Daily Pump Trap: 9/15/17 edition

A few positions posted recently at C&EN Jobs:

Topeka, KS: The Kansas Health & Environmental Laboratories are searching for an ion chromatograph chemist. $19.16 hourly; can vary depending upon experience and qualifications. B.S. desired.

Washington D.C.: Applications are being accepted for AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowships. $75-100k offered.

Key West, FL and elsewhere: Interesting set of naval positions available with Excet. A corrosion engineer position (FL), an analytical chemist position (DC), a coating chemist position (DC) and a formulation chemist position (DC.)

Beerse (Ville), Turnhout (BE): Janssen is looking for experienced medicinal chemists for neuroscience work. Ph.D. in organic chemistry, 2-5 years experience.

Huh: Not every day you get an Indian position around these parts. Applied Materials (Mumbai, India) is looking for a M.S./Ph.D. senior chemist for semiconductor work.

Ivory Filter Flask: 9/15/17 edition

A few academic positions posted recently at C&EN Jobs:

Urbana, IL: UIUC, conducting an open-rank search focusing on "a special emphasis on analytical, inorganic, and materials chemistry." 

Queens, NY: St. John's University is looking for an assistant professor of medicinal chemistry. 

Austin, TX: Open-field search at UT-Austin for two assistant professors.

Amherst, MA: Amherst College, looking for an assistant professor of inorganic chemistry. 

Terre Haute, IN: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is hiring an assistant professor of organic chemistry and an assistant professor of analytical chemistry.

Burnaby, BC: Simon Fraser University is searching for an assistant professor of nuclear medicinal chemistry.

Nice name: There's a multi-university Actinide Center of Excellence? They're looking for postdocs at various universities (Notre Dame, Washington State, Oregon State, Minnesota, Northwestern.) Must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents. 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 160 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list has 160 positions.

(So it's been a while since the list has had a purging, so that's coming soon.)

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 (likely never.)

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 50 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 50 positions.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

Resolved: lying on your resume is dumb

From Twitter, a really good story from UC-Irvine chemistry professor Jenny Yang, told in a number of tweets: 

Crazy thing happened. A Prof. emailed me for a personal reference after interviewing someone for a job that seemed like a great fit. 

Only problem? I had never heard of this person. They said they worked in my lab from 2013-2014, year I started. Unlikely I'd forget someone. 

Just in case, I asked everyone that had been in the lab that year if they remembered this person. They did not. They checked notebooks too. 

One of my students TA'd this person but I never taught this person. Looking back at my emails, this person had asked if they could do research in my lab but I said I had no space.  

Anyway I told the Prof. this person never worked n my lab. Prof emails me the next week. 

Says this person listed the wrong name on CV. They worked for a Jenny Yeng that was only at UCI for 1 year, ran a small group, and somehow does the same research as me. I said there is no such person.  

Prof. said they talked to this 'Jenny Yeng' on the phone.  

Said glowing things about the candidate. 

So this person lies on their CV. Gets caught. Makes up a fictional person to serve as a reference.  

And it cost them a job. I sure hope they learn a lesson and decide to revise their CV and be honest.

I don't have much to say about this, other than the obvious: eventually, lies get caught.

Warning Letter of the Week: poisoning infants edition

A warning letter from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research to the CEO of Homeolab USA Inc.: 

During our inspection, our investigator observed specific violations including, but not limited to, the following.

1.    Your firm failed to establish and follow adequate control procedures to monitor the output and to validate the performance of those manufacturing processes that may be responsible for causing variability in the characteristics of in-process material and the drug product (21 CFR 211.110(a)).
Your firm released multiple lots of homeopathic in-process powder blends prior to attempting to validate your manufacturing process. You manufacture [redacted] homeopathic in-process powder blend mixtures which you send to Raritan Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Raritan), a contract manufacturing organization, to produce finished homeopathic drug products for the United States (U.S.) market. Some of your powder blend mixtures are manufactured from ingredients that pose potentially toxic effects. For example, your Infants’ Teething Tablet [redacted] contains belladonna. Raritan uses this powder blend mixture to produce finished drug products for infants and children, a population vulnerable to the toxic effects of belladonna. You shipped [redacted] lot [redacted] of Infants’ Teething Tablet [redacted] to the U.S. market before evaluating whether your manufacturing process was reliable and reproducible.

Your operators use a [redacted], an inherently variable process, to [redacted] produce in-process powder blends, including those made from toxic ingredients. You did not test the in-process powder blends for adequacy of mixing to assure uniformity and homogeneity prior to release and shipment to your contract manufacturer, Raritan.

FDA collected samples of your in-process drugs ([redacted] lot [redacted]) during our September-October 2016 inspection of Raritan. FDA analyses indicated that your in-process drugs were not homogeneous in composition.

Raritan used your powder blends to contract manufacture adulterated finished drug products that you marketed for use in infants and children in the United States. FDA analysis of finished drug products made from your in-process blends also demonstrated non-homogeneous composition. We acknowledge that the teething tablets made from your non-uniform powder blends were recalled.

For those who need some context, Hyland's Teething Tablets are (or were) a fairly common product in American drug stores. They are believed (incorrectly, I assert) to relieve teething pains in children. (I recall turning up my nose at these products because they are labeled as homeopathic.)

As it turns out, they weren't very homeopathic, and the health news website STAT had a long article in February detailing the many hundreds of children who were injured (and the 10 children who died) by the belladonna (a poison!) that was used as the active ingredient in these tablets.

As a parent and a scientist (and someone who works around the pharmaceutical manufacturing space), I am saddened and angered that non-homogeneous blending was the final hole in the Swiss cheese that allowed these poisonous tablets to be released to the public.

(Don't miss the "limited photography" section in the warning letter: "Your consultant impeded the inspection by preventing our investigator from photographing this piece of equipment.")

