The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 138 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself)  has 138 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, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

The Computational Drug Discovery Chemistry Jobs List: 20 positions

The Computational Drug Discovery Chemistry Jobs List has 20 positions. This list is curated by Joel Walker. 

22 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 22 new positions posted for July 17.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 175 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 175 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

Warning Letter of the Week: recycling consumables edition

A dispatch from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research to the Managing Director of Claris Injectables Ltd. in Gujarat, India: 

1.    Your firm failed to thoroughly investigate any unexplained discrepancy or failure of a batch or any of its components to meet any of its specifications, whether or not the batch has already been distributed (21 CFR 211.192). 

Your firm invalidated out-of-specification (OOS) results without adequate investigation and scientific justification. Examples include: 

....In March, 2017, you obtained OOS results for the [redacted] impurity during stability testing of [redacted] injection batches [redacted]. You suspected the analyst may have incorrectly rinsed the HPLC vials. New samples prepared and tested by a second analyst using both the original column and a new column, as well as old and new vials, also yielded OOS results. Although you lacked sufficient evidence, your investigation concluded that the OOS results were due to sample vial contamination. You invalidated the OOS results after obtaining passing results from testing retain samples.

Rinsing HPLC vials??!?!?

(Someone who does science in the United States probably has no idea as to the constraints around consumables in the developing world. But still!)

Odd approach to peer review

Also in this week's C&EN, a pretty remarkable experiment from eLife (article by Katherine Sanderson): 

The life sciences journal eLife is trying out a radical approach to peer review. Rather than deciding whether to publish a paper after peer review, an editor’s decision to send a paper for peer review will be a commitment to eventually publish it. The trial is optional and aims to recruit 300 papers. In the trial, the editor and referees will agree on what they want authors to address.  

The authors can then make revisions, including more experiments; respond to criticisms; or withdraw the paper completely. The referee reports, editor’s decision letter, and authors’ response will be published alongside the final article. Reviewers can choose whether to remain anonymous.  

The aim is to give more power to authors, say eLife editors Mark Patterson and Randy Schekman in an editorial. They also hope it will strengthen the review process, with referees gaining a reputation for the advice they give. Observers welcome the trial with caution. Raghuveer Parthasarathy, a physicist from the University of Oregon, worries that journal editors sifting through initial submissions are given more power. “It may bias the system further towards flashy papers from well-connected authors,” he says.

This is a pretty interesting experiment, and it will be interesting to see if it produces anything sustainable... 

This week's C&EN

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

• Cover: fascinating story by Melody Bomgardner on advances in textile dyes
• Who knew there's a carbon fiber cluster in South Carolina? (article by Marc Reisch)
• Cool profile of Amy Prieto, a professor at Colorado State and battery entrepreneur (article by Prachi Patel)
• Frustrating to hear continued tough news at the Chemical Safety Board (article by Jeff Johnson)
• This is some pretty fascinating fluorine chemistry by the Sarpong group (article by Tien Nguyen)
• "Novartis to end anti-infectives R&D" (article by Michael McCoy) 
• doesn't this just seem like bad news? 
• Some d00d yapping about sharing in the lab

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 30 positions

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 30 positions.

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

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Try the open thread.

Otherwise, all discussions are on the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List webforum.

Please fill out the 2017-2018 Faculty Search Survey

In the interests of understanding the results of this year's academic recruiting, I have created an unscientific survey. I will be sharing results as they come in.

If you were a faculty candidate during the 2017-2018 academic year, please fill out this survey so we can get a better picture of the experience of faculty candidates this past year.

Please leave suggestions for improvements for the survey (and the List!) in the comments. 

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 25 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 25 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady. 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.

Chinese plant explosion kills 19

Via the inbox and the New York Times:

BEIJING — At least 19 people have been killed and a dozen injured after a chemical plant exploded in southwest China, engulfing the plant in flames and throwing a thick plume of smoke into the sky. 

The explosion erupted in an industrial park in Jiangan County, Sichuan Province, at about 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, the China News Service reported. Intense fires gutted a new-looking, three-story production building belonging to the Yibin Hengda Science and Technology Company, and windows of nearby buildings were shattered, a Sichuan news service said. 

“I heard an enormous explosion, enormous, and felt tremors,” Liu Ping, an official in charge of the industrial park, told a Chinese news website. “We’re now checking DNA to confirm the list of fatalities.” 

China’s grim record of accidents in factories and mines has improved in recent years, according to government statistics. They showed that 38,000 people died in work-related accidents last year, a fall of 12 percent from 2016.

