Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Process Wednesday: ARRRRGH! They're process chemists, dammit!

Imagine my pain (and joy!) at reading this blurb in Forbes' "30 Under 30: Science" (a listicle of young scientists and the world-changing work they're doing)
Christopher Morgan & Leigh Anne Ihnken, Research Scientists, GlaxoSmithKline, 29
Using synthetic biology to make pharmaceutical chemistry less expensive and less harmful to the environment.
Of course, they're pharma process chemists, not synthetic biologists (or are they???) And of course, modification of enzymes to drive better enantioselectivity has been around for quite some time. (I clearly remember being blown away by a Manfred Reetz talk at the Bozeman, MT National Organic Symposium in 2001.)

But that's too complex for Forbes, apparently. So it's "biology/science to the rescue of dirty chemistry" as opposed to "chemists improving chemistry." Disappointing.

[Sorry, a more substantive PW next week, I promise.]

No comments:

Post a Comment

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20