February 27, 2012 - IMM@BUCT

FEBRUARY 27, 2012 

CORPORATE SPENDING 

Outlays for R&D, capital 

assets are set to rise P.20 

FEDERAL R&D BUDGET 

President’s plan for 2013 

is good for science P.38 

FLUORINE CHEMISTRY 

Organic chemists add their expertise P.10 

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

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VOLUME 90, NUMBER 9 

FEBRUARY 27, 2012 

Serving the chemical, 

life sciences, 

and laboratory worlds 

COVER STORY 

FORAYS INTO 

FLUORINE 

Organic chemists apply 

their synthetic tools 

to help broaden the 

search for fluorinated 

pharmaceuticals and 

pesticides. PAGE 10 

28 PHARMA EARNINGS 

Fourth quarter delivers mixed results as firms 

reorganize to counter the patent cliff. 

32 HEC PHARM ACCELERATES 

Fast-growing, innovative Chinese drug firm is 

building more R&D facilities and marketing drugs 

to developed nations. 

GOVERNMENT & POLICY 

34 CONCENTRATES 

38 FEDERAL BUDGET 2013 

President’s proposal shows commitment to 

science education, R&D. 

48 FDA BUDGET BOOST 

Agency’s fiscal 2013 proposal includes 48.5% leap 

in funding from user fees. 

QUOTE 

OF THE WEEK 

“Companies that 

withdraw from 

China because 

they have had a 

bad experience 

make a mistake. 

Without risk, 

there can be no 

reward.” 

DOUGLAS 

MUZYKA, CHIEF 

TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, 

DUPONT PAGE 20 

20 

NEWS OF THE WEEK 

5 SAFE EXPOSURE TO TCDD 

At last, EPA has set a safe level of exposure to the 

most potent dioxin. 

6 BASF GROWS ITS BATTERY BUSINESS 

Firm boosts its position with purchase of Merck 

KGaA’s lithium electrolytes and additives unit. 

6 GUARDING BOTULINUM TOXIN 

Understanding how the toxin survives in the gut 

may aid the design of orally deliverable protein 

drugs. 

7 DOW CHEMICAL AGREES ON CLEANUP 

Firm strikes accord with Michigan to clean up 

properties contaminated with dioxins. 

7 LG CHEM WINS ELASTOMERS SUIT 

South Korean court rules against Dow Chemical 

in lawsuit over metallocene catalyst technology. 

8 METAL-FREE AROMATIC HYDROGENATION 

In a chemical first, a frustrated Lewis pair 

converts anilines to cyclohexylamines. 

8 SINGLE-PHOSPHORUS TRANSISTOR 

Precise positioning of atom in device may help 

advance development of quantum computing. 

9 H5N1 RESEARCH PREDICAMENT 

Papers should be published in full, but only 

after public fears are addressed, World Health 

Organization says. 

9 CURBING DRUG SCARCITY 

FDA acts to boost supply of two cancer drugs, as 

lawmakers aim to require reporting of shortages. 

BUSINESS 


20 SUSTAINING INVESTMENTS 

Chemical makers plan to increase future-oriented 

spending at a slower pace than last year. 

24 CHEMICAL EARNINGS 

Firms blame lackluster performance on macroeconomic 

conditions and seasonal slowness. 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 


54 ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION ▼ 

Russian, American, and British teams prepare to 

explore ancient subglacial lakes. 

56 PENNY CHISHOLM 

C&EN talks with the biology professor and 

author of children’s science books that aim to 

educate kids and parents alike. 

ACS NATIONAL AWARDS 

58 2012 WINNERS 

Cope Medalist Wong; Cope Scholars Aubé, 

Booker, Jamison, Mapp, Meijer, Schuster, Snyder, 

Tang, Wasielewski, and Yu. 

MEETINGS 

66 PITTCON 2012 IN ORLANDO 

Annual meeting will be held on March 11–15. 

THE DEPARTMENTS 

2 LETTERS 

68 CLASSIFIEDS 

72 NEWSCRIPTS 

COVER: Stephen K. Ritter/C&EN 

CENEAR 90 (9) 1–72 • ISSN 0009-2347

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Copyright 2012, American Chemical Society 

Canadian GST Reg. No. R127571347 

Volume 90, Number 9 

IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE 

IT WAS REFRESHING to read the realistic 

editorial “Employment Outlook: Clouded,” 

about the job situation in our profession 

( C&EN, Nov. 7, 2011, page 5 ). The 

editorial speaks about it openly. It dares to 

point out that “the job market for chemists 

has not been bright over the past few years. 

Even before the onset of the Great Recession.” 

For years, many of those in the Ivory 

Towers protected by the Tenure Moat were 

waving the red flag of not having enough 

chemists. There were many Chicken Littles 

with predictions about dire consequences 

of the falling sky. 

There is nothing new about the shortage 

of jobs, which started many years 

ago. Sputnik made us realize that science 

education was inadequate in the U.S. and 

started a rush to produce more chemists. 

However, there was a chain reaction. Many 

graduates went to academe to produce 

more chemists. It was evident that somewhere 

the process had to come to an end, 

but those who dared to question the lack of 

proper attire of the king were ignored. In 

the 1960s, the ACS Employment Clearing 

House showed four jobs available for everyone 

who was looking for a job. Generally 

those were not recent graduates, because 

companies went to the universities to interview 

and hire the students before they 

had graduated. Starting in the ’70s the situation 

changed: Job seekers outnumbered 

the jobs offered by a 3:1 ratio. The most 

alarming fact was that the job seekers were 

mostly young graduates. Midcareer chemists 

who were terminated considered it 

more and more hopeless to sign up. 

I chaired various committees where 

we dealt with the problem of supply and 

demand. I also wrote a number of ACS 

Comments discussing possible actions as 

early as 1985. For a list, visit www.pavlath. 

org. However, if we dwell on past mistakes, 

proverbially we will miss the future. This is 

not finger-pointing. The question is, what 

should be done? 

The editorial suggests that chemists 

should be versatile and willing to change to 

areas where there are more jobs. Naturally, 

this should be done, but it’s just a bandage 

because it avoids one of the main causes of 

the problem. During my ACS presidency, I 

talked to many industrial representatives to 

get their views. They stated what we knew 

but refused to make substantial changes. 

We have the best educational system in 

LETTERS 

the world; our graduates receive excellent 

preparation to go to another university 

and to produce graduates with the same 

capability. However, we do not prepare 

them for industrial employment where 

most of the jobs are for chemists. In order 

to make graduates suitable for industrial 

jobs, the curriculum has to be changed. 

Unfortunately, academe needs cheap labor 

for work that can result in publications 

to obtain tenure and grants. Teaching 

does not provide tenure; it has become a 

burden and secondary to the pursuit of 

fame, grants, and tenure. Until the system 

is changed, the students are the ones who 

will have difficulties in their job hunt. 

Attila E. Pavlath 

ACS president, 2001 

Albany , Calif. 

