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Women chemists of color on credentials
When women chemists of color talk about how they got to where they are now professionally, the conversation can be simultaneously funny and poignant. At the ACS Women Chemists of Color Summit symposium on Tuesday morning, Aug. 24, seven such women joined in a semicircle before a packed audience to share their experiences about overcoming hurdles unique to women of color. Moderated by Zakiya Wilson, assistant director for graduate recruitment and admissions at the department of chemistry at Louisiana State University and Gloria Thomas, an assistant chemistry professor at Xavier University of Louisiana, the session was frequently punctuated by laughter. As a person of color myself, I was inspired by these women’s determination to break barriers and claim their rightful places in their chosen professional roles on the basis of merit. Their example eases the path for other women of color.
Discussants at Women Chemists of Color Summit: from left, Julia Chan, Louisiana State University; Thomas; Robyn Hannigan, University of Massachussetts, Boston; Wilson: Linette Watkins, Texas State University, San Marcos; Malika Jeffries-El, Iowa State University; Prather; Shu; Sharon Kennedy, Colgate-Palmolive
Two stories about establishing credibility and credentials stood out for me.
Shu Shu (yes, her first and last names look identical when written in English, and they are pronounced the same, but they are represented by different Chinese characters, she explained), a chemical engineer with a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology and now working at Shell in Houston, recounted her first overseas assignment, to the Netherlands, to supervise the start up of a refinery unit that she had designed. The child of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Shu is soft spoken and almost delicate in appearance.
Most companies have diversity programs, Shu said, and in Shell the concept of diversity goes beyond the usual factors of sex, race, and age to diversity in personalities, ways of thinking, and ways of working. “I felt terrific because I worked with colleagues from all over the world,” she said, “until I got my first assignment to go to Netherlands to work in a refinery.”
GRADUATE STUDENTS’ HOME RUN
I attended most of the Aug 23 ACS Presidential Symposium titled Chemistry & Policy: Solving Problems at the Interface, a symposium organized by 10 MIT graduate students, eight of whom are pictured below: Rebecca Parkhurst (from left), Brian Walker, Johanna W. Wolfson, Jose M. Lobez, Jan M. Schnoor, Brandi Cossairt, Jared Silvia, and Brett VanVeller. Not pictured are Jeewoo Lim and Kristin Glab.
All smiles after successful symposium
By many measures, the symposium was a smashing success. By the time the last speaker, Harvard University chemistry professor George Whitesides, started to talk the 200-person-capacity room was standing room only.
The graduate students organized and executed the symposium under the auspices of ACS’s Graduate Student Symposium Planning Committee (GSSPC) Project, which encourages and supports the involvement of graduate students in planning symposia at the American Chemical Society national meetings.
The roster of speakers was impressive. Joining Whitesides were MIT chemistry professor and former CIA director John M. Deutch; William S. Rees Jr. of Los Alamos National Laboratory; Jay D. Keasling of UC Berkeley; Kathryn Beers of NIST; David Goldston of NRDC, Joan Berkowitz of Farkas Berkowitz & Company; John Gavenonis of DuPont; and Janan Hayes, Chair ACS History of Chemistry and a member of the ACS’s board of directors.
ACS recorded the presentations and will be available on acs.org in about two weeks. After the symposium, I talked to four of the student organizers and came away impressed with the methodical, collaborative, consultative approach they took to plan and implement this successful meeting. I’ve asked them to think about what they’ve learned from and how they’ve grown because of this experience. Stay tuned for a story about this student success in C&EN.
Bertozzi: As Infectious As Ever
At the Aug. 22 ACS Presidential Symposium on the impact of science and technology on global health care, in Boston, I reconnected with Carolyn R. Bertozzi of UC Berkeley.
Bertozzi at ACS Presidential Symposium on the Impact of Science & Technology on Health Care, Aug. 22, 2010, Boston
I profiled her in 2001, after she won a MacArthur Fellowship, one of three women chemists who were among the fellows named in 2000. After more than a decade of following her career from a distance, I again had the pleasure of listening to her easily accessible explanation of the theme of her research. Her enthusiasm is as infectious as ever.
Bertozzi has pioneered bioorthogonal chemistry, which she defines as chemistry that does not interfere or interact with biological systems. This chemistry—which involves introducing a functionality in sugars that get incorporated into glycolipids and glycoproteins that will specifically undergo a rapid chemical reaction with a molecule that serves as a probe–is having a huge impact on the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries but is still a largely “unknown universe,” she said. Among the well-established applications of Bertozzi’s chemistry is imaging of the glycome, the universe of glycans or carbohydrate oligomers on cell membranes that is a dynamic indicator of the cell’s physiological state. “When cells transform from one state to another, there is a corresponding change in the glycome,” she said. “To the extent that glycans can be used as indicators of health disease, you can understand the interest in imaging glycans; you could you detect tumors in vivo without invading the body.”
