Have a good weekend

This was a busy week, but I think I got most of what I needed to do done. I hope that you had a sufficiently accomplished week, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend. See you on Monday! 

Reuters on the Chinese-Mexican illicit chemical trade

Via Reuters, interesting details on the fentanyl manufacturing supply chain: 

...Javier said the Chinese supplier sends some precursors by air in small packages to Mexico City’s international airport. Many are piperidines, compounds at the core of fentanyl’s structure. A little goes a long way. Javier declined to go into details about where the packages go immediately after clearing customs. He did say they’re often flown out of the capital on small planes to Sinaloa.

Chemicals needed in greater volumes, such as propionyl chloride, often come via cargo ship. Javier said his group moves “tons” of precursors through the Port of Manzanillo each year. In addition, he says his team pays millions of dollars in bribes annually to officials at the port — including to customs agents and, more recently, naval officers — to ensure the goods exit the port smoothly.

“We spring the chemicals out without problems,” Javier said.

Interdiction efforts when significant bribery is in play is probably pretty tough. 

Job posting: AI Agents Engineer Molecule Discovery, Lilly, Indianapolis/San Diego

Via C&EN Jobs, this interesting position: 

The Discovery Chemistry Research and Technologies (DCRT) organization within Lilly Research Labs is a small-molecule drug discovery organization with responsibilities spanning target identification to candidate selection for clinical studies. We are looking to grow our diverse team of scientists.

Position Summary

We seek a motivated researcher with expertise in Large Language Models and an interest in planning and decision-making algorithms to join Lilly’s Discovery Chemistry Research and Technologies (DCRT) organization. You will evaluate commercial and open-source AI agentic platforms to determine their applicability and effectiveness in optimizing chemistry and bioinformatics workflows. Your work will accelerate our medicine discovery processes by identifying and integrating the most suitable AI tools.

This position offers the opportunity to work at the forefront of AI-driven drug discovery, collaborating with experts across AI@Lilly and Tech@Lilly. Your efforts will directly impact the development of life-changing medicines.

Key Responsibilities

• Assess and compare commercial and open-source AI agent frameworks for optimizing chemistry and bioinformatics workflows
• Contribute to engineering systems that enable cross-disciplinary agentic system development
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate selected AI agent frameworks into existing workflows.

Basic Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Computational Chemistry, Bioinformatics, Engineering or a related field
• Familiarity with agent-based modeling and agentic frameworks in scientific domains
• Demonstrated experience in LLM engineering through coursework and portfolio projects
• Familiarity with developing on cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure)

Additional Skills/Preferences

• Proven experience with training, fine-tuning, and deploying large-scale transformer-based models.
• Understanding of chemistry or bioinformatics multi-modal data
• Experience deploying AI-based chemistry workflows (e.g., REINVENT, chemprop, etc).

"The anticipated wage for this position is $63,000 - $92,400." Full ad here. Seems a little low, but it also seems like there's a solid chance this position won't exist in 3 years when LLMs go away as the flavor of the month, but hey, maybe I'm wrong. 

A Christmas letter for your family

A Chemjobber Christmas tradition, updated for 2024. Send a PDF to your family - try it, it works! 

December 17, 2024

Dear family member:

This holiday season, your relative is in his or her fifth/sixth/seventh/_______ year of graduate school in chemistry. This is a delicate time in your students’ lives -- please make interactions smooth for all by following these simple suggestions:

1. Please supply lots of fresh fruit and vegetables -- they are in short supply. 

2. Do not offer pizza, which is an all-too-common part of their diets. 

3. Sleep is a rare commodity in graduate school; please turn down sheets and fluff pillows. Be prepared to see them about 24 hours after they get home.
   