THOUGHTS ON TRANSCENDENCE 

RUDY BAUM’S Dec. 12, 2011, editorial 

(page 3), which deals largely with an article 

by Michael Polanyi that appeared in the 

Aug. 21, 1967, issue of C&EN, was of interest 

to me. I had recently read a new book, 

“ Michael Polanyi and His Generation : Origins 

of the Social Construction of Science,” 

by Mary Jo Nye, published by the University 

of Chicago Press. It is an engrossing 

story of one of the outstanding scientists of 

his time, and a fine historical account of the 

lives of a generation of European scientists 

caught up in the wars and economic strife 

that wracked Europe during the period 1914 

through 1945. 

Baum takes a turn at critiquing Polanyi’s 

C&EN article, in which Polanyi 

argues that “life transcends physics and 

chemistry.” That is, the workings of a biological 

entity such as a cell cannot be ex- 

HOW TO REACH US 

CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING NEWS 

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1155—16th St., N.W. 

Washington, DC 20036 

◾ Letters should generally be 400 words or 

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address, and home telephone; letters may 

be edited for purposes of clarity and space. 

Because of the heavy volume of mail received 

at C&EN, writers are limited to one letter in a 

six-month period. 

WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG 2 FEBRUARY 27, 2012

plained by simple recourse to physical and 

chemical laws alone. Baum finds himself 

in disagreement with at least some of what 

Polanyi writes but ducks an attempt to reconstruct 

the arguments that are involved. 

However, a few words on the historical 

aspects of the issues involved might be of 

some interest. 

Polanyi is credited with keeping alive 

the idea that there is much more to understanding 

biology than a strict reductionism 

can provide. In two of his major 

works, “Personal Knowledge” and “The 

Tacit Dimension,” he wrote of the concept 

of emergence, the idea that the structure 

and organization of an entity, be it a machine 

such as a wristwatch or a biological 

cell, exert what philosophers refer to as a 

downward causation on the basic physical 

and chemical processes that the entity 

engages in. The organization and threedimensional 

structure of the cell determine 

how certain reactions occur, how 

components of the cell are transported, 

and so on. One can say, then, that while everything 

that goes on in the cell is in accord 

with the laws of physics and chemistry, 

the properties that we think of as cellular 

can’t be accounted for simply by supplying 

a list of the molecules and their amounts; 

they emerge from the cell’s structure and 

organization. 

Polanyi wrote on these matters near 

the end of his career, and in a time when 

reductionism was the ideal toward which 

science reached. He did not get all the biology 

right, and he tilted at some windmills 

he might better have left alone. In truth, 

his C&EN piece is rather turgidly written 

and not always clear. But while he did not 

actually invent the notion of emergence, 

Polanyi was prophetic in expounding upon 

it when he did. In the 1990s, emergence 

theory arose to become a significant topic 

of discussion in biology and the philosophy 

of science. 

Theodore L. Brown 

Estero , Fla. 

IN 40 YEARS of practicing science, I 

couldn’t help but confirm my intimate 

belief that society is ultimately ruled by 

the philosophers and not by scientists and 

engineers. Even if we had the firm conviction 

that everything in the heavens and on 

Earth is reducible to physical interaction 

and to the stringent laws of causality, this 

wouldn’t be more than a philosophical ideology, 

because we have not made the world; 

we just discover it and try to fit our gained 

LETTERS 

knowledge into hypotheses and theories. 

For this reason, I stopped criticizing 

philosophers on scientific and technical 

grounds; this would be equivalent to cutting 

the branch of the tree whereupon I 

am sitting. Philosophers may, however, be 

criticized on philosophical grounds. For 

example, someone pretending that every 

material process is reducible to physical 

causality would have to assume that human 

action is also reducible to physical causality 

(after all, we are made of atoms). But 

assuming this, we can no longer uphold the 

concepts of freedom and moral responsibility, 

and we cannot justify either to reward 

or to punish someone for what he has 

done, because everything on Earth would 

then be a pure mechanical action-reaction 

mechanism, outside the categories of good 

and evil, governed solely by the laws of 

causality. Denying the transcendence of 

life will at the same time deny the inalienable 

rights of the human being and the possibility 

of a lawful, organized, and civilized 

society! 

Philosophers such as Michael Polanyi 

expressed this early in a terminology that 

we should at least try to understand. Biology, 

“the science of life,” will, for the philosophical 

reasons given above, never be a 

molecular science in the deterministiccausal 

sense. This affirmation by no means 

excludes molecular biology as an integrating 

and very helpful part of the science of 

life. Similarly, the fact that information 

transfer can be tied to deterministic-causal 

physical processes (if not, we couldn’t copy 

a file onto our hard disk), does not mean 

that information is always of deterministiccausal 

nature. 

It is noteworthy that the (empirically 

found!) second principle of thermodynamics 

states that the entropy of a closed 

system is not bound to any conservation 

law, and according to our observation, it is 

generally increasing with time. Entropy, 

in a mathematical sense, is the logarithm 

of the information content of the system. 

In other words, according to our empirical 

findings, the information content of 

a closed system may, and generally does, 

increase with time. 

As information can be the cause of a 

physical process, we must conclude that 

there are not only physical but also nonphysical 

causes of physical processes. The 

second principle of thermodynamics is the 

principle of transcendence of life! 

Edgar Müller 

Prilly , Switzerland 

TOKYO ELECTRIC POWER CO. 

THIS WEEK 

ONLINE 

Little Radiation From 

Fukushima Reached U.S. 

After an earthquake and tsunami struck 

Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power 

plant last March, the plant released 

radioactive gases and particulates that 

circled the globe. Now scientists estimate 

the material boosted soil radioactivity 

in the U.S. by on average 3 to 10%. 

cenm.ag/env65 

Paper Device Monitors 

Liver Health 

An alarming side effect of many 

medications is liver damage, which 

if unchecked can cause death. Monitoring 

liver damage is a challenge in 

developing regions without access to 

clinical tools and skilled personnel. Now 

researchers have created a cheap device 

made of paper to quickly and easily 

measure a patient’s liver health without 

a hospital’s laboratory tools. 

cenm.ag/anl55 

Drug Delivery Hooked 

On Sugar 

In an advance for drug delivery, researchers 

have demonstrated that they 

can slip large biological molecules inside 

cells by tagging them with small molecules 

called boronates. The boronates 

deliver molecular cargo by reacting with 

sugars on the cell surface. The researchers 

hope the new delivery method will 

aid the development of treatments for 

cancer and other diseases. 

cenm.ag/bio13 

Introducing Fine Line 

CENtral Science introduces its newest 

blog, Fine Line. C&EN Senior Editor 

Rick Mullin covers the fine chemicals 

market, keeping you up-to-date on 

the latest moves by companies and 

changes in industry regulations. In his 

first post, he describes the mood at the 

Informex meeting in New Orleans after 

recent changes in senior management 

at several firms. 

cenblog.org/fine-line 


2012 SPECIAL ISSUE: 

Fundamental and Applied Reviews 

in Analytical Chemistry 

The January 17, 2012 issue of Analytical Chemistry combines topics previously separated in alternate years 

as “Fundamental” or “Applied” into a single yearly issue of “Fundamental and Applied Reviews in Analytical 

Chemistry”. This issue provides critical reviews from pioneers in carefully selected cutting edge topics and by 

experts in traditional areas of analytical chemistry. 

