Blast from the Past: 1998 C&EN "Golden Age" Roundtable

Sadly, these "scientists" were not
included in the '98 roundtable
Credit: Universal Pictures

It's always risky business, peering into the future. But that doesn't stop anyone, even chemists, from trying!

Regular readers recall that Chemjobber and I recently teamed up to bring you two perspectives on the inaugural Organometallics roundtable (2012). Of course, this wasn't the first time wily ACS Editors tried this tactic: check out Chemistry's Golden Age, a panel organized to commemorate the 75th anniversary of C&EN by (not-quite-yet-Editor-in-Chief) Rudy Baum in 1998.

Moderated by blog mainstay Ron Breslow, the distinguished group included heavy hitters from a wide sweep of the field: Allen Bard, Richard Zare, Stephen Lippard, Koji Nakanishi, Robert Langer, and Nobelist Richard Smalley (RIP). (I especially enjoyed seeing the "young whipper-snappers" on the panel: Dan Nocera, Barbera Imperiali, and Jacqueline Barton.)


Since we're only about a decade away from affirming their predictions, I figured we'd peek back to see what yesteryear's chem blogs - no doubt on AOL, Prodigy, or GeoCities - might have covered.

#Chemjobs - Optimism reigned, as you might expect from the biotech boom of the late '90s.
Bard: "I think as long as chemists keep getting jobs, there will be chemistry departments...as long as we can turn out students who can find employment, we'll be okay." Yikes. Anyone else?
Barton: "I predict there will be fewer chemistry departments, but not fewer chemists." Well, don't mention that to CJ or Derek. 
Langer: "Some universities have gotten rid of departments, sure. But chemistry? If they're going to get to the point where they're going to get rid of chemistry, that just seems to me like a very long way to go." Reminds me of a funeral procession I saw recently, for a country closing many of its departments...


Energy - Smalley: "Twenty-five years from now the internal combustion engine will be found in museums, battery technology will finally have solved the problem of how we transport electrical power, and fuel cells will be practical devices...We may have solved the problem of cheap solar energy" 
I'll agree with the fuel cell argument, but I don't think we've advanced batteries or solar far enough (yet) to mothball our gas-guzzling autos...though Lippard correctly presages the rise of electric cars. Fossil fuels were "hot" topics: Stuart Rice and Bard both favored (pre-Incovenient Truth) investigation of alternate energy sources to combat global warming.

Young Danial [sic]
Nocera waxes
...artificial life.?
Source: C&EN

Origin of Life - Dan Nocera, he of water-splitting 'pacman' and 'hangman' catalysts, didn't mention anything about them, but instead placed his chips behind artificial membranes and building functional cells; Zare and Breslow both jumped right on board! Maybe they all hung out with Venter back in the day?


Times-are-a-changin' - The terms "bionic man," "Pentium chip," and "electronic publication" all sneak into the discussion.


Computers - "Unfettered optimism." This panel had grown, published, and worked with computers. They envisioned stunning things ahead.

"We can rebuild him,
using a 56K modem and
an Apple IIe!"
Credit: jackm's blog

Breslow: "Within 25 years, most reaction mechanism studies of the kind that we do now on simple reactions will be replaced by computational studies..." Yup.
Theodore Brown: "The combination of combinatorial chemistry and computational methods may lead us to the point where we actually have a library of catalysts designed to do specific things." Uh-huh. 
Smalley: "One of my favorite dreams is developing true spectroscopies for individual molecules..." Check.

Publishing - Funny, for computer-literate panelists sponsored by a magazine, group members remained stodgily entrenched in printed paper.
Bard (then Editor of JACS), referred to online papers: "I don't think it is going to be popular among chemists." Imperiali, who must have been plagued by pop-up ads: "The volume of material on the Internet is getting out of control. And the quality control has to go down because of the volume." 


Smalley, ever the visionary, really sees what's coming: "In 25 years, we will be getting our journals transmitted directly to a little thing that will feel like a book...I can't imagine waiting for a piece of paper to arrive in Texas before I read it." He would have loved Nooks, Kindles, and iPads.


Bold Move - From Allen Bard, wise words:

"If I have to make a prediction about the future, I would predict that five of the most important things that will be developed in the next 25 years have not been discussed at this table."

Truly a statement for all seasons. I've searched the text, and I find no mention of quantum dots, organocatalysis, MOFs, C-H activation, or even the reactions knocking on the Nobel Committee's door: palladium cross-coupling and olefin metathesis. I'll certainly keep this bon mot in mind, so I can conclude future roundtables this way...


Final Thought - You could easily criticize this roundtable for being strongly academia-leaning. The OM collection, though more well-rounded with Dow and DuPont reps, still lacks enough industry involvement. What do the folks in startups, "new energy," or science writers think about the future of our field?

*Readers, do you have recommendations for a different kind of panel?

The 2011 Organometallics Roundtable – Peering into the Future

(Note: I’m publishing this post concurrently with my blog bud Chemjobber. Hop on over to his site to read about the industry / academia training and #chemjobs angles. This way, regular readers get twice the opinions for half the price!)

Who wants to chat?
Source: Texas A&M U.

As 2011 drew to a close, John Gladysz, the new Chief Editor of Organometallics, sat down for a chat with seventeen organometallic chemists from different national (German, Swiss, Australian, US, Chinese, British) and employment backgrounds (14 academia, 2 industrial, 1 government). The result?  An in-depth discussion, full of banter and back-talk, which covers topics such as industrial training for grad students, national creativity differences, “dream reactions,” and how to encourage industrial cross-collaboration.