   

In attempting to communicate with your graduate student, please avoid asking the following questions: 

1. When are you going to finish? 

2. What can you do with your degree? 

3. Will you be the kind of doctor that helps people? 

4. Can you make Mounjaro? I heard there’s a shortage. 

5. There's a clinical chemistry department at my hospital -- can you get a job there? 

6. Why do you need a postdoc? Haven't you gone to enough school? 

7. Did I hear Elizabeth Bik posted about your research?

8. MEGABIOGENE has opened a facility nearby -- can you get a job there?  

9. Can you write your thesis with chatGPT?

10. I see [insert high school rival here] has finished medical school -- how much will they be
    making? 

11. Have you thought about teaching? I heard professors have a stable job. 

12. When are you going to finish? 

In following these simple suggestions, I trust that you, your graduate student and your family will have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Very sincerely,

Chemjobber 

The 2025 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 449 research/teaching positions and 69 teaching positions

The 2025 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 449 research/teaching positions and 69 teaching positions. 

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

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

On December 19, 2023, the 2024 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 481 research/teaching positions and 60 teaching positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? This is the link to the second open thread. This is the link to the first open thread.

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

Are you having problems accessing the Google Sheet because of a Google Documents error? Email me at chemjobber@gmail.com and I will send you an Excel download of the latest sheet. 

The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List: 113 research/teaching positions and 17 teaching positions

The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List (by Heather LeClerc and Daniyal Kiani) has 113 research/teaching positions and 17 teaching positions. 

Here is a link to the open thread for the year.

C&EN: "University of Akron proposes cuts to polymer program"

Via C&EN, this grim news (article by Krystal Vasquez): 

Faced with a budget shortfall, the University of Akron (UA) is proposing to merge its department of chemistry; department of chemical, biomolecular, and corrosion engineering; and School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering and to cut up to 15 faculty positions across these disciplines.

If the the Ohio public research institution moves forward with the proposal as is, 10 of the cuts are slated to come from the polymer school, says Toni Bisconti, president of the Akron chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the union that represents the university’s full-time faculty. The school currently has 19 full-time faculty members.

The planned cuts, first reported by Signal Akron in November, are being proposed through a process known as retrenchment, which allows the university administration to eliminate faculty positions in the event of a significant financial crisis. The retrenchment follows several other cost-cutting and revenue-generating measures that the university recently implemented to reduce the $27 million deficit it expects to carry into 2025.

The chemistry department chair in the C&EN piece indicates that there are no cuts forthcoming, which is good, but cold comfort to the polymer program. It strikes me that the polymer program at Akron is prominent, and therefore, it is surprising to me that the UAkron administration is participating in seemingly destroying a world-class program. Best wishes to all of those affected, especially the graduate students and postdocs. 

Have a great week

Well, this was a super fun week. I hope that you had as much fun learning as I did, and I hope that you have a wonderful weekend. See you on Monday. 

Help out C&EN's World Chemical Outlook

Via friend of the blog Krystal Vasquez of C&EN: 

Every January, C&EN publishes a collection of articles that predict how upcoming business and policy trends might affect the chemistry community. For 2025, we'd like to hear from students and researchers working both inside and outside the US to learn how they might be affected by immigration policies that might be proposed by the new US presidential administration. 

Please note that all or part of your responses may be used in this upcoming article. If you would like to contribute anonymously or provide background information, please contact Krystal Vasquez via email (k_vasquez@acs.org) or on Signal (@kvasquez.12).

The link to the survey is here.

Job posting: Scientific Director, Analytical Chemistry, BR&D, Eli Lilly (Indianapolis, IN)

Via the new (old/new) ACS Chemistry Careers, this position at Lilly: 

The Bioproduct Research and Development (BR&D) organization delivers new medicines to patients through the development and commercialization of insulins, peptides, oligonucleotides, monoclonal antibodies, novel therapeutic proteins, and gene therapy systems. BR&D is a multidisciplinary group with deep technical expertise that works collaboratively with our discovery and manufacturing colleagues. Located in Indianapolis, IN, scientists have full access to Lilly's deep pharmaceutical development expertise and engineering capabilities.