Point of Care Diagnostics: Status 

and Future 

Vladimir Gubala, Leanne F. Harris, Antonio J. 

Ricco, Ming X. Tan, and David E. Williams 

DOI: 10.1021/ac2030199 

Micro Total Analysis Systems for Cell 

Biology and Biochemical Assays 

Michelle L. Kovarik, Philip C. Gach, Douglas 

M. Ornoff, Yuli Wang, Joseph Balowski, Lila 

Farrag, and Nancy L. Allbritton 

DOI: 10.1021/ac202611x 

Nanoparticles in Measurement Science 

Francis P. Zamborini, Lanlan Bao, and 

Radhika Dasari 

DOI: 10.1021/ac203233q 

Capillary Electrophoresis 

Matthew Geiger, Amy L. Hogerton, and 

Michael T. Bowser 

DOI: 10.1021/ac203205a 

Molecular Fluorescence, Phosphorescence, 

and Chemiluminescence Spectrometry 

Susmita Das, Aleeta M. Powe, Gary A. 

Baker, Bertha Valle, Bilal El-Zahab, Herman 

O. Sintim, Mark Lowry, Sayo O. Fakayode, 

Matthew E. McCarroll, Gabor Patonay, Min 

Li, Robert M. Strongin, Maxwell L. Geng, and 

Isiah M. Warner 

DOI: 10.1021/ac202904n 

Chiral Separations: A Review of 

Current Topics and Trends 

Timothy J. Ward and Karen D. Ward 

DOI: 10.1021/ac202892w 

X-ray Spectrometry 

Kouichi Tsuji and Kazuhiko Nakano , Yoshio 

Takahashi , Kouichi Hayashi , Chul-Un Ro 

DOI: 10.1021/ac202871b 

New Electrochemical Methods 

Christopher Batchelor-McAuley, Edmund J. F. 

Dickinson, Neil V. Rees, Kathryn E. Toghill, and 

Richard G. Compton 

DOI: 10.1021/ac2026767 

Electrochemical Sensors and Biosensors 

Danielle W. Kimmel, Gabriel LeBlanc, Mika E. 

Meschievitz, and David E. Cliffel 

DOI: 10.1021/ac202878q 

High Resolution Mass Spectrometry 

Feng Xian, Christopher L. Hendrickson, 

and Alan G. Marshall 

DOI: 10.1021/ac203191t 

To View All the Articles from the Special 

Issue please visit pubs.acs.org/ac

news of the week 

FEBRUARY 27, 2012 EDITED BY WILLIAM G. SCHULZ & SOPHIA L. CAI 

DIOXINS, 

ASSESSED AT LAST 

POLLUTION: After years of study, 

EPA sets safe level of exposure 

to the most toxic congener 

AFTER 21 YEARS of contentious scientific analysis, 

the Environmental Protection Agency has 

established a safe level of exposure to the most 

toxic form of dioxin. 

EPA set a safe daily dose of 0.7 picograms of 

2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo- p -dioxin (TCDD) per kilogram 

of body weight. TCDD is the most potent congener 

of the dioxins, which generally are unintentional 

by-products of manufacturing processes involving 

chlorine and burning of biomass or waste. 

Eventually, this defined level of safe exposure will 

affect the degree—and cost—of cleanups of soil and of 

industrial air and water releases polluted with dioxins. 

This category of chemicals consists of chlorinated 

dioxins and furans and certain polychlorinated biphenyls. 

These substances can trigger similar adverse 

health effects, but their potencies vary. 

The exact regulatory impacts of the agency’s determination 

, which was released on Feb. 17, are as yet uncertain. 

EPA’s new level “will serve as the cornerstone 

of the agency’s initiatives to protect public health from 

chemical contaminants and provide the necessary 

guidance to states and public health agencies to minimize 

dioxin exposure,” says Olga Naidenko, a senior 

scientist with the Environmental Working Group, an 

activist group. 

The American Chemistry Council, an industry organization 

that has invested much time and energy in 

influencing EPA’s work on this assessment, calls the 

agency’s conclusions “flawed.” 

Lois Marie Gibbs, executive 

director of the Center for Health, 

Environment & Justice, an environmental 

group that has focused 

on dioxin issues for years, hails 

the long-awaited completion of 

the agency’s effort. “The American people,” she says, 

“won a major victory against the chemical industry, 

which has been working behind closed doors for decades 

to hide and distort the truth about the dangers of 

dioxin.” 

Data in EPA’s annual Toxics Release Inventory indicate 

that U.S. industry has slashed its releases of dioxins 

in the past two decades (C&EN, Feb. 6, page 26). 

Cl 

Cl 

O 

O 

2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin 

Backyard waste burning is the major source of dioxins 

in the U.S. today. 

The EPA limit is based on two studies. One found 

adverse reproductive effects in men exposed to TCDD 

as boys. The other found hormonal effects in infants 

born to mothers who had high levels of exposure. 

People are exposed to dioxins mainly by eating 

meat, poultry, dairy products, fish, or eggs. However, 

EPA claims that “most Americans have only low-level 

exposure to dioxins,” adding that this “does not pose a 

significant health risk.” 

The agency’s document examines health effects 

other than cancer from TCDD exposure. They include 

chloracne, a severe skin disease producing acne-like 

WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG 5 FEBRUARY 27, 2012 

Cl 

Cl 

lesions; developmental and reproductive effects; damage 

to the immune system; hormonal disruption; and, 

possibly, mild liver damage. The agency is still working 

on a second document focusing on cancer hazards 

of TCDD. 

The assessment, which EPA launched in 1991 to 

update a 1985 document describing 

the cancer hazards of 

TCDD, has faced many delays. 

Throughout the years, polluting 

industries—including chemical 

companies—have faulted EPA’s 

work. Community and public 

health groups, meanwhile, have pressured the agency 

to finish the review. 

“After 21 years in the making, the dioxin assessment 

is in the hands of the American people,” says Paul T. 

Anastas, who oversaw release of the report on his final 

day as EPA’s top scientist (C&EN, Jan. 16, page 9). 

“I quite honestly never thought this report would 

ever see the light of day,” Gibbs says. — CHERYL HOGUE 

Backyard burning 

of waste is now 

the main source of 

dioxins, according 

to EPA. 

SHUTTERSTOCK


A BASF lab 

technician works 

on a lithium-ion 

test battery. 

BASF ADVANCES 

BATTERY AGENDA 

ENERGY STORAGE: Purchase of 

Merck KGaA’s electrolytes business 

bolsters battery materials unit 

ADVANCING ITS GOAL of becoming a major 

supplier of battery materials for electric vehicles, 

BASF will buy the lithium electrolytes and 

additives business of the German drug and chemical 

firm Merck . 

