The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 282 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself) has 282 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 Analytical Chemistry Jobs List: 11 positions

The Analytical Chemistry Jobs List has 11 positions; this is curated by the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry. Want to help out? Fill out this form. 

41 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 12 new positions posted for January 30 and 29 new positions posted between January 24 and January 28. 

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 267 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 267 positions.

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

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

For fans of the Warning Letter of the Week

A longer article from Bloomberg Businessweek's Drew Armstrong on the state of the American generic pharmaceutical market, including some pretty hair-raising anecdotes: 

...three federal inspectors arrived at Mylan NV’s manufacturing plant in Morgantown, West Virginia, and flashed their credentials. A tipster had raised concerns there might be unscrupulous activity at the factory where the generic giant makes some of its top-selling drugs. So, with Mylan executives looking over their shoulders in a conference room, the inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, dressed in button-down shirts and ties, began an intense two-week examination. 

The team of chemistry experts sifted through thousands of random files containing what appeared to be forbidden exploratory tests, which some drugmakers have used to prevent quality failures from coming to light. The inspectors suspected Mylan laboratory staff had recorded passing scores on drugs that originally fell short of U.S. quality standards.  

The files didn’t identify which drugs may have been involved in any exploratory tests. Instead they had obscure names like “lop” and “Medium”—and one that ended in LMFAO, a popular acronym for “Laughing My [Redacted] [Redacted]* Off.”

 Well, far be it from me to disallow QC chemists from having their fun.

*redactions to circumvent corporate firewalls re: language issues

Warning Letter of the Week: shipping before testing edition

A love note from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research to the General Manager of Hangzhou Guoguang Touring Commodity Co., Ltd.:

3.  Your firm failed to have, for each batch of drug product, appropriate laboratory determination of satisfactory conformance to final specifications for the drug product, including the identity and strength of each active ingredient, prior to release. Your firm also failed to conduct, for each batch of drug product, appropriate laboratory testing, as necessary, required to be free of objectionable microorganisms (21 CFR 211.165(a) and (b)). 

Your firm distributed [redacted] lots of [redacted] and [redacted] lots of [redacted] to the U.S. supply chain without testing the identity, strength, purity, and quality of the active ingredient. Additionally, all your OTC drug products have a specification for the absence of [redacted]; however, this test was not performed during finished product testing. Furthermore, you have not established any specifications for the “[redacted]” used in all your OTC drug products, nor is any testing performed on the “[redacted].” 

In your response, you provided assay testing results for products within expiry that have been distributed in the United States. However, these products have not been tested according to all your specifications, including the absence of [redacted]. Furthermore, you did not provide any established component specifications for the “[redacted]” used in all your OTC drug products.

Well, here's hoping that the [redacted] did not ever make in into someone's system, otherwise the [redacted] would really hit the fan. 

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 549 positions

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 549 positions.

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

On January 30, 2018, the 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 503 positions.

Interested in how this is tracking overall? Check out these sweet graphics done by Andrew Spaeth.

Want to chat? Here's a link to the current open thread.

Here's a link to the November 2018-January 2019 open thread. Here's the October/November thread. Here's the pre-September thread, here's the September/October thread.

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

2018-19 Chemistry Bumper Cars is at Marshall Brennan's site.

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 18 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 18 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.

Specifications

A list of small, useful things (links):

• The latest from Stellen für Chemiker
• The latest from All Things Metathesis
• Marshall Brennan is hosting Chemistry Bumper Cars
• Ash on "open borders" 
• Beth Haas on unique periodic tables
• Sustainable Nano on "running towards a degree"
• Prof. Yudin's latest
• Phil Baran, on making/running test tube columns
• Th'Gaussling, on professors and patents

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!

Got a career dilemma?

I'm always game for writing answer requests for advice in my column at Chemical and Engineering News. Please feel free to write me (chemjobber@gmail.com) if you have a career-oriented dilemma that you'd like me to write about in the magazine. Also, you can submit your questions with this handy web form. Thanks!

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 274 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself) has 274 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 Analytical Chemistry Jobs List: 11 positions

The Analytical Chemistry Jobs List has 11 positions; this is curated by the ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry. Want to help out? Fill out this form. 