This week's C&EN

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

• Cover: Fascinating article on chlorpyrifos by Britt Erickson
• C&EN's annual survey of women in the corporate chemistry world (by Alex Tullo) 
• Don't understand quantum entanglement? Neither do I, but here's a decent piece that explains it. (by Neil Savage)
• Alex Tullo and Melody Bomgardner cover the recovery of the chemical enterprise in Houston.
• I thought this story of a retraction was pretty wonderful. (article by Stephen K. Ritter)
• Lilly to cut 3,500 jobs (mostly through early retirement) (article by Lisa Jarvis) 
• John Lechleiter, leading the way for chemist/CEOs!
• Incidentally, there is interesting method to his donation madness, I suspect. 
• L'Oreal sure gets sued a lot. (article by Marc S. Reisch)

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 238 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 238 positions.

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

Want to talk anonymously? Try the open thread.

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

Staff scientist: Purdue University, energetic materials, West Lafayette, IN

From the inbox, a staff scientist position:

As Research Scientist located at Zucrow Labs, you will carry out research and administrative duties beyond the scope of individual students and post-docs in the synthesis, formulation, and characterization of energetic materials. You will utilize your expertise to improve the technical expertise of the College of Engineering Pre-Eminent Team in Energetic Materials, and develop new research avenues utilizing existing and improved experimental resources. 

Full listing here. Best wishes to those interested.  

Mercury on Houston shores?

I've been really busy this week, so I haven't had time to write about the Arkema situation (especially now that it has been mostly resolved). But I did want to note this little article from The New York Times about some mercury that washed up on a Houston beach: 

CHANNELVIEW, Texas — Public health officials are investigating a case of dangerous liquid mercury that appears to have washed or blown ashore here, east of Houston, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. 

Bobby Griffin found the clusters of shiny silver mercury globules scattered across his San Jacinto riverfront property on Tuesday, a few hundred yards from the San Jacinto Waste Pits, a Superfund site that was inundated during last week’s storm. 

Harvey cut a path through industrial corridors, raising concerns about pollution and runoff. Public health officials are especially concerned about flooding at highly contaminated Superfund sites, designated by the federal government for clean up... 

...The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences says that mercury is extremely dangerous, “with a few drops generating enough fumes to contaminate the air in a room.” It is less dangerous outside, but it poses a hazard if people pick it up or stand near it. 

Mr. Griffin, who earned a living renting out mobile homes on his land until the storm wrecked them all, first noticed a spray of silvery dots in the wet sand that clung to his bare toes on Tuesday. 

He called out for a New York Times reporter who happened to be on his property, looking for toxic contamination left behind after the storm, to come over.
Mr. Griffin, 57, picked up one cluster with his knife, tipped it into the palm of his left hand and watched it dance, split into pieces and come back together. 

“It’s all over here,” Mr. Griffin said, pointing to cluster after cluster. He said he had not seen the material before the storm came....

That doesn't sound like a good situation... time to get out the elemental sulfur?

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 155 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list has 155 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 (likely never.)

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 41 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 41 positions.

What do you think should be here? The list will be short enough that I think polymer-oriented and formulation-oriented positions should be on this list.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

Should chemistry majors learn to code?

Also in this week's C&EN, a Perspectives article from Professor Charles Weiss of Wabash College: 

...Software better geared to those earning chemistry degrees or conducting research is readily available. Common examples include MATLAB, Python’s SciPy stack, and GNU Octave. The last two are free, open-source packages. So why haven’t these become standard tools taught to all undergraduate chemistry majors? A key barrier to their adoption is that each of these packages requires some level of programming ability ... and computer programming is not part of the standard training for chemists ... but it should be. 

Learning computer programming is an invaluable skill for chemists, as it empowers them to do more with collected data and, ultimately, to be more efficient and effective scientists. A competitive edge today doesn’t necessarily go to the person who can collect the best data but to the person who can best process and analyze the data collected. This nuance involves automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, mining large data sets that don’t fit well in spreadsheets, and extracting information and trends too subtle or complex for people to discern without computers. 

I recently chatted with a fellow chemist who had interviewed for a job at a company. The interviewer asked whether this chemist knew how to program. The company maintains an extensive database of its research results obtained over the years, and research managers want their team members to have computer programming skills so that they can access this data and use it in their ongoing research. The interviewer also pointed out that computer programming is a skill that, unfortunately, most chemists joining the company do not have....

As always, I view claims about employability at arm's length. Until Professor Weiss can show me data indicating that chemists with coding experience are hired more often or with higher salaries than those without, I will view his assertion with some skepticism. Still, it seems very likely to be true.

Still, I don't think anyone would strongly argue against Professor Weiss' suggestion that chemists learn how to code. I think the far more substantive debate would be: what in the 4-year chemistry curriculum should be dropped in favor of coding courses?* Readers, what say you?

*My suggestion: add a coding module to each of laboratories in traditional 4-year programs (i.e. general, organic, physical, analytical.) Note: I Am Not A Chemistry Professor. 

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 196 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 196 positions.

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

Want to talk anonymously? Try the open thread.

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

Postdoctoral position: synthetic chemistry/antibiotic design, Wuest Lab, Emory University

Via Twitter, a postdoctoral position at Emory University: 

Federally-funded postdoctoral position in the Wuest Lab at Emory University (Atlanta, GA) starting January 1st, 2018. Ideal candidates will have broad interests in multidisciplinary research focusing on antibiotic design and target identification. Research experience in either traditional organic synthesis or microbiology (bacteria/antibiotic resistance) is preferred however everything in between will be considered if there is research overlap.  

A strong publication record, evidence of independence, solid communication and writing skills, and ability to work in a collaborative atmosphere are essential. Our group is composed of a diverse student population with a range of skill sets which has been key to our success, accordingly we encourage applications from all backgrounds! Please submit a CV, Research Summary, and ONE PAGE overview of how your skills will advance the our research.

Interested? Contact Professor Wuest at wwuest@emory.edu

Best wishes to those interested.  

Daily Pump Trap: 9/5/17 edition

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

Owensboro, KY: Swedish Match North America is looking for an analytical chemist; B.S. in chemistry desired.

Golden, CO: TDA Research is searching for a research scientist. Ph.D. with 0-5 years experience, "Experience in one or more of these areas: coatings, corrosion, corrosion inhibitors, sensors, organic functionalized materials and/or material science"."