Sounds like it was a methanol plant, which would offer plenty of risk of explosion. Best wishes to those involved. 

Nitrile gloves

A list of small, useful things (links): 

• The latest from Stellen für Chemiker
• The latest from All Things Metathesis
• Fun post at Sustainable Nano about the chemistry of fireflies
• Congrats to See Arr Oh for pointing out errors in this paper on Xinghaiamine A, and finally getting results three years later (as covered at In the Pipeline and Retraction Watch) 
• Th'Gaussling on science outreach
• Interesting post on the ecological effects of palm plantations at Almost Like Science
• Nice post by Andre St. Amant on the Molecular Sieves Cult
• Check out this anti-chemophobia advertorial at the New York Times from Johnson and Johnson
• Fascinating that there is a second multinational corporation taking the public's fear of chemicals in their products head on 
• Congratulations on the ten-year anniversary of Practical Fragments!

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!

Are you having more difficulty in sourcing chemicals?

"Finally, we have found the Lost City of Acrolein!"
Credit: cageclub.me

This was an interesting comment by Dan Singleton at Texas A&M about the difficulty of sourcing basic organic chemicals. (Recently, he had difficulty in ordering acrolein, which is a bit of a surprise.)

Here's a comment about the difficulty in sourcing lithium powder (isn't there a Collum prep about how to make lithium powder? Does Rieke sell that? Either way, I'd rather buy that than make it.)

I haven't noticed too much difficulty in ordering compounds these days (at least in the 100 gram range.) Now tons of compound? I think it's always hard.

What's been your experience with finding lab-scale quantities of typical organic chemicals? 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 121 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself)  has 121 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, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

The Computational Drug Discovery Chemistry Jobs List: 20 positions

The Computational Drug Discovery Chemistry Jobs List has 20 positions. This list is curated by Joel Walker. 

15 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 10 new positions posted for July 9 and 5 positions posted on July 5.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 175 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 175 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

Warning Letter of the Week: throw it all in there edition

A note from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research to the General Manager of Foshan Jinxiong Technology Co., Ltd.: 

4.    Your firm failed to prepare batch production and control records with complete information relating to the production and control of each batch of drug product produced (21 CFR 211.188).
You lacked complete information related to the production and control of each lot. For example, you failed to have specific identification for each  lot of component, and production equipment, used in manufacturing. You also failed to have unique lot or control numbers for the distributed drug product. You provided our investigator with a list of more than [redacted] batches manufactured in 2017 that lacked this basic information.

In your response, you described your new lot numbering system and how you revised your production records. You also provided a copy of the revised production record.

Figuring out a way to accurately and robustly number manufacturing batches is a non-trivial task. Not numbering them at all is a pretty bold and simple solution! 

It's good to be Andy

Long-time Chemjobber bugaboo Andrew Liveris (and retired Dow CEO) had a few perks (article by Alex Tullo):

Dow Chemical will pay the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission $1.75 million for failing to report $3.0 million in perks to former CEO Andrew N. Liveris, who retired on July 1. Among the benefits, SEC says, were travel to outside board meetings, sporting events, and personal activities; club memberships; and a board membership fee for a charity. SEC says Dow didn’t have the right system in place for sorting out and reporting such expenses.

There's a software package I'd like to expense with my employer, maybe I could sneak a few Padres tickets in there too....

This week's C&EN

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

• Cover: rare earths from coal waste (article by Britt E. Erickson)
• Good times for electronic materials suppliers (article by Jean-François Tremblay)
• I enjoyed this profile of BioVectra (article by Rick Mullin) 
• Solid profile of Jeremy Berg by Andrea Widener 
• I like the bit about "should find a way to take pride in and credit for" the widespread use of chemistry by people who don't consider themselves chemists....
• ...have chemists found a way to take actual credit* for that?  
• *credit: TBD*
• *meaningful credit to me: people devoting more actual funding to chemists or chemistry
• I really enjoyed this Mitch Jacoby piece on the actual boron structure in "slime"
• Air Liquide suing The Carlyle Group (article by Marc Reisch) 
• Fascinated to see a IP theft case actually go to the lawsuit stage when it appears that the main means of IP theft was 1) hiring a person and 2) the person walking off the boat with the maps
• Cool story by Carmen Drahl on single-atom Suzuki coupling
• Honestly, we're about at the "wave the Strem bottle at the reaction" phase, aren't we?