35 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 25 new positions posted for January 22 and 10 new positions posted on January 17.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 263 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 263 positions.

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

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

This week's C&EN

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

• Cover: the new drugs of 2018 (by Lisa Jarvis)
• "Chemistry preprints pick up steam" (by Tien Nguyen)
• This story about polyester made from coal in China is pretty fascinating stuff (article by Jean-François Tremblay)
• Jumping crystals? Man, that's cool. (article by Mitch Jacoby)
• Congratulations to the 2019 ACS National Award winners (article by Linda Wang)
• Some d00d yapping about "how to say 'no'" to volunteer opportunities and the like.

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 543 positions

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 543 positions.

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

On January 23, 2018, the 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List had 497 positions.

Interested in how this is tracking overall? Check out these sweet graphics done by Andrew Spaeth.

Want to chat? Here's a link to the current open thread.

Here's a link to the November 2018-January 2019 open thread. Here's the October/November thread. Here's the pre-September thread, here's the September/October thread.

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

Chemistry Bumper Cars

Chemistry Bumper Cars have gone from See Arr Oh's Just Like Cooking blog over to Marshall Brennan's Colorblind Chemistry for the 2018-2019 season.

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 29 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 29 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.

Fascinating piece on STEM studies at the University of Washington

I thought this long article in the Seattle Times about the increase in STEM majors at the University of Washington was really interesting, if a bit odd in places. Here are the core facts: 

...The number of history majors nationwide is down about 45 percent from its peak in 2007, and the number of English majors has fallen by nearly half since the late 1990s, according to research by Benjamin Schmidt, an assistant professor of history at Northeastern University who has been documenting the trends. 

Since 2008, on the UW’s Seattle campus, the number of students studying in STEM programs (science, technology, engineering and math) has increased 37 percent. Among all three campuses, it’s up 50 percent. On the main campus, non-STEM programs have declined by 13 percent. 

At UW Seattle, there are now almost as many students studying in STEM programs as in non-STEM programs. That’s a dramatic flip: Just 10 years ago, there were twice as many students in non-STEM majors as there were in STEM majors....

Because humanities classes cost less (professors are less costly, no startup packages for new laboratories, etc) and some unique budgeting rules in Washington, this shift is costing the universities money.

...It’s not true, Cherniavsky says, that there’s no job market for graduates who can write, do critical analysis or have the ability to view knowledge from diverse ethnic and cultural perspectives — a concept known as multicultural literacy. “It’s not that the corporate world has no use for these skills,” she said. Instead, companies tend not to pay much for the jobs that require them, she said.... 

...Both Microsoft and Amazon offer mentorships exclusively for College of Arts & Sciences majors. “We are using these programs not as recruitment tools, but as myth-busting,” said Matt Erickson, manager of college-to-career initiatives in the College of Arts & Sciences. 

Erickson said the UW is sometimes guilty of reinforcing the idea that only STEM degrees lead to good jobs in Seattle. But UW humanities majors have found jobs at every big tech firm in Seattle — including majors in history, English, art history, sociology, German, French and linguistics. They’ve found roles in human resources, community engagement, customer outreach and marketing, he said.

Microsoft President Brad Smith has also written about the need for tech companies to hire liberal-arts majors, particularly in artificial intelligence. “As computers behave more like humans, the social sciences and humanities will become even more important,” Smith wrote in an introduction to the book “The Future Computed.”

Brad Smith is well-known as a proponent of tech-related immigration, i.e. H1b visas. I am grimly amused that Mr. Smith is both a big fan of saying that there is a shortage of STEM workers in the United States, and that we don't have enough* liberal arts majors as well.

Overall, I don't think it's a surprise at all that people are piling into computer-oriented fields. What is the field that seems to have stable, well-paying jobs that lead to seeming riches? It seems like it's computer-related stuff more so than any other field.

*Okay, he really doesn't say that. 

View From Your Hood: smiling observer edition

Credit: @LeitchLab

Via Twitter, from the laboratory of Professor Dave Leitch: "This observant observatory watches us all day. What makes it smile? We think it’s happy about our latest results. And that the rain is gone. #EmojiIRL #UVic #ViewFromMyHood @Chemjobber @chemistryatuvic @UVicScience"

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