Rolla, MO: Brewer Sciences, searching for an intellectual property specialist.

West Point, PA: Merck is hiring a scientist in biomolecule process development; B.S./M.S. in chemical engineering desired. Also, they are looking for a scientist in high throughput process development.

Ivory Filter Flask: 9/5/17 edition

A few of the recently posted positions on C&EN Jobs:

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University is searching for an assistant professor: "Outstanding candidates with research interests in analytical, biological, inorganic, organic, physical, and theoretical chemistry who complement rather than duplicate our existing strengths are encouraged to apply."

Stanford, CA: Stanford University is hiring an assistant professor; lotsa buzzwords in that ad.

Eau Claire, WI: The University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire is looking for an assistant professor of analytical chemistry.

Lawrence, KS: The University of Kansas is looking for two professors of medicinal chemistry.

Bakersfield, CA: California State University - Bakersfield is searching for an assistant professor of physical chemistry.

This week's C&EN

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

• Cover: neurology-focused biotech startups (article by Chris Morrison) 
• Alex Scott covers Imperial College London's new chemistry/entrepreneurship initiative
• Welcome DowDuPont; time to split up DowDuPont! (article by Alex Tullo) 
• Nice to see former DuPont scientists striking out on their own (article by Marc Reisch)
• Gilead bought Kite Pharma (article by Rick Mullin)
• "Dispersant kept Deepwater Horizon volatiles from surfacing" (article by Jyllian Kemsley)
• Will be interesting to see how the dispersant debate plays out, long-term
• An unexpected amount of opinion about foam mattresses from letter-writers.  

Happy Labor Day

To my American and Canadian readers, a very happy Labo(u)r Day to you and your family. To people in the rest of the world, happy Monday! Back tomorrow.

1.5 inch by 2 inch Post-it notes

A list of small, useful things (links):

• Melanie Nelson is offering her "how to find a job in industry" seminar. ($25 - a pretty good deal, if you ask me.)  
• The latest metathesis papers from All Things Metathesis.
• Milkshake's fictional story continues.
• The Sustainable Nano blog on scientific jargon.
• Lots of interesting (German language) links over at Stellen für Chemiker.
• Great little remembrance from Prof. Markus Ribbe.
• A cool safety-oriented resource from Professors Alexander J. M. Miller (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Ian Tonks (University of Minnesota – Twin Cities)

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.

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 146 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list has 146 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 (likely never.)

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 38 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 38 positions.

What do you think should be here? The list will be short enough that I think polymer-oriented and formulation-oriented positions should be on this list.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

Postdoctoral position: synthetic chemistry, Neurocrine Biosciences, San Diego, CA

From the inbox, a postdoctoral position at Neurocrine:

Highly motivated Postdoctoral Fellow wanted to play a key role in applying modern synthetic chemistry to synthesize novel chiral building blocks, conduct innovative publishable science, scouting and hands-on experience with both micro- and maco-scale reactions as well as automated synthesis and purification. The fellow will synthesize valuable intermediates amenable for automated synthesis over a two-year period.

Full listing here. Best wishes to those interested.  

Lab pranks?

Via the Chemistry Reddit, this little story from Reddit user roryne:

For the last 3 weeks I've been working on making 10 g of an Iridium photocatalyst to ship out. It was requested to be at least 95% purity. Between learning to balance that, TAing organic chem, office hours, and my own classes, it's been a rough start. Today I finally finished the photocatalyst and between all the other stuff, prepped an NMR sample with 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene to be used to check purity (which we actually ran after already shipping it btw). 

After getting back from office hours and class, I could see my lab mate wasn't too happy. He had the proton spectrum open and was telling me, "Man, this is not looking good. Dr. (Adviser) was looking for you and wanted to ask how things looked." About that time our PI came out of his office and asked how it went. My lab mate mumbled that it didn't look any better than 90%. I started panicking and slowly told him what I'd just heard. After a minute of telling me it was unacceptable and that maybe he shouldn't have written a previous letter of rec for me, both of them started laughing. 

My lab mate had chosen a really old/crude NMR of his, and then proceeded to open my actual spectrum. It was apparently ~99.27% pure, which we do without ever running any column.

First of all, maybe I am getting humorless in my old age, but I can't imagine ever thinking this would be a funny prank.

Do you all have any good lab pranks that you pulled? My labmates were all about rigging up hood sashes to do goofy things to people who had been on vacation for a while, i.e. you'd push your hood sash up for the first time in a week and it would pop a balloon or dump a cup of water on you or some such nonsense.

Readers, got any stories to share?  

Warning Letter of the Week: rat droppings edition

A short missive to the general manager of Bicooya Cosmetics Limited in Zhejiang, China from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research: 

1. Your firm failed to keep the buildings used in the manufacture, processing, packing, or holding of a drug product free of infestation by rodents, birds, insects, and other vermin (21 CFR 211.56(a)). 

Our investigator observed rodent feces throughout your facility:

• in direct proximity to the filling machine where you manufacture OTC drug products
• in direct proximity to the [redacted] system, which produces [redacted] incorporated in your drug products
• throughout the warehouse, around both raw materials and finished drug products
• Your over-the-counter [redacted] drug products include [redacted] ointments and [redacted]. 

...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).  
Our investigator requested batch records for OTC drug product lots distributed to the United States, including [redacted] Ointment and [redacted]. You were unable to provide batch records.

In addition, analytical testing records were missing data, dates, and signatures. Our investigator observed your staff altering information in analytical test reports during the inspection. For example, you significantly altered the analytical testing report for [redacted] Ointment lot (b)(4), although this lot had already been distributed to the U.S. market.

"Hey, that's a FDA inspector - better keep altering that analytical report!" I would love to know the context behind that one. 

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 169 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 169 positions.

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

Want to talk anonymously? Try the open thread.

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

How long should a proposal be?

Via a question on Twitter: a (poorly worded) poll:

Chemistry professors, what length is ideal for a faculty application research proposal? 

