Category → I can’t believe my life happens to me
The Nobel’s great, but take a look at this!
Bob Lefkowitz proudly displays his Nobel Prize medal (and diploma on the desk) at his Duke University Medical Center office, 20 December 2012. Photo: David Kroll
As I alluded to earlier on this index page, I was fortunate to score the cover story the January 9th issue of the Research Triangle’s alternative weekly paper, INDY Week. Therein, I told the story of Robert J. Lefkowitz, MD, the biochemist and cardiologist who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2012 with his former cardiology fellow, Brian K. Kobilka, MD, of Stanford University.
In this first edition of pixels that didn’t make it to the final article, I want to follow on the moments after I took this photo after interviewing Bob for the article. He was kind enough to bring in his original Nobel medal and diploma for me to see and photograph (he’s currently having a replica made of the medal so that he doesn’t have to carry around the real one.).
Lefkowitz IndyWeek Outtakes
The 9 January 2013 edition of the Research Triangle area’s alternative weekly newspaper, INDY Week. Photo: D.L. Anderson/INDY Week. Click on the photo to go the online article.
I was fortunate to be able to tell the story of Duke University biochemist and cardiologist Dr. Robert J. Lefkowitz in the 9 January 2013 issue of the Research Triangle’s award-winning alt-weekly, INDY Week.
Even with editor Lisa Sorg graciously offering 3,000+ words for the story on one of the 2012 Nobel laureates in chemistry, some terrific bits of my interviews with Bob and major players in his story didn’t make it into the final version.
Over the next few days, I’ll post some of these gems. This page will index the running list of those posts.
The Nobel’s Great, But Take a Look at This! – Lefkowitz reveals where Duke men’s basketball sits in his list of priorities
Visualizing Chemistry Education with Untamed Science
Well, I’m coming up on 10 days on my new job at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences working on science communications for our new wing, the Nature Research Center. Beyond my creative and uniformly brilliant co-workers, I’m blown away by how many remarkable people I’ve met from around the state and world by just being at the Museum.
Among those were the filmmakers from the visual science education operation, Untamed Science. Co-founders Rob Nelson and Jonas Stenstrom. I learned that I was very fortunate to get an audience with Jonas as he was visiting from Sweden where he coordinates the team’s international science education efforts. He first met Rob, a native Texan & Coloradan, while both were studying in Australia. Joining them was their local documentarian partner, the talented Michelle Lotker.
Fun, free, and scientifically accurate.
Untamed Science describe themselves as “a group of scientists and filmmakers that have united with one simple goal – communicate science in a fun way to the next generation.” Their portfolio of free video and text content covers the spectrum of biology, physics, chemistry, earth science and technology.
Their target audience began as middle-school students but many of the details are those that parents (yes, me) might not know. I had a fabulous time sitting with our nine-year-old daughter last night to go through about a dozen of their videos and podcasts. Bedtime was delayed significantly – thanks, folks.
NCCU Dinner with Discoverers: Chemist, Dr. Mansukh Wani
Dr. Mansukh Wani with NCCU pharmaceutical sciences master's students Edward Garner (left) and Adama Secka (right). Credit: DJ Kroll
The NCCU Eagles RISE program is a NIH/NIGMS research education program for which I serve as principal investigator at North Carolina Central University in Durham. When I moved to the Research Triangle area, I had the opportunity to work as a pharmacologist with the late Dr. Monroe Wall and Dr. Mansukh Wani, scientists who with colleagues discovered the anticancer compounds, taxol and camptothecin.
I first came to know of Dr. Wani while I was a graduate student in 1987 while attending a DNA topoisomerase chemotherapy conference at NYU in Manhattan. To be honest, I was too nervous to even introduce myself to this legend of natural products chemistry. Almost 25 years later, I am now blessed to call him a family friend. One of the other joys I have is sharing the now 86-year-old Dr. Wani and his story with my students. Here’s a recap of our visit with him as posted on our NCCU Eagles RISE blog:
1st Anniversary at CENtral Science!
Thank you for your support! Now, tell me about YOU in the comments below. Photo Credit: DJ Kroll/Terra Sigillata
Many thanks to all of you, Dear Readers and C&EN editors and staff, I have been writing here for one year.
Last August 24th, we moved the Terra Sigillata blog here after its purgatory in indie WordPress land following four years at ScienceBlogs. The announcement came at the a ACS Medicinal Chemistry Lunch-and-Learn session on pharmaceutical and chemistry blogging led by Carmen Drahl at last year’s Boston meeting. the setting seemed appropriate for the launch because I was on the panel with two of my own blogging idols, Derek Lowe of In the Pipeline and Ed Silverman of Pharmalot.
In my inaugural post here last year, The Right Chemistry, I expressed my sincere thanks to Carmen and C&EN Online Editor Rachel Pepling for taking in this wayward blogger. Although I am technically a biologist, I have appreciated since my undergrad days that chemistry was central to moving forward in this field. As a pharmacologist whose previous pseudonym acknowledged Journal of Biological Chemistry founder, John Jacob Abel, I have always appreciated that my field would not be here without the efforts of synthetic chemists.
So, I hope that in the past year I have brought you a biologist’s view of – and reverence for – the discipline of chemistry.
CENtral Science, represent!
The 202 and the 919 stomping terra in the 505. Dr. Lauren Wolf, C&EN Associate Editor and Newscripts blog and print writer, with yours truly and his CENtral Science T-shirt at Bandelier National Monument, Los Alamos, NM, during a break from the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop. The large ceremonial kiva above us is accessed by a series of four ladders that rise 160 feet from the canyon floor. Credit: Some nice guy who used Lauren’s camera but whose name we forgot to ask.
Yes, I’ve tagged this post in my category, “I Can’t Believe My Life Happens to Me.”
During the week of May 30th, I had the pleasure of participating in the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop, a 15-year labor of love run by New Mexico-based science writers, Sandra Blakeslee and George Johnson. This year, about 50 “students” were in attendance, ranging from professional writers like Dr. Wolf at C&EN and Newscripts above to freelancers, public information officers, and other academics like me who are working on improving our skills to communicate science to non-technical audiences.
The Right Chemistry
Welcome to the new home of Terra Sigillata, a blog about the pharmacology and chemistry of natural product drugs and dietary supplements, issues of under-represented groups in the STEMM disciplines, science and medical journalism, and the influence of science in popular culture.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you more about the blog itself but I wanted to launch with a personal narrative of how I got here.
Hello, my name is David…and I’m a science blogger
I’m your humble blogger, David Kroll, a molecular cancer pharmacologist and professor in the pharmaceutical sciences at a state university in the southern US. If you are an old-time reader of Terra Sig, you’ll know me as Abel Pharmboy, the pseudonym I selected to honor John Jacob Abel. Abel is considered the American father of pharmacology, having founded the first US departments of pharmacology (at Michigan and Johns Hopkins) as well as the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.
But feel free to call me Abel. It’s a habit for many and folks in my daily life still know me as Abel.
And if you followed me on Twitter @abelpharmboy, just go ahead and follow me now @davidkroll.
After a fantastic four year run at ScienceBlogs.com, Terra Sig has spent a month in indie blog limbo while I searched for the right home for us. Some of my very dear friends are now at the wonderful new blog collective, Scientopia. I do hope to have a presence there in an educational capacity.
But where to bring little ol’ Abel and his Terra Sigillata?
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