Another major application, Bertozzi said, is protein engineering through site-specific modification. Protein modification, she said, is now a major platform for drug development at biotech companies such as CovX (which Pfizer has acquired), Ambrx, Redwood Bioscience (which Bertozzi founded), and Allozyne.
Bioorthogonal chemistry is an open field waiting to be mined, Bertozzi said. The textbook has not been written, many more reactions are awaiting discovery and development.
During our informal chat before the program began, Bertozzi mentioned that she continues to indulge her passion of working with high school students to encourage and support their interest in science. I wondered how she still could find the time, and she said that these days the students come to her, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which hosts monthly lectures called Nano High. Her February 9, 2009, lecture is available in video. Watch and see why Bertozzi is such a great teacher.
C&EN Editors in Boston, Day 1
After several attempts, I’m delighted to post the first blog item from the ACS national meeting in Boston.
The meeting of C&EN’s editorial advisory board ended at 8:35 AM yesterday, Aug. 20, much earlier than usual. This meeting is scheduled for two hours, 7:30-9:30 AM on the Friday before every ACS national meeting. It is the venue through which C&EN’s editor-in-chief informs ACS governance about the state of the magazine. The board is chaired by the chair of ACS’s Joint Board-Council Committee on Publications, and its members include the chair of the ACS Board of Directors and the ACS president.
C&EN Editor-in-chief Rudy Baum reported several items of good news, including C&EN’s extensive coverage of the BP oil spill leading up to the June 14 cover story, which has elicited much positive feedback from readers. Traffic to C&EN Online is increasing; a major driver is C&EN’s Latest News postings, which now have significantly increased to about 20 per week.
C&EN launched the Environmental SCENE in July, the first of a series of news feeds to the web sites of ACS journals aimed at enlivening and adding relevant content to the homepage. Four ACS journals are now receiving this news feed: Environmental Science & Technology, Energy & Fuels, Chemical Research in Toxicology, and the Journal of Agriculture & Food Chemistry. According to preliminary statistics, this news feed has tripled traffic to ES&T’s home page
Every year C&EN conducts a survey to gauge how well the magazine is doing. I described major findings of C&EN’s 2010 annual survey of reader satisfaction: Overall, satisfaction remains high, with respondents saying they strongly agree that C&EN is generally well written and presented, keeps them abreast of significant news, and keeps them adequately informed of ACS. Respondents continue to rate us highly in the tasks we do to fulfill C&EN’s mission.
The survey respondents’ demographics caused some lively discussion: 87% are male, 48% work in industry, 39% work in academia, 80% have a Ph.D., 84% are age 45 or older, mean age is 54, 78% subscribe to the print edition. Where were women, the B.S. and M.S. readers, and those younger than 45? If you belong to any of these underrepresented groups in our survey, we would like to know what we can do to encourage you to participate.
Another survey result that caused considerable discussion was the differences between subscribers to the print and the electronic edition: Those receiving the print were more likely to have higher satisfaction, to have read the past four issues, and to regard C&EN as good as or superior to other profession-related publications. We speculated about the causes of these differences. If you subscribe to the electronic edition and are not satisfied with it, do tell us why.
Ken Carroll, the director of advertising sales gave the final presentation. His message was unsurprising—the advertising market continues to be difficult—but somewhat upbeat, noting that the difficult market of the past two years has made C&EN even more competitive and well-positioned for the challenges in 2011.
Thanksgiving In May
May is Asian American & Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. I didn’t know that until the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the Asian Pacific American Network in Agriculture (APANA) invited me to deliver the keynote speech during their celebration on May 12 at the Eastern Regional Research Center (ERRC) of the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, in Wyndmoor, Pa.
Preparing the talk made me reflect on how immigrants have flourished in the U.S., thanks to the opportunities the country offers to skilled people who are willing to work hard, starting from the bottom if necessary.
C&EN readers may remember ERRC as the American Chemical Society’s 57th National Historic Chemical Landmark, designated for its scientists’ pioneering work on food dehydration (C&EN, May 7, 2007, page 76). After my visit, I will remember it also as a workplace that exemplifies the federal government’s commitment to diversity in the workforce.
AAPI Heritage Month is a big deal at ERRC, I gathered from Shiowshuh (Allen) Sheen, president-elect of the APANA Philadelphia chapter. Each year the center sets aside a day of celebrations featuring a keynote speaker and an exhibition of arts and crafts reflecting the employees’ diverse heritage. Support comes from the top leaders: Dariusz M. Swietlik, director, and Shu-I Tu, associate director, of the North Atlantic Area Office of ARS; and Sevim Z. Erhan, director of ERRC. The pride of all staff was palpable during my visit.