In this role, we are seeking experienced, innovative, and motivated candidates to apply their strong foundation in analytical sciences and experience in pharmaceutical development to enable clinical trials, regulatory submissions, and new product commercialization. This role offers the opportunity to lead drug substance and/or drug product analytical efforts within a multidisciplinary team while offering access to word-class capabilities for pharmaceutical development.

Top candidates for this position will be expected to:

• Possess prior experience leading analytical efforts focused on pharmaceutical drug substance and/or drug product development and commercialization, as well as demonstrate familiarity with applicable regulatory requirements and emerging trends in the industry.
• Demonstrate a depth of knowledge in concepts relevant to drug substance and drug product commercialization, including developing analytical methods, justifying specifications, designing stability studies, authoring regulatory submissions and addressing questions from global regulatory agencies.
• Drive the implementation of technical solutions and analytical strategies to enable drug substance and drug product process design.

Basic Requirements:

Ph.D. in analytical chemistry or bioanalytical chemistry, or a related field with 5+ years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry after earning degree or alternatively a B.S. in chemistry with 15+ years (or M.S. in chemistry with 10+ years) of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.

Additional Preferences:

• Experience with technical transfer of analytical methods into manufacturing operations.
• Experience developing global regulatory strategies including authoring regulatory submissions, responding to regulatory questions, and/or registering products across global markets.

Full ad here. Posted salary: "The anticipated wage for this position is $144,000 - $250,800." Best wishes to those interested

C&EN on the EPA ban of TCE and PCE:

In C&EN, this news (article by Britt Erickson): 

Most uses of the solvents trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) will be banned within 1–3 years under final rules released Dec. 9 by the US Environmental Protection Agency. But in response to pushback from some industries, the agency carved out longer phase-out times for certain applications.

The EPA’s crackdown on solvents under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is part of the agency’s push to finalize proposed regulations before the administration of Donald J. Trump takes over Jan. 20.

TCE and PCE are 2 of the first 10 chemicals the EPA evaluated under the revisions to TSCA made in 2016. The agency proposed restrictions on both of them in 2023. Asbestos and methylene chloride are the only others for which final rules have been released.

TCE was once widely used as a solvent in cleaning products, degreasers, brake cleaners, lubricants, adhesives, coatings, and many other consumer and industrial products. The EPA considers the chemical “extremely toxic” and says it causes liver and kidney cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and a host of other health effects, even at low concentrations.

The obvious response to this is "I am terribly curious was EPA Administrator-Designate Lee Zeldin has to say about this", so I guess I will go with that. 

The 2025 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 436 research/teaching positions and 66 teaching positions

The 2025 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 436 research/teaching positions and 66 teaching positions. 

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

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

On December 12, 2023, the 2024 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 476 research/teaching positions and 55 teaching positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? This is the link to the second open thread. This is the link to the first open thread.

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

Are you having problems accessing the Google Sheet because of a Google Documents error? Email me at chemjobber@gmail.com and I will send you an Excel download of the latest sheet. 

The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List: 113 research/teaching positions and 17 teaching positions

The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List (by Heather LeClerc and Daniyal Kiani) has 113 research/teaching positions and 17 teaching positions. 

Here is a link to the open thread for the year.

The 2023 ACS Form 990

full PDF here

Chemistry needs math, and math is hard

In this week's C&EN, this interesting letter: 

I would like to commend Leigh Krietsch Boerner’s article “Are Undergraduate Chemistry Programs in Crisis?,” as the article has pointed out many things that I’ve seen with my own eyes. I’m an associate professor of chemistry at a predominantly undergraduate state institution in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I have noticed similar trends in enrollment, cost, and graduation rates at my own institution.

The article points out that biology enrollment is in line with other undergraduate enrollments, while the chemistry enrollment shows a large decline. Further, the article points out that the number of undergraduate chemistry degrees awarded has plunged the fastest over the last 3 years relative to other disciplines. This too, I’ve seen.

