Sunday, February 21, 2016

WWWTP? Slate "slate" Edition

A slate on Slate, a frustrated man next to a frustrated organic structure. The title?
"Teaching the Teachers."

Judging by his chemical acumen - yes, this man needs teaching. Desperately.

 How did he manage to make the western 1,4 diene without it slipping into conjugation?
Inquiring minds want to know.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

What's that Crud in My NMR Sample?

Scene:

The reaction finished in 20 minutes by TLC. You grabbed a quick aliquot for LCMS; one peak! Quickly, you quenched, extracted, perhaps pushed through a silica plug for good measure. After concentration, a gorgeous white powder formed, so you pulled high vac for 20 minutes and rushed down to "get your proton on." But, darn it! Still wet with traces of, well, something...

Friends, has this ever happened to you? Trace impurities in otherwise perfect spectra lead to much head-scratching and SI docs labeled "final product_spectrum 5." 

The three papers linked to this post should help.

The new chart offers recommendations (colored arrows) based on Chem21 assessments of environmental impact, safety, and toxicity. Shown above are chemical shift tables (1H) in deuterated chloroform, acetone, and dimethyl sulfoxide.

If I were joining a synthetic lab this year, or starting an internship / work-study, I'd download 'em all and thumbtack liberally to the back of my bench. Guaranteed utility.

Friday, February 19, 2016

Chemistry Bumper Cars: 2016-2017

Sometimes great science means changing the view outside your office lab windows.
(Bonus: This usually comes with a new title and some filthy lucre, too!)

The people have spoken: last year's list has grown ungainly, and so it's time for a new batch.
Same rules apply: If you hear of a move, tell me in the comments, and I'll post in the "Pending Confirmation" section. Escape from pending purgatory involves sending me a link or other documentation from the new institution. Fair enough?

Moves

Trisha Andrew (Wisconsin to UMass)  two sources + email
Ryan Bailey (UIUC to Michigan)
Raychelle Burks (Doane to St. Edward's)*
Garnet Chan (Princeton to Caltech)  four sources + email
Andres Cisneros (Wayne State to UNT)  one source
William Dichtel (Cornell to Northwestern)
Guangbin Dong (UT Austin to Chicago)  thanks to five sources!
Greg Dudley (FSU to West Virginia, chair)
Daniel Everson (St. Olaf to CSU Chico)
Keir Fogarty (St. Olaf to High Point)
Tendai Gadzikwa (Zimbabwe / Alberta to Kansas State)
Vicki Grassian (Iowa to UCSD)
Carlos Guerrero (UCSD to BMS)
Zhongwu Guo (Wayne State to Florida)  two sources
R. Kip Guy (St. Jude to Kentucky, Admin) personal comm
Stephen Heller (Willamette to Loyola Marymount)
Kenneth Henderon (Notre Dame to Northeastern, Admin)
Rigoberto Hernandez (Georgia Tech to Johns Hopkins)  two sources
Tijana Ivanovic (Colorado to Brandeis)
Lisa Kendhammer (Georgia to CSU Chico)
Bern Kohler (Montana State to OSU)  two sources
Kristie Koski (Brown to UC Davis)
Chad Lewis (Cornell to Pfizer)
Roger Linington (UC-Santa Cruz to Simon Fraser)
Aimin Liu (Georgia State to UTSA)
Pamela Lundin (Wake Forest to High Point)
Anita Mattson (Ohio State to WPI)  three sources + DM
Mark McLaughlin (USF to West Virginia)
Andrew Phillips (Broad to C4 Therapeutics)
Alexander Radosevich (Penn State to MIT)  four sources
Jerome Robinson (Axalta to Brown)  three sources
Tomislav Rovis (Colo State to Columbia four sources + Twitter DM
Stuart Rowan (CWRU to Chicago) three sources + email
Emily Scott (Kansas to Michigan)  two  sources
Steve Soper (UNC to Kansas)
John Stanton (UT-Austin to Florida)
Eric Strieter (Wisconsin to UMass)  three sources
Alice Ting (MIT to Stanford)  many sources
Dave Thirumalai (Maryland to UT Austin, admin)
Dirk Trauner (LMU to NYU) Um...Dirk told me, and now there's a link! (Dec 2016)
Steven Wheeler (Texas A&M to Georgia)
Angela Wilson (UNT to MSU to NSF)

Pending Confirmation

Moved to 2017 list...