The acquisition is expected to 

close later this year for an undisclosed 

price. It comes a week after 

BASF paid $58 million to acquire 

Ovonic Battery , a Rochester Hills, 

Mich.-based firm that licenses the 

nickel-metal hydride battery technology 

used in most electric vehicles 

today (C&EN, Feb. 20, page 

10). Andreas Kreimeyer, a member 

of BASF’s board of directors, says 

the Merck electrolytes business 

“enhances the expertise we offer to 

BASF 

automotive battery manufacturers around the world.” 

Klaus Bofinger, head of Merck’s advanced technologies 

unit, explains that electrolytes, which conduct an 

electric charge inside a battery, have little in common 

with Merck’s other activities. BASF, he says, is better 

positioned to sell a variety of battery materials. 

BASF began a push into battery materials in 2009, 

when it took a role in a $55 million German industrygovernment 

consortium to develop affordable lithiumion 

batteries. It later licensed battery cathode technology 

from Argonne National Laboratory . Now it is building 

a $50 million cathode plant in Elyria, Ohio. Earlier this 

year the company paid $50 million for an equity position 

in Sion Power , a developer of lithium-sulfur batteries. 

At the start of 2012, BASF formally set up a battery 

materials business in which it expects to invest “a threedigit 

million” sum by 2016. In addition to electrolytes 

and cathodes, a spokesman says, the firm is also developing 

anodes and separators—the two other main 

components of a battery. Battery materials competitors 

include chemical firms Dow Chemical and Huntsman 

Corp. , as well as battery makers Samsung and LG Chem . 

The lithium-ion car battery market is small today but 

could reach $3 billion by 2017, says Kevin See, an analyst 

with the business research firm Lux Research. Limiting 

growth is the high cost of the batteries. “This is where 

material developers like BASF will be important in 

helping to reduce costs,” See says. —MARC REISCH 

Botulinum 

neurotoxin 

(orange) complexes 

with NTNHA 

(green) to avoid 

digestion. 

RONGSHENG JIN 

HOW A TOXIN 

AVOIDS DIGESTION 

BIOCHEMISTRY: The key to botulinum 

toxin’s oral toxicity may unlock ways 

to deliver protein drugs by mouth 

THE STRUCTURE OF a botulinum neurotoxin 

bound to a protein shield provides clues as to how 

the toxin survives the digestive tract, according 

to a new report ( Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1214270 ). 

The results may point to ways to prevent botulism 

specifically. More generally, they could suggest ways 

to orally deliver protein-based drugs, which now 

must be injected to avoid digestion. 

Botulism is muscle paralysis caused 

when a neurotoxin produced 

by the bacterium Clostridium 

botulinum inhibits release of a 

neurotransmitter. One way to 

get the disease is by eating toxincontaminated 

food, but how the 

large protein survives the digestive 

tract to get to the bloodstream and neurons 

has been an open question. 

Researchers knew that the neurotoxin is protected 

by another protein, called nontoxic nonhemagglutinin 

(NTNHA), but not how the shielding works. 

A group led by Rongsheng Jin , a neuroscience 

professor at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research 

Institute in La Jolla, Calif., has now solved the crystal 

structure of an inactivated botulinum neurotoxin 

complexed to its protector NTNHA. The structure 

shows that NTNHA largely surrounds the part of the 

toxin involved in binding neuron receptors and moving 

through membranes. The two proteins associate 

through electrostatic interactions between a positively 

charged toxin surface and a negatively charged NTNHA 

surface, the researchers found. 

At low pH, such as in the gut, key toxin glutamate 

and aspartate residues would be protonated, promoting 

association with NTNHA. At pH 7.5, such as in the 

bloodstream, the residues would be deprotonated, allowing 

release of the toxin from NTNHA. 

The new structural information helps explain the toxin’s 

oral toxicity, says Luisa Cheng , a U.S. Department of 

Agriculture biologist who was not involved in the work. 

The work won’t lead directly to a treatment for botulism, 

because symptoms appear only once the toxin 

reaches neurons. But a way to disrupt toxin-NTNHA 

association could stop the disease in the face of a potential 

outbreak, Jin says. It could also inspire new oral 

delivery methods for protein pharmaceuticals, such 

as by combining a therapeutic, a toxin fragment, and 

NTNHA. —JYLLIAN KEMSLEY 



MICHIGAN, DOW 

AGREE ON CLEANUP 

DIOXINS: Dow is also offering to buy 

50 properties near its Midland plant 

THE MICHIGAN Department of Environmental 

Quality (DEQ) says it has reached an agreement 

with Dow Chemical to clean up to 1,500 residential 

properties in Midland, Mich., that are contaminated 

with dioxins. 

In a related development, Dow says it is offering to 

buy approximately 50 homes and lots located within 

the industrial and commercially zoned area outlined in 

the cleanup agreement. 

DEQ is proposing a site-specific dioxin “action 

level” of 250 parts per trillion for residential soils in 

Midland. The city is the site of Dow’s corporate headquarters 

and a manufacturing plant that polluted the 

area with dioxins from the late 1890s until the 1970s. 

Studies have indicated that dioxin contamination 

of the soil downwind of the plant is a result of 

airborne emissions from Dow’s historic waste incineration 

activities. Various dioxins are contaminating 

the properties, a DEQ official tells C&EN. These 

include 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo- p -dioxin (TCDD) 

and 1,2,3,7,8-pentachlorodibenzo- p -dioxin, the two 

most potent congeners, as well as the less toxic 

octochlorodibenzodioxin. 

Under the agreement, Dow will devise a detailed 

work plan and submit it to the state for review in March. 

There will be a 45-day public comment period; DEQ will 

also hold a public hearing in April on Dow’s proposal. 

DEQ says it developed the cleanup level of 250 ppt 

in accordance with Environmental Protection Agencyapproved 

risk assessment procedures and with EPA’s 

input. Soil sampling in residential areas is expected to 

begin in June. 

AP 

“This proposed plan represents tremendous effort 

by the many partners gathered to address Midland’s 

dioxin issue,” DEQ Director Dan Wyant says. “The proposal 

is just the beginning of the work that lies ahead.” 

The total cost of the endeavor will not be known 

until it is determined how many of the 1,500 properties 

require cleaning and how much work needs to be done. 

Dow will cover all of the costs. 

Property owners have until June 30 to decide whether 

to accept Dow’s offer to clean or buy their homes 

and lots, which are located in two areas close to the 

plant. The program will also offer relocation support 

for those who rent these homes, if the property owner 

participates in the program. 

Owners who choose not to relocate will be offered 

testing and remediation of their properties, if necessary, 

according to Dow. 

“We see this as an opportunity to address land use 

near our manufacturing site and give people still living 

in this industrial/commercial area the choice to move 

elsewhere,” says Rich A. Wells, vice president and site 

director for Dow’s Michigan Operations. 

