A few of my favourite (chemical) things

Chemjobber started a conversation yesterday detailing 12 of his favourite chemical things. A sizable list is rapidly growing in the comments, and here are a few of mine:

1) Achieving the perfect aqua marine blue or emerald green reaction solution (making a nice change from the white or yellow...or brown if it's gone real bad...)

2) The smell of freshly-spilled EtOAc*

3) Scrolling through hundreds of email alert paper titles and coming across the occasional gem: 10.1021/cr900105w (Chem. Rev., 2010, 110, 2313)

4) Running a speculative reaction with absolutely no lit precedent “under the bench” – and it working almost peak-to-peak

5) The look on your student’s face when they make their first breakthrough

6) Working in a lab with no radio reception for years then Spotify being invented (and discovering your colleagues have an eclectic mix of musical tastes)

7) The camaraderie of staying late with others (or, hell...even on your own!) because you’re waiting for the NMR/LCMS to deliver a game-changing result

8) Lab consumables catalogues thicker than the Argos book

9) Opening up a box of Aldrich chemicals to the smell of Sugar Puffs packing material

10) Understanding most of the names on an ingredients list

11) The geekiness of hearing about or using a new medicine and immediately Wiki’ing it to find the structure

12) Spinning structures around in 3D chemical software

* [insert "don't be smelling chemicals" disclaimer here]

More lists here: ScienceGeist, Wavefunction, CarbonBasedCuriosities, LJKBoerner, The Boiling Point and a growing definitive list at Chemistry-Blog

[edit for adding links]

Sanofi-aventis & Genzyme in the UK

The acquisition of Genzyme by sanofi-aventis for around £12.4bn was announced last week. The deal sees the French pharmaceutical firm diversifying its portfolio with biotechnology and treatments for rare diseases from the American corporation. It will also be acquiring the potential blockbuster drug Lemtrada, for which Genzyme is currently seeking FDA approval in the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

Globally, sanofi-aventis employs over 100k people. It has held a UK presence for 30 years, and a fifth of the 2000 UK staff are located at the newly refurbished UK head office in Guildford. There are 3 manufacturing sites, at Fawdon (nr Newcastle), Holmes Chapel (Cheshire) and Dagenham (Essex) – the first employs over 500 people. It also has a distribution centre at Chapeltown (nr Sheffield). Sanofi-aventis formerly had an R&D site at Alnwick (~30 miles from Newcastle), but this was sold to the US contract research organisation (CRO) Covance in October 2010 as part of its R&D outsourcing strategy.

Other UK-based members of the sanofi-aventis group include generics company Winthrop Pharmaceuticals (Guildford) and vaccines supplier Sanofi Pasteur MSD (Maidenhead).

At a tenth of the size, around 600 of Genzyme’s 10,000-strong global workforce are located in the UK. Manufacturing and process chemistry is based at Haverhill (Suffolk) with 300 staff; Genzyme Therapeutics is located in Oxford; and antibody technology R&D, regulatory affairs and clinical trial coordination is centred in Cambridge.

Genzyme will be retaining its corporate brand post-acquisition.

Weekend Job Roll: 20th Feb

While most job sites had 10-20% more positions advertised than last week, the pickings appeared fairly slim. Here are the highlights:

Disillusioned with outsourced IT support? Improve things with this 12-month temporary contract in scientific & desktop systems support. Rather than training an IT professional how to use scientific software, this role is aimed at scientists (preferably from pharma) with good IT skills to provide 2^nd line support to 400 users. £25-30k, based in Horsham but occasional travel to Europe to train helpdesk staff.

Temporary role advertised for an R&D organic chemist to work on API and scale-up in the North East. £20-25k.

PhD-qualified research scientist sought to design and evaluate heterogeneous, homogeneous and asymmetric (both chemo- and bio-) catalytic processes for the Pharmaceutical and Fine Chemical Market. Postdoc preferable. £28-33k, based in Cambridge.

Further PhD-qualified chemists are wanted in Oxford to work on the development of organic/inorganic functionalised materials as a synthetic organic chemist. £22-25k.

GrowHow – a UK fertilizer and chemicals company – is advertising for a day chemist to work at their head office near Chester. This will involve sampling and analytical testing, maintenance of equipment and improvement of analytical techniques. Experience in an ISO 9001 & ISO 14001 environment is advantageous. Salary up to £30k.

The nicely revamped RSC job board – ChemistryWorldJobs – appears to have been unfortunately spammed by at least one agency that's posting the same positions in duplicate adverts, multiple times per week. If, however, you are a software engineer with experience in C, then one of these adverts for positions in Liverpool, Cambridge, Glasgow, Kingston or Surbiton may be of interest. And yes, this is the same keen agency as last month.

If you’d like to join the fun, a scientific recruitment consultant is being sought in Leeds for £20-30k.

A late weekend job roll: 14th Feb

With no interim update last week, here are the highlights from the last 7 days:

Research chemist sought for what sounds like a CRO – carrying out organic synthesis/medchem. Permanent and contract positions available. £22-30k, Midlands.

12-contract available for an MSDS author to join a lubricant and fuel additives manufacturer in Berkshire. Experience with MSDS preparation and REACH regulations strongly desirable. Occasional global travel required.

Two permanent regulatory positions that may be of interest for those with a couple of years experience: a European regulatory affairs manager/REACH specialist in Manchester; and a regulatory affairs/CMC in Slough. The former is offering £35-65k, the later, a highly informative “£££”

BP are recruiting a field tracer chemist in Sunbury-on-Thames. Joining the Pushing Reservoir Limits team, you will be developing and implementing a test capability to assess enhanced oil recovery processes in the field. Masters/PhD, GC and analytical experience preferred.

In this time of strategic partnerships, BP have established a Corrosion and Protection Centre at the University of Manchester. Between this and a collaboration with the Centre for Corrosion Technology at Sheffield Hallam University, a number of research positions are available (PhD & Postdoc).

A scan of this month’s PhD listing on jobs.ac.uk prompted a click to find out what “low-dimensional chemistry” is. Spanning at least four departments across two universities, a collaboration is ongoing to “assemble biologically inspired mechanisms and components on a chip to capture, transmit and store solar energy”. Or photosynthesis-on-a-chip. Which sounds pretty cool. More details on the 6 PhD positions can be found here and on the Leggett group page at Sheffield University.

A manufacturer of defence equipment in Worcestershire is offering £20-25k to a chemist (likely graduate) to carry out quality control test on materials, including explosives.

In a change to the regular blogging schedule: Given the low value of publishing weekly stats from the main job sites, I’ll instead track these behind the scenes and publish occasional charts to highlight any trends. Fewer numbers, more graphs – got to be a winning combination.