As an icebreaker, Gladysz had each chemist dream up their “Christmas Stocking Reaction,” the ultimate goal each would love to see realized. Here’s a quick rundown:

-      Pragmatism –Joachim Ritter (DuPont) envisioned several scenarios for taking non-petroleum-derived feedstocks on to commodity chemicals. Ritter’s focus on hydroxymethyl-furfural (HMF, a darling of ChemEng labs across the country) was perhaps unsurprising, but I enjoyed his new ideas for deoxygenation of vegetable oils to produce fine chemicals. Jerzy Klosin (Dow) chimed in for development of newer, cheaper catalytic complexes, especially championing first-row analogues for replacement of palladium in polymerizations. Bernhard Rieger (Technische U. Munschen) weighed in on incorporation of CO₂ into polymers with nickel catalysts.

-     Break the Glove Boxes! – Jim Mayer (U. Washington) and Bill Jones (U. Rochester), building off of Ritter’s theoretical deoxygenation catalysts, proposed chemistry based on high-oxidation-state metals. Mark Humphrey (Australia National) wished for an air-insensitive route to Sonogoshira-type couplings of alkynyl dendrimers. Jennifer Schomaker (U. Wisc.-Madison) hoped to use nitrous oxide as a terminal oxidant, and Vy Dong (U. of Toronto) would like chiral ligands for high-valent Pd chemistry.

P-N-N pincers and Pd oxidation,
Z-metathesis and dehydrogenation,
Iridium cat'lysts that stitch up new rings
These are a few of their favorite things...

-      Crank up the Heat – Tobin Marks (Northwestern U.) wanted to see more ligand classes (think pincers and porphyrins) capable of supporting homogeneous catalysis at higher temperatures.

-      Mind your MOFs – Still others, such as Zach Ball (Rice U.) and Ekkehardt Hahn (Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster) weighed in on new types of building blocks and metals for cluster and MOF chemistry. Vivian Yam (U. of Hong Kong) wrapped up everyone’s requests with a nice bow; she hoped for new air- and moisture-insensitive OLED materials, solar energy-collecting polymers, and water-splitting photocatalysts.

Filling the “Tool Box” - Rieger cautioned to watch out for the recurring industrial opinion that “all the useful chemistry is already discovered.” Gladysz used the example of frustrated Lewis pairs, which, while a fairly young concept, are already turning heads. Bill Jones gave an impromptu one-liner about heterolytic hydrogenation: “If someone had written that on an exam…you’d give them a zero (back in the old days).” Humphrey chimed in on bimetallic bases, and Klosin for Ziegler-Natta studies.

But just then, Ritter poured cold water on the party: “Today’s chemical companies are busy reacting to rapid market swings and trends, which does not leave a lot of room for risky long-term projects.” Sensing, perhaps, that he’d deflated the roundtable’s enthusiasm, he quickly backtracked and mentioned that he’s “looking forward to…CO₂ utilization, solar energy, and biomass based energy and chemicals.”

So there you go, future faculty members, he’s written half your proposal already!

Throwaway lines – CJ has collected quite a few of these, but I’d like to comment on a few more.

 “I’ve talked to a colleague in China whose professor advised ‘If you don’t do palladium chemistry, how will people know you are my student?’.” –Vy Dong

Peering into the OM "xstal ball "
Source: Organometallics

This issue seems to rankle most with the faculty, who toe the fine line between capitalizing on their past successes and striking out with their own programs. Suzanne Blum (UC-Irvine) cautioned against what she calls “n+1 research,” clinging to well-trodden paths while writing funding proposals. But Yam and Humphrey pointed out that initial funding in their home countries (China, Australia) can be tough unless you stick to the script.

This creativity discussion wound through the group, until Yam and Hahn debated whether Indian and Chinese universities still seemed to hire based on quantity (i.e. papers published) vs. quality.

Hahn: “…even the 28-year old researchers from China know their h-indexes [and] introduce themselves saying their name and ‘I have an h-index of 10.’ And you wonder who has trained them?”

I can’t say that I’ve never encountered the "publish or die" sentiment, but I had hoped it was becoming less prevalent with time. Readers, your thoughts?

The Last Word - “…in my opinion, the chemical community performs poorly in transmitting to the general public what they are actually doing.” –Ekke relays a sobering thought for those of us in the blogosphere who toil daily to demystify our science.

Maybe he doesn’t read enough good science blogs?

Knights of the Periodic Table

Last night, while reading through the Feb. 6 issue of C&EN, I found myself terribly amused by the inside back cover. The ad, for ACS journal Organometallics (*now under new management!), encouraged readers to check out their 2011 Roundtable. This panel of distinguished chemists met together last year to opine on issues ranging from new research frontiers and publication strategies to the role of basic research in developing new industrial reactions. 

A hand-drawn cartoon, purportedly of chemists in concilium adorns the article. Clearly, the artist intends for this to be modern-day: laptop computers, desk chairs, and a multinational group discuss science with rapt attention.


But the picture I found so funny wasn't this one, but instead the magazine cartoon, which re-imagined the same meeting as if the chemists were members of King Arthur's court. Which got me to thinking - I've dabbled a bit in catalysis and complexes, so who would I want on my round table?

I've taken the liberty of labeling the photo with my potential knights. Readers, with whom would you want to ride into battle discuss organometallic chemistry?