However, I feel that a major contributing factor behind these numbers has been overlooked. Over the last 20 years, I’ve seen student math preparedness plummet. This trend was in full swing before COVID-19, and the pandemic exacerbated the problem. I’ve seen many students in my first-year general chemistry course switch from chemistry to biology because the math requirements in chemistry were just too hard given the level of math preparedness of the students. I’m not referring to the log base 10 operation of the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation but rather the simple task of converting grams to moles, which is an exceedingly difficult operation for a quarter to a third of the students in front of me. Chemistry is enjoyable if you have a rudimentary understanding of math, a nightmare if that understanding has never been developed.

I had hoped that the trends that I’ve seen were specific to my institution alone, but colleagues at similar institutions have reported to me similar experiences. Fortunately, math preparedness doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem at our nation’s elite schools, but can these few schools produce the army of chemists needed to carry an advanced industrial society?

The development of a mathematical intuition is needed to succeed in chemistry. Why that intuition is not being developed on a broad scale needs to be addressed, as more than the fate of a few chemistry departments is at stake.

Dwayne Bell

Framingham, Massachusetts

I guess I don't really know what to say about this, other than math is an important skill, and it's hard to imagine getting through (I dunno) the first semester of general chemistry without a pretty decent sense of how to do basic algebra. 

Have a good weekend!

 

A busy but not too relaxed week, so I'll take it as a win. I hope that you had a good week, and that you will have a less busy weekend than I. We'll see you on Monday!

Job posting: Senior Process Chemist III, MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions, Shelton, Connecticut

From the inbox: 

MacDermid Alpha Electronics Solutions, a business of Element Solutions Inc (NYSE:ESI), is renowned worldwide for its commitment to revolutionizing the electronics industry. With a legacy spanning over a century, we have continually set new benchmarks for excellence, reliability, and sustainability in electronic materials.

Who are we looking for?

The selected individual will be responsible for transforming compounds and chemistries developed by the R&D team into commercially viable products. Key objectives include: (1) developing scalable production methods to enable larger batch quantities—initially for testing, followed by commercial manufacturing—and (2) establishing synthetic routes that prioritize safety, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. This role requires a balanced mix of theoretical expertise and hands-on experience. 

The ideal candidate will split their time between laboratory and production environments, conducting small-scale testing and reaction evaluations in the lab and facilitating successful large-scale implementation in the plant. Close collaboration with chemists, engineers, and operators is essential to drive innovation in product and process development. Additionally, this chemist will oversee the transfer of new products to the Pilot Production Laboratory and support the scale-up to High Volume Manufacturing (HVM), ensuring a seamless path to market.

Who are You?

• PhD degree > 3 years and or MS > 7 years of relevant experience, preferably in chemistry, or related field.
• > 3 years of formulation experience in electroplating or other wet process is preferred, especially in the Semiconductor or Printed Circuit Board industries.  
• Strong experience in chemical separation/purification such as filtration, evaporation, distillation, chromatography, and chemical characterization techniques (such as GPC, HPLC, LC-MS) that are used to analyze separated species. 

Full ad here. Best wishes to those interested. Contact person for this posting: Shannon Bria (Shannon.Bria@elementsolutionsinc.com)

NYT: China bans exports of gallium, germanium other materials to the United States in retaliation

Via the New York Times, this news: 

China said on Tuesday that it would begin banning the export of several rare minerals to the United States, an escalation of the tech war between the world’s two biggest powers. The move comes a day after the Biden administration tightened Chinese access to advanced American technology.

The ban signals Beijing’s willingness to engage in supply chain warfare by blocking the export of important components used to make valuable products, like weaponry and semiconductors.

Sales of gallium, germanium, antimony and so-called superhard materials to the United States would be halted immediately on the grounds that they have dual military and civilian uses, China’s Ministry of Commerce said. The export of graphite would also be subject to stricter review.

