Just a quick note to highlight that the deadline for abstract submissions to the YMS is fast approaching (5th May).

YMS 2014 will be held in Birmingham on the 24th of June. It promises to bring together early-career chemists from all disciplines and sectors to share the latest research and develop interdisciplinary networks.

With a stellar line up of speakers covering all the major disciplines, as well as a session devoted to chemical education and outreach, YMS 2014 aims to be the biggest and best of the series to date, so I urge all early-career chemists out there to consider presenting and attending.

To register and for more information, visit www.rsc-yms.co.uk.

The SCI are hosting a FREE, open to all careers event in London on Monday 28 April 2014.

• starting out in academia and in industry
• working in both bioscience and chemical SMEs
• careers in multinational bioscience companies
• working on a plant and in health and safety
• working in the petrochemicals industry
• working as a consultant
• tips on applying for that first job

Definitely a date for early-career calendars!

Had a meeting the other day with the newly formed Outreach Working Group.

I got involved in an interesting debate over the merits of various forms of demonstration. I'm personally a big fan of the flash-bang shows. It's how I was attracted to chemistry in the first place, and it certainly has impact. I am concerned, however, that opportunities to learn and practice this craft are becoming harder to find, as health and safety legislation tightens.

The counter-point to this argument is that there are many low risk demonstrations that can be done that are deeply provocative and profound. Instead of promoting chemistry as a dangerous, explosive science, should we not instead focus on its deep, profound impact on the modern world and all that is around us?

It's a compelling point, but I remain unconvinced. Yes, we need to inspire and attract the "deep thinkers" to our science. But we also need to attract the "have a go heroes" who rush in where angels fear to tread. Without a balance of both, the chemists of tomorrow will suffer. And it is more time consuming and harder to acquire the skills and experience to conduct a good flash-bang show safely, then it is to perform low-risk demonstrations. As such, the danger remains that the high-risk experiments will slowly be lost to would be chemists of the future.

Just thought I'd say a quick congratulations to some of my colleagues in Dundee for their recent success in the fight against malaria. Serious piece of work by some serious scientists!

I moved to Dundee from Nottingham in May 2013 and was eager to continue my voluntary role as a STEMNet Ambassador.

My first opportunity to do so came just after the summer holidays finished, when I was asked to take part in a "Chemistry at Work" event for the RSC. The focus of this event is to have a more practical demonstration of the realities of my work. This proved to be quite a challenge, as I am a medicinal chemist and it is very difficult (if not impossible) to replicate my work in a safe and timely manner. Medicinal chemistry and drug design can take up to 15 years of hard toil and there was no way I could fit that into a 45 minute slot!!

Inspiration struck when I thought about the money involved in drug discovery. The average cost of getting a new drug all the way to market is in the billions of dollars. The majority of this money is actually not spent directly by us chemists at the bench, but rather when the compound is put into human trials. A medicinal chemist must be a billion dollars sure his/her compound will make it all the way! This requires the selection of a molecule that has the optimal balance of many different parameters, including biological activity, toxicity, solubility etc.

I presented the students with real molecules and data (taken from a case study of the discovery of Onglyza) and asked them to pick their clinical candidate, making sure they worked in teams to identify the best compound. All of the students succesfully identified either the actual drug, or the back-up compound that also was succesful in clinical trial. Teachers really appreciate a real-life example of problem solving and considering more than one piece of data at a time to make a decision. In the future I plan to have another similar problem to give to teachers as a homework assignment/further discussion.

I've attached the handout I used - please feel free to use it.

Many of the world's top media outlets, including The New York Times and The Economist, have reported on the issue of reproducibility in scientific research. It's an issue that's being tackled directly by Science Exchange, who have launched the Reproducibility Initiative - a collaboration with PLoS and others to publish validated results.  

There is now an an opportunity to get involved with the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology, which is independently replicating key results from 50 cancer biology studies. They're looking for volunteers to help extract the methodology, statistical information, and checklist adherence of the identified key experiments for each of the papers. This process will help us understand how current practices of publishing this information influences the ability to independently replicate experiments. 

This is a great opportunity for graduate students, postdocs, and industry professionals to get involved. Contributors will receive co-authorship on each individual replication report they help with (published in PLoS ONE's reproducibility collection) and the final report.

If you are interested or know other researchers who would be interested in helping with this process please share this information and view this document, which contains the specifics of what is involved. If you want to contribute please contact Tim Errington.

I am delighted to announce that the 3rd RSC Younger Members Symposium (organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry Younger Members Network) will be held at the University of Birmingham on the 24th of June 2014. I have been fortunate enough to have been involved in the organisation of all the YMS to date, and I must confess to be extremely excited about YMS2014.
 
