been particularly clear to me why OSTP is an important office within the White House, but hey, it's a White House appointed, Senate confirmed position for a scientist, so gee, I guess it's important to science/scientists. 

It's within this context that I'm also a bit flummoxed to understand why he found himself in situations where he was getting mad at people, especially folks that he had hired. (What exactly was he mad about?) It will be interesting to better understand what was going on in this office, and eventually someone will tell the whole story. 

50 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Common Organic Chemistry is resolving some technical difficulties, but has ported over the list to Google Drive for now. There are 50 new positions for February 14.

Don't forget to check out the Common Organic Chemistry company map, a very helpful resource for organic chemists looking for potential employers.  

The 2022 Faculty Jobs List: 560 research/teaching positions and 96 teaching positions

 The 2022 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 560 research/teaching positions and 96 teaching positions. 

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

On February 16, 2021, the 2021 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 285 research/teaching position and 47 teaching positions. On February 18, 2019, the 2020 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 539 research/teaching positions and 65 teaching positions.

To see trending, go to Andrew Spaeth's visualization of previous years' list.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Go to the fourth open thread. Here's the third open thread. Go to the second open thread. Here is the first open thread. The first open thread was closed on November 10, 2021.

Here is Sean Edington's status summary spreadsheet.

Don't forget to click on "load more" below the comment box for the full thread. 

Coming: The 2022 Chemistry Job Scramble

Copying last year's Chemistry Job Scramble, Andrew Spaeth and I will be putting together a job market scramble to open on the week of March 7 for registration of employers and job seekers. This is an attempt to create a "thick" market for both job candidates and potential employers, especially those who did not get a faculty position this year. The basic contours: 

• Registration will open for one week, starting March 7, 2022. It will close on 11:59 PM Eastern, March 12, 2022. We will register both potential employers and job candidates.
• Potential employers will be required to post a position with an intent to hire before September 30, 2022. 
• Job seekers will have to attest that they have not accepted a position with another employer. 
• On March 14, job seekers will be offered access to the list of potential positions. They will not be offered access to the list of job seekers. 
• On March 14, potential employers will be offered the list of job seekers. They will not be offered access to the list of potential employers. 
• There will be no matching by Andrew or I - simply the provision of potential openings or candidates. 
• Access to the list will be revoked after 2 weeks. 
• This year, there will be an opportunity for a "signal" for job seekers; job seekers will be allowed one opportunity to send a short message (140 characters) to a single employer. 

Questions? Ask them in the comments, or email us at chemjobber@gmail.com. 

Chemistry Bumper Cars

Check out the latest moves here! 

To submit information, click here or e-mail chembumpercars@gmail.com

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 32 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 32 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady and @nmr_chemist. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

C&EN: "Metal-free? The mistake that chemists seem doomed to repeat"

Also in this week's Chemical and Engineering News, a cover article from Leigh Krietsch Boerner on metal-free reactions and the papers that (claim to) report them: 

The reaction to synthetic chemist Hua-Jian Xu’s article started like a dripping faucet.

Nature Catalysis published Xu’s paper online on Jan. 18, 2021 (DOI: 10.1038/s41929-020-00564-z), and over the next few days, there were a handful of mentions on Twitter. By Jan. 27, these drips had started to puddle, and then to pool.

Chemists did not believe the claims the authors were making.

In the paper, Xu and his colleagues reported a way to form new carbon-carbon bonds via the popular Suzuki reaction, also known as Suzuki-Miyaura coupling. Historically, this reaction has required a palladium catalyst; Xu’s group claimed to have done the chemistry without the metal. Organic chemists have long sought a metal-free Suzuki reaction because Pd is expensive. Also, discovering metal-free coupling reactions would be an intellectual milestone for synthetic chemists.

One of the early Twitter skeptics was Robin Bedford, a catalytic chemist at the University of Bristol. When a colleague sent him a copy of the paper, Bedford felt some déjà vu. “It was a sense of ‘Here we go again,’ ” Bedford says.

I didn't realize how many articles had reported a metal-free reaction, but it sure is a lot! Read the whole thing, it's pretty remarkable. 

C&EN: Helium shortages have returned

In this week's Chemical and Engineering News, this bad news about helium supplies: 

This year was supposed to finally be calm for the world’s helium users. But a fire at the new Russian helium plant and prolonged technical problems at the US Federal Helium Reserve have plunged the market into what some analysts are calling Helium Shortage 4.0.

The Russian state-owned oil and gas company Gazprom started producing helium at its Amur Gas Processing Plant in September 2021 with great fanfare. With an eventual capacity of 60 million m3 per year, Amur was expected to end more than 15 years of unsettled market conditions caused largely by the US government’s decision to privatize its helium resources.