Dow has committed to purchase the 50 properties 

but has not set aside a specific dollar amount, a company 

spokesman tells C&EN. 

The announcement of the deal came just a day before 

EPA released an assessment of noncancer health effects 

of exposure to TCDD (see page 5). —GLENN HESS 

Dow’s Midland, 

Mich., industrial 

site. 

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Dow loses elastomers patent lawsuit against LG Chem 

Dow Chemical has lost the patent lawsuit 

it filed in 2009 in Seoul, South Korea, 

against LG Chem . Dow claimed that the 

Korean firm had violated its intellectual 

property rights on metallocene catalyst 

technology for producing ethylene-based 

elastomers. 

Dow is preparing to appeal the court’s 

ruling that its claim has no legal basis. 

“Dow believes that the district court’s decision 

is improper,” a company statement 

says. Prior to this judgment, the statement 

adds, “Dow’s patents were held valid 

by the Intellectual Property Tribunal of 

the Korean Intellectual Property Office.” 

LG Chem counters that it developed the 

technology on its own in 1999. The Korean 

firm opened a 90,000-metric-ton-per-year 

plant making use of the process in 2008. 

Chemical companies have fought several 

legal battles over metallocene catalyst 

technology in recent years. Although 

the market for resins made with the catalysts 

is not yet huge, it is growing quickly, 

according to Juay Piu Nah, a polyolefins 

industry consultant at IHS Chemical in 

Singapore. “If you can hold on to your 

technology, you can be a player in the 

long run,” he says. 

At a catalyst conference sponsored by 

Chemical Market Resources in Shanghai 

last year, Director of Client Services J. N. 

Swamy said South Korean chemical makers 

are eager to differentiate themselves 

with unique technologies. “They have 

very advanced R&D centers in Korea because 

the companies are under so much 

competitive pressure,” he observed. — 

JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY 



F 

F 

R 

F 

R 

F 

F 

F 

H 2 N + 

HN 

Aniline 

+ 

F 

B 

F 

F 

H 2 

F 

F 

F 

Cyclohexyl 

derivative 

F 

– [HB(C 6 F 5 ) 3 ] 

F 

F 

METAL-FREE 

HYDROGENATIONS 

ORGANIC SYNTHESIS: Lewis acid-base 

pairs enable unprecedented reduction 

of anilines and other aromatics 

IN A CHEMICAL FIRST, an international research 

team has developed a metal-free reaction that hydrogenates 

aromatic rings to form cyclohexyl derivatives. 

The achievement could spark a broader range of 

applications for industrial hydrogenations, which are 

widely used for processing petroleum and foods. 

A metal-free aromatic hydrogenation is surprising, 

says team leader Douglas W. Stephan of the University 

of Toronto, because it’s exceedingly hard to overcome 

the additional stability a molecule gains from aromaticity, 

even with the best transition-metal catalysts. 

Stephan and his colleagues have done so by using a 

chemical construct known as a frustrated Lewis pair, 

which Stephan introduced in 2006. 

Lewis acid-base adducts are common in chemistry: 

An electron-deficient Lewis acid readily shares a Lewis 

base’s spare pair of electrons. However, when the Lewis 

acid and base have bulky substituents, their ability to 

form a close relationship is denied, causing the pair to 

become “frustrated.” 

But the pair still garners penned-up reactivity, comparable 

with that of an organometallic catalyst. Several 

research groups have shown that frustrated Lewis pairs 

can intercept and split H 2 during an electron tug-of-war 

and subsequently hydrogenate compounds such as imines, 

silyl ethers, and N-heterocyclic compounds. 

Stephan’s group in collaboration with computational 

chemist Stefan Grimme at the University of Bonn, in 

Germany, tackled the hydrogenation of aromatics by 

using B(C 6 F 5 ) 3 as the Lewis acid and various anilines 

as the Lewis base ( J. Am. Chem. Soc., DOI: 10.1021/ 

ja300228a ). When H 2 is added, the frustrated Lewis 

pair splits H 2 and then reductively adds hydrogens to 

aniline’s aromatic ring to form cyclohexylammonium 

borate salts. Stephan says the salts could be easily deprotonated 

to release the free cyclohexylamines. 

Princeton University’s David W. C. MacMillan , an expert 

in metal-free organocatalytic reactions, says the reactivity 

of frustrated Lewis pairs “is conceptually really 

intriguing” and that the new chemistry “certainly makes 

one think differently about the notion of aromatic 

hydrogenations. All in all, this work points to the exceptional 

fertility of this area for new reactivity discoveries 

and for mechanistic explorations.” —STEVE RITTER 

STM image shows 

a lithography mask 

used to incorporate 

a phosphorus atom 

at center pink spot 

and electrical leads 

at pink rectangular 

sites to create 

a single-atom 

transistor. 

VIDEO ONLINE 

NANOELECTRONICS: Device’s 

performance bodes well for 

quantum computing 

IN WORK THAT COULD ADVANCE the development 

of quantum computers, researchers have created a 

transistor that consists of a single atom positioned 

precisely between two electrodes in a silicon 

MARTIN FUECHSLE 

SINGLE-ATOM 

TRANSISTOR 

substrate. Quantum computers could perform 

some calculations not possible on 

current computers, such as solving the 

Schrödinger equation for large molecules. 

Quantum computing specialist Michelle 

Y. Simmons of the University of 

New South Wales, in Australia, and 

coworkers prepared the transistor. 

They used scanning tunneling 

microscopy, lithography, and 

phosphine chemistry to place, with single-lattice-site 

spatial accuracy, an individual phosphorus atom between 

electrodes in a silicon device ( Nat. Nanotechnol., 

For the researchers’ take on the significance of 

their single-atom transistor, visit cenm.ag/trans. 

DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2012.21 ). Such precise positioning 

hadn’t been achieved before. 

Single-atom transistors could be combined to give 

integrated circuits of unprecedented density. But creating 

such transistors is painstaking, and the feasibility 

of making devices that comprise millions or billions of 

them is not yet known. The transistor operates only at 

close to absolute zero, also limiting applications for now. 

Nevertheless, the phosphorus transistor represents 

a step toward quantum computers. Quantum computers 

would achieve greater power and speed by encoding 

information in qubits, which adopt more states than 

just the two (0 and 1) in conventional computers bits. 

Precise atom positioning would be required to interrogate 

the information in qubits accurately. 

Device modeler Asen Asenov of the University of 

Glasgow believes the experimentation is “groundbreaking.” 

Molecular device fabricator Robert A. 

Wolkow of the University of Alberta believes that Simmons’ 

group and others reported substantially similar 

results earlier. Some of the study’s simulations have 

technical deficiencies, Asenov adds. 