And the results from 273 votes:

Less than 5 pages: 43%:
5-8 pages: 30%
8-10 pages: 14%
Meh, only 1st page read: 13%

I say poorly worded because I should have asked if this was for a Ph.D.-granting institution or a PUI. Definitely click through the replies to see all the wise heads correct me. 

Force majeure declared by Alvin, Texas acrylonitrile plant

Via the comments from the last post, I happened to find this unhappy note: 

Ascend Performance Materials declares force majeure due to impacts of Hurricane Harvey 

August 28, 2017 

Company’s Chocolate Bayou facility in Alvin, Texas, ceases operations until further notice 

Ascend Performance Materials today announced it has declared force majeure on materials produced at its Chocolate Bayou facility, including hydrogen cyanide (HCN), acrylonitrile (AN) and disodium iminodiacetate (DSIDA). The company’s Chocolate Bayou manufacturing facility has ceased operations as a result of equipment issues and the reduction of supply of raw materials caused by the effects of Hurricane Harvey. 

At present, availability of product is reduced, and the company will allocate existing products as prescribed in its contracts. The company is working with affected customers to minimize the impact to their respective businesses and will continue to provide customer updates regarding supply.

In 2015, Ascend claimed that the Chocolate Bayou facility was "the largest acrylonitrile production plant in the world." Will be interesting to see if this affects acetonitrile prices, or if other suppliers will step up.

Best wishes to those affected by Harvey, and also those at the Chocolate Bayou plant.

UPDATE: C&EN's first story on Harvey, including a look at the storm's effects on academic laboratories. (article by Jyllian Kemsley and Melody Bomgardner)

There's gonna be a few more delays for resin outta Houston

Also in this week's C&EN, an interesting look by Alexander H. Tullo on shipping logistics for Gulf Coast polyethylene, with this excerpt about the Houston Ship Channel: 

...With the buildup at hand, chemical company logistics managers are concerned about whether the region’s port, rail, and truck transportation systems will be able to handle the flood of resins that will leave the country through the Gulf Coast. They are working on strategies to use local ports as effectively as they can—and on contingency plans to circumvent the entire region if they need to.... 

...The waters around Barbours Cut and Bayport, the ship channel’s two container terminals, have been dredged down to a depth of 14 meters. The upgrades will allow the port to bring in the larger ships that have begun to transit the new lane of the Panama Canal, which opened last year. Before the expansion, the canal could handle container ships carrying 4,500 containers. Now, ships laden with as many as 13,000 can make it through. With its improvements, Houston will handle ships bearing 9,000 containers, Diehl says. 

The bigger ships will spur the port of Houston’s growth, Diehl argues. The boost in size of the ships will decrease the cost of shipping each box, improving the competitiveness of Houston and East Coast ports against ports on the West Coast. 

Additionally, Diehl says, Houston is strategically suited to take advantage of the larger ships. Many U.S. ports suffer from a container imbalance because they import more than they export. In Los Angeles, which is an arrival point for Chinese imports, boxes go back to China empty, driving up the cost of shipping because half of the shipping and handling is wasted on unused boxes. 

Houston, in contrast, is a large export port because of all the local industry. A good balance between imports and exports helps containers go in and out fully loaded and keeps shipping costs relatively low. Diehl sees a virtuous cycle. As plastics exports ramp up, shipping companies will increasingly use the port because they know they will be able to fill the boxes for the return trip from Houston...

The increased traffic will stress each mode of transportation differently: The rail system’s long-standing infrastructure is difficult to expand, trucking faces a limited supply of drivers, and marine shipping capacity has to grow as fast as the chemical exports.

First, best wishes to all the blog's readers in Houston. Here's hoping that the weather will be kind and that you all are relatively unaffected and will dry out soon.

I find the logistics of getting product to market to be pretty interesting, especially how it's really a set of guesses as to how all of this infrastructure will be able to adapt to larger volumes in the coming years. Here's hoping that Harvey didn't do any permanent damage to the expansion of the Ship Channel. 

This week's C&EN

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

• Cover story from Stephen K. Ritter on rare earths
• Very interesting story on new Chinese government requirements that their chemical industry purchase liability insurance by Jean-François Tremblay.
• The Chemical Safety Board is looking to collaborate with the ACS? This sounds interesting. (article by Jeff Johnson)
• For those of you who have been following the Impossible Foods saga, it looks like other companies (including UC-Berkeley and Givaudan) are getting in the game. (article by Melody M. Bomgardner)
• Albemarle adding jobs in North Carolina? (article by Rick Mullin)
• Lots of opinions in this week's Reactions, including a lengthy set of comments about ACS' suit against SciHub. 

View From Your Hood: sunny August edition

(got a View from Your Hood submission? Send it in (with a caption, please) at chemjobber@gmail.com; will run every other Friday.) 

What would you include in a B.S. chemist LinkedIn profile?

Via Twitter, a good question from Holly Gaede: 

Can anyone suggest professional resources for how to create a LinkedIn profile? I'd like to share with my undergrads. 

I'm not sure about any professional resources, but I think a good LinkedIn profile (especially at the B.S. chemist level) would have:

• A decent headshot (insert qualms about photos here) 
• A good tagline ("B.S. chemistry graduate with 1 year synthetic organic chemistry experience") 
• A good summary of undergraduate research experience
• Publications/posters, if any
• Summary of your education

That's really a pretty basic LinkedIn profile, and something that would take about 1-2 hours worth of work, assuming that you didn't already have your own resume to plop into your profile. 

Readers, that's a really facile approach to a LinkedIn profile - what would you recommend to an undergraduate chemistry major for their profile? 

(A couple of small notes: Yes, LinkedIn is mostly a crappy website. It's a 24-hour resume, and a rolodex that never forgets. The rest of it is like the Internet - overrun with spam and not very useful, with the exception of a few gems. Also, I think the likelihood of a LinkedIn profile being useful to a new B.S. chemist is not particularly high, but I would not discourage the investment of a couple of hours of thought and work on it.) 