However, an October fire in Amur’s attached natural gas facilities paused production, and a second fire in early January has caused additional damage and delays. At the same time, maintenance that started in July 2021 at the US helium reserve in Texas has gone on months longer than expected.

Writing for the industrial gas website Gasworld, helium consultant Phil Kornbluth says several industrial gas companies are back to rationing supplies. Kornbluth says the market will likely remain troubled throughout 2022, though supplies of the noble gas should be ample by 2024 when Amur is fully operational and new resources come online in Qatar.

It's remarkable how plant problems are both random and ~predictable. It's a shame that it's impacting helium supplies so much...

Have a great weekend

Well, this was a pretty chill week all things considering. I'm looking forward to watching the Superbowl this weekend and hanging out with my family - hope you have a great weekend and we'll see you on Monday. 

32 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Common Organic Chemistry is resolving some technical difficulties, but has ported over the list to Google Drive for now. There are 32 new positions for February 3.

Don't forget to check out the Common Organic Chemistry company map, a very helpful resource for organic chemists looking for potential employers.  

The chemicals of cars are changing

Via the New York Times, this chemical-laden passage in an article about the shift in automobile manufacturing to electric vehicles: 

“It’s one of the biggest industrial transformations probably in the history of capitalism,” Scott Keogh, chief executive of Volkswagen Group of America, said in an interview. “The investments are massive, and the mission is massive.”

But not everyone will benefit. Makers of mufflers, fuel injection systems and other parts could go out of business, leaving many workers jobless. Nearly three million Americans make, sell and service cars and auto parts, and industry experts say producing electric cars will require fewer workers because the cars have fewer components.

Over time, battery ingredients like lithium, nickel and cobalt could become more sought after than oil. Prices for these materials are already skyrocketing, which could limit sales in the short term by driving up the cost of electric cars.

I can't imagine there are that many chemists involved in the manufacture of cars - it will be interesting to see if the numbers will go up or down?  

Workforce training is an ongoing process

Via this week's Chemical and Engineering News, an article from Matt Blois on biotech workforce development:  

...Rimando-McKeel’s experience is a window into a broader problem for the business of using biology to make chemicals and other materials. Companies have been racking up victories on R&D and business fronts and moving technologies from research labs to commercial-scale production facilities. But industry leaders say they can’t hire enough technicians to operate the cell-growing machinery on the floors of those plants.

“We end up stealing people from other companies, or you train them in-house,” says Jay Keasling, a University of California, Berkeley, chemical engineer and the founder of several synthetic biology companies. “We need a lot more training in this area.”

...Companies are trying to strengthen their hiring pipelines to replace employees who leave, but those efforts take a long time to pay off. DeKloe warns that the industry risks starting too late to head off a labor crunch. “How do you ramp up a program for any emerging industry?” he says. “You have to start before the crisis is upon us.”

Undoubtedly, there are people advocating for training programs now, and finally getting traction with their leadership. I wonder how many will last until the next hiring panic? 

The 2022 Faculty Jobs List: 550 research/teaching positions and 93 teaching positions

The 2022 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 550 research/teaching positions and 93 teaching positions. 

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

On February 9, 2021, the 2021 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 279 research/teaching position and 44 teaching positions. On February 11, 2019, the 2020 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 537 research/teaching positions and 59 teaching positions.

To see trending, go to Andrew Spaeth's visualization of previous years' list.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Go to the fourth open thread. Here's the third open thread. Go to the second open thread. Here is the first open thread. The first open thread was closed on November 10, 2021.

Here is Sean Edington's status summary spreadsheet.

Don't forget to click on "load more" below the comment box for the full thread. 

Coming: The 2022 Chemistry Job Scramble

Copying last year's Chemistry Job Scramble, Andrew Spaeth and I will be putting together a job market scramble to open on the week of March 7 for registration of employers and job seekers. This is an attempt to create a "thick" market for both job candidates and potential employers, especially those who did not get a faculty position this year. The basic contours: 

• Registration will open for one week, starting March 7, 2022. It will close on 11:59 PM Eastern, March 12, 2022. We will register both potential employers and job candidates.
• Potential employers will be required to post a position with an intent to hire before September 30, 2022. 
• Job seekers will have to attest that they have not accepted a position with another employer. 
• On March 14, job seekers will be offered access to the list of potential positions. They will not be offered access to the list of job seekers. 
• On March 14, potential employers will be offered the list of job seekers. They will not be offered access to the list of potential employers. 
• There will be no matching by Andrew or I - simply the provision of potential openings or candidates. 
• Access to the list will be revoked after 2 weeks. 
• This year, there will be an opportunity for a "signal" for job seekers; job seekers will be allowed one opportunity to send a short message (140 characters) to a single employer. 