--





New Hires

Mitchell Anstey (Davidson)  one very specific source....
Nicole Ashpole (Mississippi Pharmacy)
Jonathan Barnes (Wash U St Louis)
Andrew Beharry (Toronto)
Eric Bloch (Delaware)
Lauren Buchanan (Vanderbilt)
Jessica Brown (Notre Dame)
Michael Campbell (Barnard)
Saumen Chakraborty (Ole Miss)
Ming Chen (Auburn)
Tai-Yen Chen (Cornell to Houston)
W. Seth Childers (Pitt)
Joseph Cotruvo (Penn State)  two sources
Mita Dasog (Dalhousie)
Alexander Dudnik (UC Davis)
Byron Farnum (Auburn)  two sources
Claire Filloux (UC Davis)
Aaron Frank (Michigan)
R. Aaron Garner (Penn State)
Nag Gavvalapalli (Georgetown)
Jing Gu (SDSU)
Will Gutekunst (Georgia Tech)
Osvaldo Gutierrez (Marylandone source
Anthony Shoji Hall (Johns Hopkins)
Katharine Harris (Curry)
Adam Holewinski (Colorado)
Joseph Houck (Penn State)
Xiaocheng Jiang (Tufts)
Miles Johnson (Richmond)  three sources
Julia Kalow (Northwestern)
Sarah Keanes (Michigan)
Aaron Kelly (Dalhousie, 2017)
Stefan Kilyanek (Arkansas)
Justin Kim (Dana Farber)
Ralph Kleiner (Princeton)
Jennifer Laaser (Pittone source + DM
Henry "Pete" La Pierre (Georgia Tech)
Hoang Le (Mississippi Pharmacy)  one source
Frank Leibfarth  (North Carolina)
Christina Li (Purdue)
Brian Liau (Harvard)
Song Lin (Cornell)
Steffen Lindert (Ohio State)
Xi Ling (Boston University)  two sources
Nian Liu (Georgia Tech)
Oana Luca (CU Boulder)
Charles Machan (Virginia)
Dionicio Martinez-Solorio (Drexel) two sources
Michael Marty (Arizona)
Karthish Mathiram (MIT Chem Eng)
James McKone (Pitt)
Evangelos Miliordos (Auburn)
Pere Miró (North Florida)  two sources
Sharon Neufeldt (Montana State)
Rodrigo Noriega (Utah)
Allie Obermeyer (Columbia)  two sources + DM + personal site
Carissa Perez Olson (WPI)
Alison Ondrus (CalTechtwo sources + email
Cedric Owens (Chapmanone source
Maria-Eirini Pandelia (Brandeis)
Kathryn Perrine (Michigan Tech)
Myles Poulin (Maryland)
Melanie Reber (Georgia)
Hans Renata (Scripps Florida)
Brenda Rubenstein (Brown)
Justin Sambur (Colo State)
Alina Schimpf (UCSD)
Valerie Schmidt (UCSD)
Ginger Shultz (Michigan)
Alexey Silakov (Penn State) personal comm
Jillian Smith-Carpenter (Fairfield)
Nick Stadie (Montana State) two sources
D. Cole Stevens (Mississippi Pharm)
Karin Stevens (Davidson)
Daniel Suess (MIT)  three sources
Ruby Sullan (Toronto)
Pratyush Tiwary (Maryland)
Darci Trader (Purdue) one source
Emily Tsui (Notre Dame)
Gael Ung (UConn)
James Van Deventer (Tufts)
Jesus Velazquez (UC Davis)
Lela Vukovic (UTEP)
Ross Wang (Temple)  two sources
Jessica White (Ohio)
Travis White (Ohio)
Heather Williamson (Xavier)  thanks, Ian!
Mark WB Wilson (Toronto)
Nathan Wittenberg (Lehigh)
Christina Woo (Harvardfive sources
Liz Wright (Barnard)
Min Xue (UC Riverside)
Mingxu You (UMass)
Michael Young (Toledo)  email
Lauren Zarzar (Penn State)  two sources
Bin Zhang (MIT)  two sources
Qiang Zhang (Wash State U)
Sen Zhang (Virginia)
Mingjiang Zhong  (Yale)


Pending Confirmation

Moved to 2017 list...

----

List covers Feb 2016 - Jan 2017 start dates

For 2015-2016 moves, click here
For 2014-2015 moves, click here.
For 2012-2013 moves, click here

*Bonus video!

Saturday, February 6, 2016

WWGS: What Would Gmelin Say?

Earlier tonight, I happened across a yellowed, dog-eared copy of The Rise and Development of Organic Chemistry, the 1894 opus* of Carl Schorlemmer, finished with help from his colleague Arthur Smithells. I didn't get a chance to read it cover to cover, but I appreciated a pithy quote in a postscript, purportedly an exchange between two chemistry heavyweights:
"When in 1829 it was found that pyro-uric and cyanuric acid were identical, Wöhler wrote to Liebig: 'Gmelin will say, Thank God, one acid less.'"
This, of course, in reference to Gmelin's attempt to gather the mid-1800s chemistry literature into a practical reference book. He would go on to create the Gmelin Inorganic Handbook, later to evolve into the Gmelin Database, part of modern-day Reaxys.

I appreciated the formal sentiment that pervades the text; certainly it's the first chemistry book I've seen that gives the reader a parting word after the index:


I'm sure I'll have more to say later on....there's some wild structures in this book, some that should give any serious bench chemist pause:


Aromatic endoperoxides? Egad.

--
*Just found out it's free online! Go here. Happy reading!