I was able to attend only the afternoon sessions of the AI Meyers Symposium, sponsored by the Chemistry Department at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins. Peter Beak from the University of Illinois spoke about organolithium chemistry related to CIPE- Complex Induced Prioximity Effect. Along the way, Beak made a few comments about the state of the science of chemistry in America in terms of the lack of a unified voice. He pointed out that the astronomers seem to be quite successful in geting major projects funded because they band together and make a unified case for funding. Beak observed that during difficult times, chemists tend to “circle the wagons and shoot inwards”.
Beak made another point about the perpetually weak state of physical organic chemistry. He suggests that the norbornyl cation controversy between H.C. Brown and Saul Winstein in the 1960’s had a deleterious effect on the field. I have heard this argument elsewhere. I can only assume that Beak means that funding for physical organic research dried up.
Victor Sniekus, Alfred Bader Professor of Chemistry at Queens University, spoke about his work with orthometallation in various projects. Daniel Comins, a Meyers post-doc, talked about alkaloid synthesis. Much of the work from the Meyers labs was related to directed metallation or pre-coordination of R-Li with a substrate to accomplish some kind of selectivity. It was AIM’s habit to prove the merit of a transformation with an application to some kind of natural product synthesis- usually an alkaloid. I spent a year and a half struggling unsuccessfully with tylophorine and crypotpleurine.
The afternoon was rounded off with talk by Paul Reider, formerly a VP of Process Research at Merck and now teaching at Princeton University. Reider spoke in his typical entertaining manner. What stands out above the technical details is a statement he made in regard to getting buy in for a process. He was trying to get somebody to try a reaction series-“I said it with such sincerity, they went ahead and did it! ” This is funny because you don’t get the idea that Reider or any of his colleagues are easily swayed by sincerity.
There was a fair turnout of Meyers alumni, post-docs and grad students as well as folks from other groups in the department.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
“Beak made another point about the perpetually weak state of physical organic chemistry.”
I’ve met Peter, nice guy. As for Phys Org, what grad student wants to hear they’ll have to TA for the 7 years it takes them to get a PhD because funds are limited??
But hey Gauss, maybe you haven’t heard? Pharma is burning! The only stable trickle of jobs coming out for the Process/Phys org types. Hence they’re MOST likely to be employed in this market.
People flocked to the dumbskills of total synthesis (mostly staring at columns or getting jazzed on ether fumes while waiting for the NMR to come available at 1:00 am) because there were more JOBS JOBS JOBS!
Still, more Phys Org would be a good thing, but there’s no real business model to absorb their flighty concepts. No real solid cadre of jobs in comparison to other fields (pretty much like all chemistry today).
Hi Grain- I can’t disagree with your comments. But I would add that if chemists had more business/engineering education, there might be more startups happening. Chemists tend to be highly reliant on the business types for their employment. It helps to be closer to the daily generation of revenue.
Chemists convert chemicals into other chemicals. Captains of industry turn chemicals into money.
A link below to a good planetarium program for those who enjoy a virtual sky. You can set your lat/long and match it to your location. Nice features, like constelllation identification for 600K stars.
Oh, and best of all -it’s free!
http://tinyurl.com/5f6mv4
Gauss! A few comments.
I worked in a group of 25PhD’s under a Perkin Medal winner. The guy groused at me one day (well ok, maybe he was just complaining) I’ve learned over the years that no matter what I ask, the PhD’s do whatever they want. I think in general it is funny when a well trained PhD does something because he was asked sincerely to do it.
Physical Organic chemists can find jobs – as catalyst chemists working for well known PE producers. I do not think the shortage is due to a lack of jobs. However, there is something to be said for getting P.O. chemists to look beyond the norbornyl cation for interesting problems. I think this is part of the problem with funding. Organolithiums are fun, but still – they, too, are old – aren’t they?
I wish I could have been at the symposium. It would have been fun. But you know how I have fun – by asking lots of questions and taking the opposite position on just about everything.
Bill,
So does that mean we can have more fun by agreeing with you?
Bill, you’re such a contrarian. It’s funny- my interests are steadily moving from synthesis to PO topics. My new job description has caused me to wade deeply into thermo. I have been looking at a really cool piece of software from AKTS:
http://www.akts.com/thermokinetics.html
I was given a demo by the the fellow who designed it and am absolutely blown away by it’s capabilities. Using 4 DSC runs taken at different temperature ramps, you can determine activation energies and turn around and apply it to kinetic problems like adiabatic Time to Maximum Rate (TMR). It has been applied to explosives safety work in determining TMR curves for propellant cook-off time. It will determine determine adiabatic TMR of materials in bulk containers and takes into account the climate of the storage location, since the climate can apply a daily thermal cycle to the bulk material.
I disagree with the quip about the norbornyl ion controversy. While it engendered some bitterness in the two camps, it was overall good for the field because it led to a lot of creative ideas and experiments.
Symposium scientific content was brilliant, but catering of the event was done on the cheap.
Nothing new about that.