This year’s organising committee is made up of young volunteers from across the UK and employed in a variety of industrial, academic and educational roles. We are working really hard to ensure YMS2014 is the biggest and best so far. We have space for up to 300 delegates and we’re really keen to have a full-house.
 
The RSC and the University of Birmingham have recognised the importance of this career-development event by providing our keynote speakers for the day: Prof. Lesley Yellowlees (President of the Royal Society of Chemistry) and Prof. Alice Roberts (Head of Public Engagement at the University of Birmingham).
 
YMS 2014 aims to facilitate the development of young chemists by providing them with the opportunity to:  

• Present at a national conference
• Interact with emerging talent from academia and industry
• Network specifically with their peers

There will be four parallel sessions held over the course of the day, covering all aspects of chemistry: Education & Outreach, Organic & Biochemistry, Physical & Analytical and Inorganic & Materials. Each session will have two invited speakers representing the cream of young talent from industry and academia. Invited speakers will showcase not only their excellent research, but also their career progression. There will also be several oral presentation opportunities and considerable poster space for each session.
 
We are confident that this symposium will build upon and surpass the achievements of the previous symposia, and bring the next-generation of talent from across the UK and internationally together for a day of science and networking. I would like to invite and encourage early-career chemists from all disciplines and backgrounds to register and submit abstracts for oral and poster presentation. Registration for this event includes complimentary Affliate membership of the RSC (if required).

In addition to the symposia already highlighted, here is a call for young chemists to participate in a joint RSC-Croatian Chemical Society symposium:

Are you a young researcher (postgraduate student, postdoctoral fellow or young academic (appointed since 2009)?

Are you working in the synthesis, biological activity or medicinal chemistry of Macrocycles?

Yes, then this is your chance to present your work at a major international symposium

The Royal Society of Chemistry, Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector and the Croatian Chemical Society are holding a joint meeting in Zagreb, Croatia on the 28^th and 29^th April 2014 on the topic of ‘ Macrocycles:   synthesis, medicinal chemistry and biological activity’.  The organising committee are currently looking for up to SIX young researchers to give a short (15 minute) oral presentation on their research at this symposium.  If you wish to be considered for one of these slots, please send a brief abstract (no more than one side of A4) to Andreja Simunic at andreja [dot] simunic [at] glpg [dot] com

For more information on this symposium please go to http://www.fidelta.eu/index.php/conferences/macrocycles/

I feel I have to disagree with the Curious Wavefunction on expanding Nobel prize awards to teams.

The example discussed in the recent award in Physics for the discovery of the Higgs boson. The argument is that many other scientists and engineers were involved in both the theory and practical discovery of the particle, at CERN and elsewhere around the world.

But where do you stop tracing back? Does all of chemistry start with Robert Boyle?

The best scientists, like Prof. Higgs, recognise that science is usually not a single moment of genius, but rather a long hard slog building and drawing upon the works of hundreds of other scientists. I shall refrain from quoting Isaac Newtown.

But what is wrong with giving scientists a prestigious, inspirational goal to strive for? What is wrong with highlighting the substantial contributions of a few who make a larger than expected impact on the history of science?

Teams deserve credit. But if Prof. Higgs hadn’t postulated the existence of the Higgs boson, what would those teams at CERN been working on in the first place?

Let’s kick off the New Year with a bit on controversy, shall we?

This article on the BBC details the outrageous response by certain elements of the animal rights movement to a Facebook message from a seriously ill Italian woman, Caterina Simonsen . This woman’s horrific crime was to be thankful for her life and acknowledge that it was due in part to research conducted on animals.

Despite this woman merely taking advantage of the benefits that science brings, perhaps without even knowing at the time how such breakthroughs come about, some comments on her post suggested the world would be better off if she were dead.

I wonder just how many of these “brave” defenders of the animal kingdom have never taken a medicine or used a cosmetic in their lives? How many would deny their parents and children life-saving medicine if it were offered? Only a person willing to accept the real consequences of their beliefs is worthy of any respect, and I have yet to meet a single person who fulfils either of the above two criteria.

I am a medicinal chemist. The discovery of new drugs requires animal testing. I am not brave or foolish enough to offer my body or anyone else’s to test drugs without prior testing on a variety of animal species. The risk of disaster is just too high and I’m in the business of helping people, not hurting them.

If an alternative to animal testing arises, I will gladly take it. Until then, I will continue to work within the established regulations to save people’s lives, a single one of which I feel is more important than countless animals. People like Caterina Simonsen and Donal Walsh are the reason I do what I do. I will not apologise for this and certainly they should not have to apologise for trying to live.

If you disagree, don’t come at me or innocent patients with taunts from the internet. Instead, should the time come, deny yourself or someone you love medicine. Face the consequences of such an act and I hope your principles comfort you.