A reminder: don't tell your boss to go pound sand

Via random clickings, the story of a New Jersey high school chemistry teacher (with a Ph.D. in chemistry?) who got himself in a spot of trouble:

A Hunterdon Central Regional High School AP chemistry teacher can be fired for threatening to lower a student's grade after a parent complaint, an arbitrator with the state Department of Education has ruled. 

Tenure charges were brought against Richard Allen after he wrote in an email on May 6, 2016, that he would lower a student's grade to an F in retaliation for her mother's questions about his lesson plans, the 48-page report on the tenure charges showed. 

Allen also wrote "[expletive deleted]" in an email to his supervisor, Karen Batista, and shared confidential information about his students with his wife in a series of emails, many containing disparaging remarks about them, according to the 13 charges brought against him.

Here is the arbitrator's judgment, with an excerpt of the offending e-mail:

...Karen, I am deeply disappointed in your handling of this matter. "Understand that you are under contract?"???!!! Frankly, [expletive deleted]. I work my [expletives deleted] off to be a great teacher and I expect the common courtesy of at least checking in more tactfully (or in person!) when receiving second hand (and erroneous) information you received from the parent. But a threat right off the get go? No thanks. 

I'm not going to pretend that I've read the whole file in detail, but it sounds like there was plenty of items for Dr. Allen to be irritated at. Suffice it to say that I understand what it is like to be really angry at one's supervisor and want to write a long, irritated e-mail defending oneself and including choice expletives. Still, it's unwise and not a recommened course of action (and it seems that he knew it right away). A reminder for us all of how it can backfire.

(UPDATE: For the record, I feel that Dr. Allen earned any censure he may receive; threatening to arbitrarily change grades because a parent questioned him demonstrates his already demonstrated poor judgment.) 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 141 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list has 141 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 (likely never.)

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 27 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 27 positions.

What do you think should be here? The list will be short enough that I think polymer-oriented and formulation-oriented positions should be on this list.

This post will serve as the open thread for the Process Chemistry Jobs list. 

A job description that could have only come from the defense industry

Pretty interesting chemical weapons-related position in Pueblo, CO: 

Description: Leidos has an opening for a Lab and Monitoring specialist to support the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program.  The successful candidate will support the PCAPP Field Office (FO) Project Manager by acting as a chemist in performing environmental analysis, typically in assessing, analyzing, researching and ensuring environmental policy compliance with pertinent Federal, state and local environmental regulations, which may include CERCLA, CAA, and RCRA.   

...Provide technical input by reviewing chemical agent monitoring baseline data generated by the PCAPP laboratory for the purpose of verifying the data generated meets the requirement of the PEO ACWA LMQAP. The data review shall be performed to determine that the facilities’ analytical methods are meeting programmatic requirements prior to the PEO ACWA release of the data to the CDC. 

OMGWTHBBQ 

Wednesday links

This is a pretty amazing little story, with Parts 1, 2 and 3. It's worth a read, if only for a reminder of the crazy that can happen at a small company. Milkshake can tell a good story.

Also, here's a recording of me being interviewed on Beyond the Bench by Dr. Marquita Qualls - a very enjoyable dialogue on careers. 

This week's C&EN

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

• This is the Talented 12 cover, and there are a pretty neat array of impressive people. Here's four of them that I picked: 
• Professor Renee Frontiera (profile by Celia Henry Arnaud)
• Professor Marie Heffern (profile by Sarah Everts) 
• Dr. Daniel DiRocco (profile by Bethany Halford)
• Professor Bozhi Tian (profile by Mitch Jacoby)
• I've been reading a little bit about irritated farmers and dicamba, and this article by Melody Bomgardner explains both the science and the situation. 
• Now that the eclipse has come and gone, you should check out this really great article by Tien Nguyen where the molecular mechanism is really well-explained.
• Celia Henry Arnaud on ACS' new ChemRxiv site, as well as ChemRN. 
• Incidentally, the first organic synthesis paper posted on the site was from the Shenvi lab. 
• A really wonderful profile of material scientist Joanna Aizenberg by Bethany Halford. 
• I think it's interesting that Professor Aizenberg started at Bell Labs - I wonder where the rest of her cohort is? 
• Some dude, yapping about stuff in pockets.

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 149 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 149 positions.

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

Want to talk anonymously? Try the open thread.

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

2 cm Teflon stir blades

A list of small, useful things (links):

• Chemical safety programming at ACS DC (listed by Jyllian Kemsley)
• Philip Ball writes about teleportation
• Ash writes on Sagan's "Demon-Haunted World"
• I have clear memories of seeing that book in the bookstore - this must be what it's like to be old. 
• Interesting post at Sustainable Nano about graphene oxide
• Also from them, a post on mental health
• Retraction Watch: "Researcher who shot dean after being fired for misconduct sentenced to 28 years in prison"
• Prof. Yudin on boron compounds
• Kay Day on borax slime
• The latest list of ASAPs from All Things Metathesis
• Fascinating post on ferrocene by Th' Gaussling.

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 great weekend! 

Quote of the day: the calming influence of money

For some reason, this passage from Mario Puzo's "The Godfather" has always stuck with me, especially when dealing with customers: 

Hagen knew his manners. He did not speak, he did not smile. He waited on his boss, Don Corleone, with all the respect of a favorite earl waiting on his kind; bringing him a cold drink, lighting his cigar, positioning his ashtray; with respect but no obsequiousness.  

Hagen was the only one in that room who knew the identity of the portraits hanging on the dark paneled walls. They were mostly portraits of fabulous financial figures done in rich oils. One was of Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. Hagen could not help thinking that Hamilton might have approved of his peace meeeting being held in a banking institution. Nothing was more calming, more conducive to pure reason, than the atmosphere of money.

I kinda think Hagen was kinda wrong, but it helps me a little during a teleconference... 

Help fund the DIY Science Zone at GeekGirlCon!

Lots of science blogger/Twitter folks are going to be helping out at the DIY Science Zone at GeekGirlCon (a convention for young women about geek culture) on September 30 and October 1, including myself.

We're soliciting donations for our efforts. Your contributions would be spent on Zone supplies (activity ingredients, tarps, cleaning supplies, etc.)