China is central to many global supply chains, but it generally refrained from clamping down on its own exports during the first Trump administration, preferring instead to take more limited actions like buying soybeans from Brazil instead of the United States. But senior Chinese officials are worried that President-elect Donald J. Trump plans more stringent policies during his coming term in office.

According to the article, tungsten is among the "superhard materials." I don't know where those 1 inch tungsten cubes come from, but I suspect they're going to get more expensive. 

WTOL: "Perrysburg High School teacher placed on administrative leave following chemical mix-up in science experiment"

Via WTOL in Toledo, OH: 

PERRYSBURG, Ohio — A Perrysburg High School teacher has been placed on administrative leave following a chemical mix-up in a science class that led to several students experiencing symptoms requiring medical attention.

Perrysburg schools said during an activity Monday, the teacher "mistakenly provided ammonia instead of the intended vinegar for an experiment." The district said this resulted in multiple students "ingesting a small amount of the substance."

According to the district, some of the students experienced symptoms and were evaluated by a school nurse before being advised by Poison Control to seek further medical attention as a precaution.

The teacher has been placed on administrative leave, which I presume will end in their dismissal. I genuinely don't understand how this happened (i.e. why was anything in a chemistry lab ingested?) but I hope we will get some follow up with an answer as to what exactly happened. 

The 2025 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 428 research/teaching positions and 65 teaching positions

The 2025 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 428 research/teaching positions and 65 teaching positions. 

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

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

On December 5, 2023, the 2024 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 472 research/teaching positions and 49 teaching positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? This will be the second open thread. This is the link to the first open thread.

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

Are you having problems accessing the Google Sheet because of a Google Documents error? Email me at chemjobber@gmail.com and I will send you an Excel download of the latest sheet. 

The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List: 112 research/teaching positions and 17 teaching positions

The Chemical Engineering Faculty Jobs List (by Heather LeClerc and Daniyal Kiani) has 112 research/teaching positions and 17 teaching positions. 

Here is a link to the open thread for the year.

NYT: "Mexican Cartels Lure Chemistry Students to Make Fentanyl"

Via the New York Times, this story: 

American law enforcement officials also said that many young chemists had been swept up in arrests at Mexican fentanyl labs in recent years. The arrested chemists told the authorities that they had been working on developing precursors and making the drug stronger, according to the officials.

A chemistry professor at a university in Sinaloa State said he knew that some students enrolled in chemistry classes just to become more familiar with skills needed to cook synthetic drugs. The professor, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said he had identified students who fit that profile by their questions and reactions during his lectures.

“Sometimes when I am teaching them synthesis of pharmaceutical drugs, they openly ask me, ‘Hey, professor, when are you teaching us how to synthesize cocaine and other things?’” he said.

...But as the cartels gain greater control of the fentanyl supply chain, U.S. officials say, it will become more difficult for law enforcement in both countries to stop the industrialized production of synthetic opioids in Mexico.

The cartels “know we are now focused on the illicit trafficking of these precursor chemicals around the world,” said Todd Robinson, the State Department’s assistant secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

Those efforts are driving the cartels “to try to bring this thing in-house,” Mr. Robinson said. “The practical result of that is their ability to more easily and quickly transfer those drugs to the United States.”

That the cartel is hiring chemists and chemistry students isn't news, I suppose, but I do think it is interesting that they are attempting to recruit undergraduate students for this work (especially the practical and economic manufacture of fentanyl precursors.) The cartel seems to have a fairly sophisticated ability to perform chemical manufacturing in Mexico*, so it seems to me that they would not be so naive as to be hiring brand new students into such economically important work for them. My gut feeling tells me that the cartels are consulting more experienced chemists. 

*I can't find the link to the evidence that they've been using catalytic techniques to epimerize their discarded D-methylamphetamine to a mixture that can be re-resolved to the tartrate salt.