Quantum computing expert Bruce E. Kane of the University 

of Maryland notes that the one-atom transistor 

is not currently practical for conventional devices, nor 

does it carry out quantum operations. But he calls the 

work “an experimental and engineering tour de force” 

and believes Simmons’ group now has the requisite tools 

to begin building quantum computers “that would go beyond 

the current state of the art.” —STU BORMAN 



UNCERTAIN PATH 

FOR H5N1 RESEARCH 

POLICY: A closed-door meeting and a 

vague statement from an international 

panel muddy the road ahead 

HOW TO MOVE forward with controversial research 

on the H5N1 avian flu virus, including 

publication of two papers reporting on recent 

experimental work, has grown murkier in the wake of a 

Feb. 17 statement from the World Health Organization . 

According to WHO, an expert panel it convened 

“reached consensus on two urgent issues related to 

the newly created H5N1 influenza viruses: extending 

the temporary moratorium on research with new 

laboratory-modified H5N1 viruses and recognizing that 

research on naturally occurring H5N1 influenza virus 

must continue in order to protect public health.” The 

statement also says that the panel supports full publication 

of two research papers on the work, accepted 

by Nature and Science , “however, there are significant 

public health concerns surrounding this research that 

should first be addressed.” 

“I am not sure exactly what the decision means 

because it’s qualified,” said Bruce M. Alberts, editorin-chief 

of Science , at a hastily assembled news briefing 

in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the same day WHO 

released the statement. Alberts agreed to talk to the 

press at the American Association for the Advancement 

of Science annual meeting, in part to squelch rumors 

concerning the paper Science controls. The journal is 

published by AAAS. 

The WHO panel of experts met behind closed doors 

at WHO headquarters in Geneva on Feb. 16–17. WHO 

required each expert, including the primary authors of 

the Science and Nature papers, to sign a confidentiality 

agreement barring them from open discussion of the 

deliberations. Public fear about avian flu along with the 

panel’s detailed review of the unpublished experimental 

work—deemed “dual use” and thus dangerous— 

dictated the secrecy, WHO says. 

At the AAAS press briefing, Alberts revealed that 

Science and Nature had been planning to publish in 

mid-March redacted versions of the two papers that 

describe experiments to artificially mutate the H5N1 

virus, making it more contagious 

and virulent. Under 

this plan, the journals would 

have been following the recommendations 

of the U.S. 

National Science Advisory 

Board for Biosecurity ( C&EN, 

Feb. 6, page 6 ). NSABB Acting 

Chair Paul Keim of Northern 

Arizona University was a 

member of the WHO panel. 

“Certainly now that’s not 

going to happen,” said Alberts, 

referring to the March 

publication plan. 

In a statement, Nature Editor-in-Chief 

Philip Campbell, who was a member of the 

WHO panel, said: “Discussions at the WHO meeting 

made it clear how ineffective redaction and restricted 

distribution would be for the Nature paper. It also underlined 

how beneficial publication of the full paper 

could be. So that is how we intend to proceed.” 

Alberts was less definitive: “My reading is that both 

Nature and Science are to wait until we get some further 

information from WHO and other authorities about 

when, in fact, we are to publish the full manuscripts.” 

But WHO is not dictating decisions for Science , 

Alberts insisted. Instead, “we’re allowing them to say, 

‘Delay publication until issues are resolved.’ ” It is 

reasonable, Alberts said, that public fears about the research 

be addressed first. — WILLIAM SCHULZ 

AAAS 

Alberts 

PHARMACEUTICALS Food & Drug Administration acts to ease cancer drug shortages 

FDA has taken steps to boost the supply 

of two critical cancer drugs—Doxil and 

methotrexate—both of which have been 

facing nationwide shortages. 

FDA will temporarily allow importation 

of the unapproved drug Lipo-Dox, from 

India-based Sun Pharma, as a replacement 

for Doxil, FDA Commissioner Margaret 

A. Hamburg announced on Feb. 21. 

FDA has also fast-tracked the approval of 

preservative-free methotrexate from APP 

Pharmaceuticals, and the agency is working 

with other companies to ramp up production 

of methotrexate, Hamburg said. 

FDA’s latest actions add to a growing 

list of measures the agency has taken 

since President Barack Obama signed an 

executive order last October to alleviate 

the growing problem of drug shortages in 

the U.S. Those measures include developing 

a database to track drug shortages, 

sharing information with the Justice Department 

to address stockpiling of drugs 

and exorbitant pricing, and collaborating 

with industry and other stakeholders. 

There has been a sixfold increase in 

the number of firms voluntarily notifying 

FDA of potential drug shortages since the 

executive order. Despite the increase, FDA 

fully supports legislation, H.R. 2245 and 

S. 296, that would require manufacturers 

to report all drug shortages to the agency 

and would give it enforcement authority. 

“We know that advanced notification 

works. But to truly be most effective, 

Congress must grant FDA the authority 

it needs to require notification for all 

lifesaving drugs,” Rep. Diana L. DeGette 

(D-Colo.), sponsor of H.R. 2245, said in a 

statement. “And manufacturers that do 

not comply should be penalized for putting 

patients at risk.” — BRITT ERICKSON 


COVER STORY 

DABBLING IN FLUORINE 

With their latest synthetic methods, ORGANIC CHEMISTS 

help tackle challenges in fluorine chemistry 

STEPHEN K. RITTER , C&EN WASHINGTON 

THERE’S A SHAKE-UP taking place in 

fluorine chemistry. Synthetic organic 

chemists who don’t normally mess with 

fluorine are stepping in with their toolbox 

of synthetic methods to broaden the range 

of fluorination reactions. 

Behind the trend are pharmaceutical and 

agricultural chemical companies, which 

need fluorine in their bioactive compounds 

to keep metabolism in check, facilitate 

delivery to a target, or improve binding 

to that target. But fluorine’s hard-tohandle 

notoriety has limited these 

companies to using simple fluorinated 

starting reagents, constraining 

their ability to crank 

out new lead compounds that 

could benefit from a wellplaced 

fluorine group. 

Enter the organic chemists, 

who have already used 

O 

HO 

cross-coupling reactions, which were the 

basis of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 

to fundamentally shift how companies 

conduct new-molecule discovery. Crosscoupling 

and other reactions are allowing 

discovery chemists to more efficiently 

create the complex molecular frameworks 

they need. Now discovery chemists want to 

use the same strategies to more efficiently 

install fluorine in molecules—to do fluorinations 

with less fuss. The contributions 

of synthetic organic chemists are greatly 

easing the work of discovery chemists 

handling fluorine chemistry, although in 

one key area—practical catalytic fluorinations—success 

still is elusive. 

Fluorine chemists are feeling chagrined 

by the invasion of their turf, although they 

acknowledge that this is one case where 

having too many cooks in the kitchen is a 

good thing. Chemists in industry are ecstatic 

because they suddenly are gaining access 

to new ways of getting fluorine into their 

molecules, likely accelerating the discovery 

process. All the kinks haven’t yet been 

worked out, but the new dynamic is already 

leading to a burst of synthetic advances. 