Here's what I am offering to you, Chemjobber reader. If you donate and tell me, I will offer you a handwritten thank you note and, for any donation of $20 or larger, a post of your choosing.

I do not love soliciting funds, but teaching science and the scientific method to kids is worthy in my opinion. Thanks for listening. 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 132 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list has 132 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 (likely never.)

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 11 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 11 positions. 

The skills of chemists versus other fields

Credit: New York Times

You may have seen the minor kerfuffle about this rather silly New York Times metric that would allow you to choose the opposite of your job, skills-wise (scroll down). (Apparently, "physicist" was coming up the opposite of a lot of things.) I did think the accompanying chart, with its comparisons of various jobs on a Y-axis of "clerical/service work versus machine operating" and an X-axis of "communication and thought versus more physical work" was interesting to contemplate, especially since I tend to think of laboratory positions as ones that require physical work. I see that police officers do more operating of machines and processes than chemists, which I find to be an interesting judgment.

I also thought these two paragraphs were a nice summation of overall thoughts about job dislocation in Our Modern Times:

...Because people rarely spend their entire careers at one company anymore, employers have less incentive to invest in training workers in new skills, because they might quit and take those skills to a competitor, said David Deming, a professor of public policy, education and economics at Harvard. Workers also have little incentive to invest in training, because there’s no guarantee it will pay off with long-term employment. Others have trouble thinking of themselves as doing other kinds of jobs — which Lawrence Katz, a Harvard labor economist, says is an identity mismatch, not a skill mismatch. 

Even if workers want to learn new skills and find new occupations, there is no streamlined way to do so. People procrastinate, inaccurately assess their own abilities and are unaware of what other jobs entail, according to behavioral economists. The United States spends a fraction of what other developed countries do on labor market adjustment programs like job counseling and retraining. Assistance is piecemeal, and many people who qualify don’t use it. 

Meanwhile, employers hire based on credentials that job applicants can’t change — a college degree or previous job title — rather than assessing the skills an applicant has developed, said Mr. Auguste, who was an economic adviser in the Obama administration.  

It probably takes quite a bit of time and thought to assess skills, as opposed to looking at degrees or job titles. A shame. 

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 117 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 117 positions.

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

Want to talk anonymously? Try the open thread.

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

What's the best way to write a statement of faith?

If you'd like to find out about writing a statement of faith if you're thinking about applying for a faculty position at a religiously-affiliated school, feel free to read more. In this case, it's a Christian institution. If you aren't interested, I understand.

UPDATE: Anon731A makes a very good point: "Please don't assume that if a college has a religious affiliation, that a statement of faith is required."

Interesting development on the law school front

Via the New York Times, a change in testing requirements: 

Law schools, which have been plagued by a shortfall of students in recent years, are changing their admissions requirements. 

Two top-ranked schools — Georgetown University Law Center and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law — this week joined Harvard Law’s recent move to make it simpler to apply. 

Applicants can submit the results of the more widely available Graduate Record Exam, the GRE, instead of those from the Law School Admissions Test, which long has been entrenched as the numeric gauge of law school success. 

Many law schools are casting wider nets to attract students who would not otherwise set their sights on a legal education. The schools hope that by making it easier for the engineers, scientists and mathematicians who typically take only the GRE, more of them will enroll....

Are there really that many STEM grads who are interested in law school?

(That's an interesting aspect of the post-Great Recession era - there was a lot of talk about a 'law school bubble', but it seems to me that there hasn't been the mass collapse of law schools that you would expect if the bubble had really collapsed. This 2017 report seems to suggest that enrollments are flat at best, which is not good news if you're a law school dean.) 

No C&EN this week

Double issue next week. 

Don't fall for mean Facebook trolling

Considering the median industrial starting Ph.D. makes $100,000,
I guess 50% of Ph.D.s are doing it wrong.

There is a lot that could be said about the Che/e/ky Sc/ien/tist organization, but I think it's really a terrible thing to post something like this on Facebook that's basically designed to troll new graduates.

If you go and find this post, you'll find the proprietor of the organization pushing the fact that new STEM Ph.D.s do indeed have a median industrial salary of $100,000. (It's interesting to note that the median starting salary for industrial Ph.D. chemists is $88,000. I guess if you're the median starting Ph.D. chemist, you're doing it wrong. (eyeroll)) All of these numbers are courtesy of the 2015 Survey of Earned Doctorates, which is the latest data that we have. It's a very clever twisting of facts in order to provoke an emotional response.* 

The Ch/e/e/k/y S/c/ien/tist folks have never been subtle, but the language that the author uses has become increasingly purplish, what with titles like "The Conspiracy To Trap Postdocs In Academia." I guess when you're charging $300 to join your Facebook group, whatever drives traffic is what works. 

(Instead of posting poorly sourced screenshots, why don't they link to the actual data? That just drives me bonkers. Also, isn't it already clear that if earning a lot of money is what is really important to you, either you're going to have to seize one of these key industrial entry-level science positions (of which there really aren't very many), or that you're going to have to take on other, more business-oriented roles that pay more? I really don't understand the point of beating people over the head with Facebook posts, which seems to be what the CSA's public posts are all about.)

(A previous post about this organization is here. It's a free country, but if I had $300, I wouldn't spend it on a Facebook group, I'd try to buy thirty industry folks ten bucks worth of coffee and see what advice they had to offer me, and whether or not they liked their jobs.) 

*Does anyone have a guess as to what the other ends of this histogram looks like? If that's the 50th percentile, what's the 90th, I wonder? What's the 10th? (wait, I can guess.)

Job posting: senior business development manager, Materia, Pasadena, CA

From Twitter:

The Senior Business Development Manager position within the Business Development team at Materia will own and drive revenue growth for Materia's Proxima thermoset resin products and technology in new markets.

Full posting here. 7 years experience in business development, B.S. required, M.S. w/MBA desired. All Materia jobs here. Best wishes to those interested. 