At Lunch With Industry Execs
C&EN’s Review of Pittcon 2010 begins on page 27. Complementing the coverage, I report here excerpts of the discussion during a luncheon organized by C&EN’s Sales & Marketing group.
The analytical challenges of the 21st century are myriad and complex, but the world can be confident that they will be met as the instrumentation/analytics community continues to advance the field. That is the gist of the luncheon presentations by Gregory J. Herrema, senior vice president and president of analytical instruments at Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Frank Witney, president and chief executive officer of Dionex.
In recent years, “routine analysis has become anything but routine,” Herrema said. “Sample complexity has increased, and regulation is progressively demanding more useful information from each sample at lower levels of detection,” he explained. “Analytical performance that at one time was thought only necessary for high-end research applications is now becoming a basic requirement for many routine applications.”
Witney framed the discussion from the angle of water. A major challenge with water analysis, which makes up 45% of Dionex’ sales, is the broad range of compounds that need to be measured, from inorganic ions to polyaromatic hydrocarbons, Witney said. And because most compounds are present in trace amounts, “we often have to find a needle in a haystack,” he continued.
First Impressions At Pittcon – Final Edition
I don’t have the time to fully understand zeta potential, so of course I go to Wikipedia, according to which: “Zeta potential is an abbreviation for electrokinetic potential in colloidal systems. In the colloidal chemistry literature, it is usually denoted using the Greek letter zeta, hence ζ-potential. From a theoretical viewpoint, zeta potential is electric potential in the interfacial double layer (DL) at the location of the slipping plane versus a point in the bulk fluid away from the interface. In other words, zeta potential is the potential difference between the dispersion medium and the stationary layer of fluid attached to the dispersed particle.”
Okay, that makes my head ache. And thank goodness, Steven Trainoff, director of engineering at Wyatt Technology assures me that even if I don’t exactly know what zeta potential is, I could still appreciate the importance of an instrument they are introducing at Pittcon 2010, the Möbiuζ, which Wyatt claims can more precisely and easily measure the electrophoretic mobility of proteins than other methods.
Accurate measurement of protein electrophoretic mobility—which is related to the zeta potential—is especially important in formulating protein drugs. That’s because protein drugs must be charged in a formulation. The charge must be high enough to ensure that proteins are stable—individual molecules repel each other—but not so high that not enough molecules can be crammed in the formulation. It’s therefore critical to know the charge on the molecule, which can be inferred from the electrophoretic mobility.
Now, many instruments out there can measure electrophoretic mobility, Trainoff says, but they are not good with small proteins, such as the 14.4-kilodalton lysozyme, in the high concentration that they exist in a formulation. That’s because as proteins become smaller, the noise from diffusion becomes too much. Wyatt’s new optical instrument solves this problem by using an array of 30 photodiode detectors instead of the usual single detector. The massively parallel detection system means faster detection and higher sensitivity than is possible with other instruments. For example, Wyatt’s Möbiu? can determine the electrophoretic mobility of a 1-mg/mL sample of immunoglobulin G in about 30 seconds.
Watch out for the March 29 issue for C&EN’s official coverage of Pittcon 2010. Senior Correspondent Stu Borman will summarize the highlights and trends, Senior Correspondent Steve Ritter will compile the most noteworthy instruments on display, and Senior Editors Celia Henry and Mitch Jacoby will report from the technical sessions.
First Impressions At Pittcon – Part 4
I had back-to-back meetings with 10 companies while at Pittcon; some of them I’ve mentioned in earlier posts. The one that left a deep impression is Anasazi, a maker of 60- and 90-MHz FT-NMR instruments that sells 90% of its products to the education market: community colleges, 4-year colleges, and even high schools.
I completed my chemistry education without ever seeing, let alone using, an NMR instrument, and I’m so excited that high school and college students can actually use, touch, and manipulate the machine instead of just learning how to read and interpret the spectra, thanks to affordable and low-maintenance products such as those from Anasazi.
Don Bouchard, president of Anasazi, tells me that Anasazi FT-NMRs are ideal for the education market because they do not use superconducting magnets that need gases and cryogenic conditions to operate. The company does have a few industry customers, he says, for applications that can be optimally executed with the 60- and 90-MHz instruments. The
difference in price, according to Don, is significant: about $100,000 for an Anasazi instrument, including a five-year warranty vs about $225,000 + $15-30,000/per year in maintenance costs for a 400-MHz spectrometer with a superconducting magnet.
Anasazi NMR spectrometers are installed at three U.S. high schools and many colleges, including at least 20 community colleges in California, Don says.
Although Anasazi’s primary customers are from academia, Don and his wife, Julie, are at Pittcon in hopes of attracting customers from industry and government labs. Those of you chemistry teachers with some Department of Education Title III money might want to talk to them.
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