“The benefit of adding one, two, or three 

F 

F 

H 

Fluticasone (component of 

GlaxoSmithKline’s Seretide) 

Atorvastatin (Pfizer’s Lipitor) 

3 out of 10 

best-selling drugs in 

2011 contain fluorine 

HO 

O 

OH 

H 3 C 

N 

S 

N 

O 

N 

OH 

CH3 

Rosuvastatin (AstraZeneca’s Crestor) 


O 

F 

F 

fluorines into a molecule has definitely 

been recognized by mainstream synthetic 

organic chemists,” says William R. Dolbier 

Jr. , a seasoned fluorine chemist at the University 

of Florida. “This trend is playing out 

because researchers at pharmaceutical and 

agrochemical companies are interested 

in finding truly useful ways to get fluorine 

into organic molecules—methods 

that are catalytic, inex- 

F 

O 

S 

O 

OH 

OH 

H 

N N 

H 

pensive, easy to use, and have high yields.” 

Dolbier’s group is known for using 

the reducing agent tetrakis(dimethylamino)ethylene, 

or TDAE, with fluorinated 

precursors such as CF 3 I to generate 

in situ fluorinated carbanions that 

effectively add CF 3 groups to molecules. 

His team also developed trimethylsilyl 

2-(fluorosulfonyl)-2,2-difluoroacetate, 

or TFDA. This reagent has extended the 

scope of synthetic difluorocarbene chemistry, 

enabling the construction of difluorocyclopropane 

substituents, for example. 

Dolbier has mixed feelings about the 

influx of fluorine newcomers. One reservation 

he has is that some of them are not 

scrupulous about referencing relevant earlier 

work. However, he understands how such 

lapses can happen. Much like the new crop 

of organic chemists engaging in fluorine 

research, Dolbier also was an organic chemist 

before he started making forays into 

OH 

O 

fluorine chemistry in the 1970s. 

Because fluorine chemistry is 

OH 

an esoteric field, Dolbier says 

he sometimes found himself 

“rediscovering the wheel” 

as a consequence of not being fully aware of 

the fluorine literature. 

“There is one part of you that wants 

to tell the newcomers: ‘Hey, stay 

out of our field. Leave the fluorine 

chemistry to us. We can do it,’ ” 

Dolbier says. “On the other hand, we have 

to recognize that they are bringing in the 

methodologies they use with nonfluorinated 

compounds and adapting them to 

fluorine chemistry to create great new reagents. 

They are making novel, worthwhile 

contributions to the field.” 

LIKE DOLBIER, fluorine veteran G. K. Surya 

Prakash of the University of Southern California 

(USC) also has mixed feelings about 

the new developments. “Chemists who are 

doing leading organic and organometallic 

chemistry and traditionally develop methodologies 

for drug discovery and natural 

product synthesis have realized there is a 

bonanza by focusing on fluorine chemistry,” 

Prakash says. “Fluorine has become a 

driving force—it’s the new kingpin of drug 

discovery.” 

Prakash is a little disappointed, however, 

that some of the new results are being 

touted as though fluorine chemistry is 

something new. “Still,” he adds, “it’s a pretty 

good thing for the field that an energetic 

wave of organic chemists is joining in and 

developing new methodologies.” 

Prakash is best known for his work with

trifluoromethyltrimethylsilane (TMSCF 3 ). 

In 1989, he and his colleagues showed it is 

an ideal reagent for adding CF 3 to carbonyl 

compounds. Now known as the Ruppert- 

Prakash reagent, TMSCF 3 is the most 

widely used source of CF 3 for trifluoromethylation 

reactions. 

Working with USC colleague and Nobel 

Laureate George A. Olah, Prakash has made 

dozens of fluorine chemistry discoveries 

over the past 25 years. Just recently, 

Prakash and his colleagues reported a 

method to make a trifluoromethylated 

version of the pesticide DDT, which 

may be more potent than plain DDT and 

biodegradable ( Org. Lett., DOI: 10.1021/ 

ol201669a ). They also developed 

a Heck coupling 

reaction for the synthesis 

of trifluoromethylstyrenes 

H 3 C 

( Org. Lett., 10.1021/ol300076y ). 

“This new trend is not a shift 

where academics are suddenly spending 

all their time on fluorine chemistry,” notes 

fluorine newbie Phil 

S. Baran of Scripps Research 

Institute. “For 

O 

O 

N 

H 

Cl 

N 

NH 2 

H 

N 

N 

O 

CH 3 O 

HN 

Vandetanib (AstraZeneca’s Caprelsa) 

N 

H 

Ezogabine (GlaxoSmithKline’s Potiga) 

our group, it’s more of a hobby, 

not a main thrust—we’re 

dabbling in fluorine 

chemistry.” 

Baran explains 

that during 

consulting 

trips to pharmaceutical 

companies 

he hears 

about how 

medicinal 

F 

O 

HN 

Vemurafenib (Genentech’s Zelboraf) 

F 

F 

O 

S 

O 

chemists sometimes struggle to add a CF 3 in 

just the right place or put in a CF 2 H group. 

“There is a fundamental desire for organic 

chemists to understand chemical 

reactivity with the potential for direct applications,” 

Baran says. “These forays into 

fluorine chemistry are a natural response of 

the academic community to what discovery 

chemists are saying is useful to them.” 

Peter T. Cheng, a research scientist in 

metabolic diseases discovery chemistry at 

Bristol-Myers Squibb , says medicinal chemists 

don’t normally talk with fluorine chemists, 

although he and his colleagues do read 

their research papers. On the other hand, 

medicinal chemists do regularly interact 

with frontline organic synthetic chemists. 

“When we talk with academic chemists, 

they very curiously ask about the synthetic 

challenges we are facing,” Cheng says. 

“They see problems out there that are of 

importance to everyone that they think 

they can solve.” 

MEDICINAL CHEMISTS generally buy 

prefluorinated starting materials and then 

functionalize them further, Cheng notes. 

But they would prefer to run a few synthetic 

steps and then add fluorine later, he says. 

“We are glad the organic 

N 

chemists are working on 

fluorinations,” Cheng 

N 

F 

Br 

7 out of 35 

new drugs approved in 

2011 contain fluorine 

O 

O 

F 

H 

F 

Ioflupane (GE Healthcare’s DaTscan) 

Roflumilast (Forest Pharmaceuticals’ Daliresp) 


F 

Cl 

O 

N 

H 

says. “Most fluorinations were previously 

done on unadorned or simply functionalized 

phenyl rings. But now direct fluorinations 

are possible at C–H bonds of 

complex functionalized phenyls and 

heteroaromatics, which are the truly 

useful building blocks for drugs. This new 

trend will ultimately allow us to add fluorine 

at will under mild conditions.” 

Baran’s group now has two fluorine 

chemistry papers to its credit, and more 

are on the way. The first one, published 

last year, reports the trifluoromethylation 

of pyridines and other nitrogen-based 

heteroaromatics using CF 3 radicals 

( Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, DOI: 10.1073/ 

pnas.1109059108 ). 