Postdoctoral position: Scintillating Organic Molecules Postdoctoral Appointee, Livermore, CA

From the inbox, a postdoc with Sandia National Laboratories:

We are seeking a postdoc chemist to join our efforts developing new organic molecule based radiation detection materials. The successful post-doctoral candidate is expected to have knowledge and experience related to the design, synthesis, and characterization of small organic molecules. The candidate must possess an enthusiasm for fundamental research as well as applied science, show aptitude with verbal and written communication and have a publication record commensurate with the above activities.

• PhD in Organic Chemistry, with synthesis experience
• Willingness to work with sealed radioactive sources (training will be provided).

Please include research summary with CV

Full posting here. (Job ID 658356). Best wishes to those interested.  

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 126 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list has 126 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 (likely never.)

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 4 positions

Just to prove to myself that it can be done...

Here we are with 4 positions. It will grow. 

Daily Pump Trap: 8/10/17 edition

A (very) few positions posted at C&EN Jobs:

Seattle, WA: Immune Design is searching for a director of analytical development.

Malvern, PA: Progenra is looking for medicinal chemists, defined broadly: "BS/ MS/ Ph.D in organic/synthetic chemistry with 1-15 years’ experience working in a medicinal chemistry laboratory setting with expertise in lead optimization and SAR evolution."

Shanghai, China: Hutchison MediPharma Limited is hiring a director of pre-formulation development; Ph.D., 8 years of experience desired. 

Ivory Filter Flask: 8/10/17 edition

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

Hayward, CA: California State University, East Bay is looking for an assistant professor of inorganic/physical chemistry.

South Hadley, MA: Mount Holyoke College is searching for an assistant professor of analytical chemistry.

San Francisco, CA: The University of San Francisco is hiring an assistant professor of inorganic chemistry.

Greenville, SC: Furman University is searching for two assistant professorships: a biochemistry position and an open position. 

Newark, DE: The University of Delaware is looking for a laboratory coordinator for its teaching laboratories. 

West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University is searching for an atmospheric chemistry postdoc. ($50,000 offered.) 

Moscow mules and copper toxicity

Via the Washington Post, this interesting health advisory from the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division:

Iowa, as well as many other states, has adopted the federal Food and Drug Administration’s Model Food Code, which prohibits copper from coming into direct contact with foods that have a pH below 6.0.Examples of foods with a pH below 6.0 include vinegar, fruit juice, or wine. 

The pH of a traditional Moscow Mule is well below 6.0. This means that copper mugs that have a copper interior may not be used with this beverage. However, copper mugs lined on the interior with another metal, such as nickel or stainless steel, are allowed to be used and are widely available.

So it seems to me that the acidity of a Moscow Mule comes from the carbonation of the ginger beer and the lime. It's reasonable to me that it's below 6 (and somewhere in the pH 3-4) range. But the question that I have is what is the threshold for copper toxicity? Thanks to a report from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, we have a sense:

Slightly higher thresholds for gastrointestinal symptoms were observed in two acute-duration repeated exposure studies in which subjects used a copper-containing water as their primary source of drinking water for 1 or 2 weeks (Pizarro et al. 1999, 2001). In the 2-week study, 60 women were given copper sulfate containing water to be used for drinking and cooking purposes. No significant alterations in serum biomarkers of liver damage (alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, γ-glutamyl transferase) were observed in the subjects at the end of the study. An increased occurrence of nausea, vomiting, and/or abdominal pain was observed when the women were exposed to 3 ppm copper as copper sulfate (0.0731 mg Cu/kg/day) (Pizarro et al. 1999); no significant increases in the incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms were noted at 1 ppm (0.0272 mg Cu/kg/day). Nausea, vomiting, and/or abdominal pain were also reported by women ingesting water containing 5 ppm (0.096 mg Cu/kg/day) as copper sulfate or copper oxide for 1 week (Pizarro et al. 2001). 

Would I be willing to bet there was less than 3 ppm copper in a Moscow Mule that had been sitting in an all-copper mug on the counter for more than an hour? Probably not.

(Aren't we done with the Moscow Mule trend? I feel like it peaked two years ago? I dunno, I'm a beer guy myself.) 

This week's C&EN

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

• Cover story: Jyllian Kemsley on mental health issues in graduate school and the story of Anna Owensby
• What's in pool chemicals? (by Celia Henry Arnaud)
• Bethany Halford covers this really cool ladderane chemistry.
• CRISPR-Cas9 in human embryos? Here we are. (by Emma Hiolski)
• Short piece on Dr. Reddy's troubles with the FDA (by Jean-François Tremblay)
• Interesting article on the intersection between chemistry and design (by Stephanie E. Vasko)
• Mary O’Reilly, science illustrator (article by Alexandra A. Taylor)

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 90 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 90 positions.

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

Want to talk anonymously? Try the open thread.

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

Graduate student mental health and suicide in this week's C&EN

In this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News, an important and sobering story by Jyllian Kemsley on the life and 2016 death by suicide of Anna Owensby, a 4th-year graduate student in the Department of Molecular Medicine at Scripps in La Jolla, CA.

The story is long and convoluted enough that I hesitate to summarize it. It is worth reading in full, if only to understand who Anna Owensby was, the complex interplay between her and her advisers and the response of the institution to her situation, which ultimately ended with Scripps' removing her from their program, and her subsequent death by suicide.

I am still formulating all of my thoughts about this, but I will say this: I don't know about you, but I read about the 1998 death by suicide of Jason Altom when I was a graduate student in the mid-2000s, and it shocked me to my core. My department didn't have much in the way of mental health resources in the mid-2000s. It is plainly amazing to me that graduate research institutions are still playing catch-up in addressing the potential for mental health problems in their midst. (In the article, you can read a bit about both the University of Minnesota and Harvard's efforts to promote good mental health in their departments.)

I hope that this article will remind the academic chemistry community that this problem hasn't gone away. Read the whole thing. 