Questions? Ask them in the comments, or email us at chemjobber@gmail.com. 

Chemistry Bumper Cars

Check out the latest moves here! 

To submit information, click here or e-mail chembumpercars@gmail.com

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 32 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 32 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady and @nmr_chemist. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

Former Pfizer chemists sued for IP theft

Via Chemical and Engineering News, this story (article by Michael McCoy):  

Pfizer has filed a lawsuit against two former researchers, claiming they stole the pharmaceutical giant’s trade secrets and other confidential information before leaving the company, then used the information to set up their own competing firm.

The researchers, both PhD chemists, are Xiayang Qiu and Min Zhong. Both worked in drug discovery and development for Pfizer or predecessor companies for more than 20 years before resigning from Pfizer in June 2018.

According to the complaint, filed in Connecticut federal court, the two chemists were dissatisfied with their prospects at Pfizer and began scheming in late 2017 to leave the company and start their own firm. In the early months of 2018, the complaint says, they began amassing documents about Pfizer drug discovery programs, including compounds in development and other company secrets.

With other unnamed defendants, they formed their own company, Regor Therapeutics. They also formed a sister company, QILU Regor Therapeutics, with funding provided by the Chinese drug company Qilu Pharmaceutical.

In an email, a Regor media contact, Lauren Xuan, says the company is aware of the Pfizer suit. “We believe that the lawsuit is entirely meritless and will defend ourselves vigorously,” she writes...

...Pfizer’s complaint says both Qiu and Zhong had been working in different capacities on small-molecule GLP-1 receptor agonist technology when they left the company. “Zhong and Qiu could have continued to build on this important, life-saving work at Pfizer for years to come,” the complaint says, “but they made a different choice: to take Pfizer’s trade secrets and confidential information unlawfully to launch a competing company.”

Among the documents they took, the complaint alleges, are documents describing the co-crystal structure for a Pfizer small molecule interacting with the GLP-1 receptor, a trade secret that Pfizer says it spent millions of dollars to develop. “A competitor in possession of that information could, among other things, design and screen for active GLP-1 receptor agonist compounds on an expedited basis,” the complaint says.

From Fierce Biotech, this detail: 

The complaint said a confidential document, stripped of Pfizer confidentiality marks, was uploaded to a personal account two months before Zhong and Qiu left. They later used this information in a new presentation “about a revolutionary new diabetes and obesity drug” that Pfizer said detailed confidential information from its GLP-1 program.

That seems like not a great set of facts for the Regor team - will be interesting to see what happens with this case. 

Have a good weekend

This has been a somewhat less stressful week than anticipated of a busy Thursday, and I am genuinely looking forward to the weekend. Hope that you have a great weekend, and we'll see you on Monday. 

C&EN: Dow improved in 2021

In this week's C&EN, this article from Alex Tullo: 

Dow finished 2021 with improvement across all its businesses. The only obstacles to its performance were higher raw material prices and supply chain constraints, which will likely be headwinds noted by other chemical companies when they disclose results in the coming weeks.

For the year, Dow’s sales rose 42.6% from 2020—a year when the global economy was severely affected by COVID-19—hitting $55.0 billion. Earnings over the same period, excluding one-time charges, jumped 449%, to $6.8 billion.

Improvement in the fourth quarter was a little less dramatic. Sales for that period increased 34.2% from the same quarter in 2020, and earnings swelled 166%.

A couple of recent challenges were evident in Dow’s report. For example, its largest business, packaging and specialty plastics, saw a 3% decline in fourth-quarter sales volumes from a year earlier due to supply constraints in Asia. Operating earnings in the business slipped from the third quarter due to higher raw material and energy costs...

Will be interesting to see when the supply chain mess begins to untangle itself. 

The 2022 Faculty Jobs List: 544 research/teaching positions and 89 teaching positions

The 2022 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 544 research/teaching positions and 89 teaching positions. 

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

On February 2, 2021, the 2021 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 270 research/teaching position and 37 teaching positions. On February 4, 2019, the 2020 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 535 research/teaching positions and 58 teaching positions.

To see trending, go to Andrew Spaeth's visualization of previous years' list.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Go to the fourth open thread. Here's the third open thread. Go to the second open thread. Here is the first open thread. The first open thread was closed on November 10, 2021.

Here is Sean Edington's status summary spreadsheet.

Don't forget to click on "load more" below the comment box for the full thread.

The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List: 67 positions

The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List has 67 positions. It is curated by Lilian Josephson (@lljosephson).

Want to talk? Go to this year's open thread. 

Chemistry Bumper Cars

 Check out the latest moves here! 

To submit information, click here or e-mail chembumpercars@gmail.com

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 32 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 32 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady and @nmr_chemist. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.