Nickel spatulas

A list of small, useful things (links):

• From All Things Metathesis, a short compilation of recent metathesis papers
• Th' Gaussling on ferrocene
• A fun deprotection noted by Prof. Yudin
• This is a nuts story about a UC-Riverside biochemistry professor.
• This is a nuts story about a University of Washington medical school professor.
• You gotta see this Gilead tool compound (article by Lisa Jarvis)
• The latest Process Safety Beacons from AiChE, over at The Safety Zone.
• Cool post on XPS at Sustainable Nano. 
• A new research adviser review site
• SeeArrOh has thoughts about talks
• Ash, on a Manhattan Project for AI
• The latest from Stellen für 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.

Have a great weekend! 

A retired pilot un-retires in Japan

I enjoyed this New York Times article about older workers in Japan: 

NAGASAKI, Japan — Shigekazu Miyazaki is spending what should have been his retirement 25,000 feet in the air. 

Mr. Miyazaki, a pilot with nearly four decades’ experience at All Nippon Airways, Japan’s largest airline, left the carrier last year at its mandatory retirement age of 65. But rather than take up golf or fishing, Mr. Miyazaki since April has been piloting 39-seat propeller planes for Oriental Air Bridge, a tiny airline that connects the southwestern city of Nagasaki to a group of remote islands. 

“I never would have thought I’d still be flying at 65,” Mr. Miyazaki, who is trim and has a deep voice and a full head of gray hair, said before a recent flight. “But I’m still healthy, and I love to fly, so why not do it as long as I can?” 

A man in his seventh decade extending his commercial flying career still qualifies as a novelty in Japan — but maybe not for long. 

...Oriental Air Bridge had never hired a pilot Mr. Miyazaki’s age before, but, with skilled pilots in short supply nationwide, it has been expanding its recruiting.... Oriental Air Bridge pays him only about a third of his peak salary, but he says he does not mind.

This seems to me to be pretty textbook labor economics: if the labor pool is small and demand is high, employers start changing their hiring standards to select those workers they are willing to take on. In this particular case, it appears that Mr. Miyazaki is willing to take a pretty significant pay cut to keep flying (although I suspect that pilot pay has something to do with the size of the plane the pilot flies as well...)

Something tells me, though, that this sort of situation is relatively rare in chemistry, and the number of bench-level scientists who have been recruited back into the lab after their retirement is quite low. I know the story is different in academia, but I guess I am willing to be proven wrong in the comments. Readers, know of any cases where long-time bench-level scientists have been tempted back into the lab?  

Inaugural Pharma Leaders Symposium: August 21, 1 PM, ACS DC

From the inbox, an event at the DC national meeting: 

Calling all pharma-focused chemists! Attending the ACS national meeting in DC? You won’t want to miss the first Pharma Leaders conference symposium, “ACS Pharma Leaders: Working together to make a difference.” 

The symposium will be held from 1 to 4 PM on Aug. 21, 2017, in Room 146C of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. 

The symposium will continue discussions on topics central to the most recent ACS Pharma Leaders conference: neglected diseases, chemistry collaborations, and predictive science; AbbVie hosted the conference in October 2016. 

The annual ACS Pharma Leaders conference, which is co-organized by ACS Industry Member Programs and a different pharma company each year, convenes invited chemistry leaders in pharma, who explore possible collaborations on precompetitive and noncompetitive issues with the goal of accelerating drug development. 

Philip Kym of AbbVie, Catherine Peishoff (formerly of GSK), and Wendy Young of Genentech are organizers of the symposium, which will feature the following speakers: Richard Connell of Pfizer; Lisa Shewchuk of GlaxoSmithKline; Bradley Sherborne of Merck; Anil Vasudevan of AbbVie; Peter Warner of The Gates Foundation; and Dale Kempf of AbbVie.

 Sounds interesting - wish I was going! 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 117 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list has 117 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 (likely never.)

Coming soon: a process chemistry version - I promise! (sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon)

Don't call it a start yet: 19 positions for the search term "process chemist" at Indeed, including a GMP process chemist position in Xenia, OH.

Your most bizarre in-person interview questions?

I'd rather face his curveball.
Credit: The Pitching Academy

From the inbox, a good question from a longtime reader and friend of the blog: 

I have prepared for all the common interview questions. Strengths, weaknesses, long-term career goals, etc. 

What interview questions have your readers been asked that they didn't think to prepare for? What were their surprising curveballs?

Great question. Been a few years since I've been an interviewer, but I remember one on-campus interviewer who asked me about my formative memories for each year of middle school. That was a weird one.

Readers?

How to end up in jail for doing chemistry: do it in your apartment

Via random clickings on Twitter, the case of Chase Coble, a Kansas community college chemistry student who finds himself on the business end of a 66 month prison sentence for aggravated arson (article by John Green of The Hutchinson News): 

A judge on Friday sentenced the Hutchinson college student convicted of aggravated arson for starting a fire while conducting chemical experiments in his Plaza Towers apartment to serve more than five years in prison. 

District Judge Trish Rose denied a defense motion to grant Chase Coble probation in the case, or to cut his sentence to just four years, stating the grounds the defense offered were insufficient to grant a sentencing departure.

In case you were wondering, he was hit with the charge of aggravated arson because the apartment building he was doing the experiment in was occupied. It's interesting to read the affidavit from the local police department and their concerns about what he was up to (from another Hutchinson News article):

Among chemicals in the apartment were bags of ammonia, potassium permanganate, saltpeter, sulfur, sodium EDTA, toluene, bleach, methyl ethyl ketone, acetone, camping fuel, vinegar, charcoal, and muriatic, hydrochloric and sulfuric acid. 

All those items, ATF Agent Neal Tierney, a certified explosives specialist, advised investigators, can be used to make homemade explosives.

(A bag of ammonia?) Bizarrely, the student was doing some kind of research project:

“He said he was trying to bond metal and plastic components to create a new type of metallic/plastic material for conductivity in computer components,” the affidavit stated.

What a strange story. It's a shame that he could not have found his way to a local research university laboratory rather than risking life and property running experiments in his apartment.

(Surely home chemists on the interwebz have some advice as to how to avoid Mr. Coble's fate and still conduct chemical experiments in their residence?) 

2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 69 positions

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 69 positions.

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

Want to talk anonymously? Try the open thread.

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