Fluorine chemists have been preparing 

Cl 

N 

N 

O 

and using CF 3 radicals for decades, Baran 

notes. One reaction involves CF 3 I gas, 

which is inconvenient to handle and tends 

to be too harsh for functionally complex 

compounds, so medicinal chemists don’t 

like using it, he says. 

Baran’s team makes CF 3 radicals instead 

by using tert -butyl hydroperoxide as an 

oxidant to controllably decompose sodium 

trifluoromethylsulfinate, NaSO 2 CF 3 . This 

stable, inexpensive solid, known as Langlois 

reagent for Bernard R. Langlois of Claude 

Bernard University, in Lyon, France, has often 

been used for fluorination reactions. 

The second paper, published this year, reports 

a similar process to add CF 2 H groups 

to nitrogen heterocycles by generating 

CF 2 H radicals from the reaction between 

tert -butyl hydroperoxide and the new 

reagent Zn(SO 2 CF 2 H) 2 ( J. Am. Chem. 

OCH 3 

F 

123 I 

F 

S 

N 

NHH 

N 

N 

N 

NN OH OH 

O 

Ticagrelor (AstraZeneca’s Brilinta) 

H 

N 

N N 

Cl 

Soc., DOI: 10.1021/ja211422g ). This 

zinc reagent is already available 

from Sigma-Aldrich. 

O 

N 

Cl 

Crizotinib (Pfizer’s Xalkori) 

Generating a CF 2 H group 

usually requires deoxyfluorinating 

reagents. These 

electrophilic reagents 

F 

NH 2 

OH 

typically store 

fluorine 

in an N–F bond and 

convert carbonyl groups 

into CF 2 H or CF 2 groups, 

and alcohols into CH 2 F 

groups. More than a halfdozen 

such reagents 

are commercially 

available. But 

they tend to be 

harsh and nonselective 

for discovery 

chemistry 

and thus 

not practical 

for 

fluorinations at later stages of a multistep 

synthesis. Adding a premade CF 2 H group 

in the manner Baran’s team has done was 

previously unheard of. 

In a related development, last year David 

W. C. MacMillan of Princeton University led 

a team that made CF 3 radicals from a lightinduced 

reaction involving a ruthenium

COVER STORY 

photocatalyst and trifluoromethanesulfonyl 

chloride, ClSO 2 CF 3 , a reagent shown to be 

useful for radical trifluoromethylations by 

Nobumasa Kamigata of Tokyo Metropolitan 

University. MacMillan and coworkers 

showed that the approach can add CF 3 

groups to already functionalized aryl groups 

in molecules such as ibuprofen ( Nature, 

DOI: 10.1038/nature10647 ). 

“The idea we are pursuing is to rapidly 

append fluorinated groups to diverse collections 

of compounds for discovery screening, 

rather than having to build fluorinated 

molecules one at a time,” Baran says. Baran 

and his coworkers want to do the reactions 

in open air at room temperature; using the 

cheapest, lowest toxicity reagents they can 

find or invent; using substrates with unprotected 

functional groups; and all in singlepot 

reactions. “Coffee cup chemistry—just 

dump in and stir,” Baran says. 

FLUORINE NEWCOMER John F. Hartwig of 

the University of California, Berkeley, thinks 

the spark that ignited the flurry of fluorine 

activity came from pharmaceutical companies 

better articulating their unmet needs. 

“For our group, it’s more of a 

hobby, not a main thrust—we’re 

dabbling in fluorine chemistry.” 

“Fluorine chemists have already developed 

methods to take simple fluorinated 

starting materials and then halogenate, 

aminate, and do whatever else needs to be 

done to create the hundreds of fluorinated 

molecules available in a chemical catalog,” 

Hartwig notes. “Those contributions are 

really important.” 

But the growing dependence during the 

past 15 years on catalytic cross-coupling 

reactions, which are one of Hartwig’s 

specialties, has created some needs that 

can’t be met by the existing reagents or the 

methods to make them, he points out. 

Chemists who want to create a collection 

of compounds, such as a group of drug 

candidates, might now start with an intermediate 

containing an aryl halide, Hartwig 

explains. The aryl group would already have 

been functionalized with other desired 

groups in previous steps. The researchers 

would next do a series of separate crosscoupling 

derivatization steps, such as Suzuki 

coupling, Negishi coupling, Heck reaction, 

C–N coupling, C–O coupling, ketone 

arylation, and other reactions, to make from 

that aryl halide intermediate dozens to hundreds 

of unique molecules to test. 

“Discovery chemists also want to make 

sets of fluorinated analogs,” Hartwig says. 

“But they don’t want to revert to a chemical 

catalog and buy 10 or 20 different premade 

fluorine reagents and start each synthesis 

from scratch—they want to start from 

that same prefunctionalized aryl halide 

intermediate. 

“That’s an organic synthesis need that’s 

different now than it was before people did 

so much cross-coupling,” Hartwig continues. 

“But we also have a parallel line of fluo- 

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COVER STORY 

rine chemists who have been doing organofluorine 

chemistry for a long time. What we 

are now doing is helping make those parallel 

lines of interests intersect.” 

To that end, Hartwig’s group has published 

two papers on copper-mediated fluorinations, 

and it plans to publish more. The 

work stems from mechanistic studies in the 

Hartwig lab and builds on the work of other 

research groups, including those of Donald 

J. Burton of the University of Iowa and 

Hideki Amii of Gunma University, in Japan. 

To date, the majority of metal-mediated 

fluorination reactions use copper reagents. 

Hartwig’s team used (phen)CuCF 3 , a 

CuCF 3 complex with a phenanthroline 

ligand, to trifluoromethylate a range of 

aryl compounds under mild conditions 

( Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., DOI: 10.1002/ 

anie.201100633 ). The researchers prepare 

the copper reagent in high yield by sequentially 

adding 1,10-phenanthroline and then 

TMSCF 3 to [CuOC(CH 3 ) 3 ] 4 . The phenanthroline 

ligand helps speed up the reaction 

and stabilizes CuCF 3 against side reactions 

sparked by its decomposition to a difluorocarbene. 

The (phen)CuCF 3 reagent is now 

Baran’s fluorinations 

R 

N 

and other 

heterocycles 

R 

N 

and other 

heterocycles 

NaSO 2 CF 3 

(CH 3 ) 3 COOH 

Zn(SO 2 CF 2 H) 2 

(CH 3 ) 3 COOH 

CF 3 

made commercially by Catylix , a company 

Hartwig cofounded, and it’s available for 

sale in the Sigma-Aldrich catalog, he says. 

R 

R 

N 

N 

CF 2 H 

COPPER and the phenanthroline ligand are 

cheap, Hartwig says, and the reagent is easy 

to handle, thermally stable, and operates at 

room temperature or with mild heating, he 

notes. Hartwig’s contribution to coppermediated 

chemistry is in showing that it 

can be used on a broad scope, adding perfluoroalkyl 

groups not only to aryl iodides 

as others have shown, but also to selected 

aryl bromides and aryl boronates, including 

those with electron-rich, electron-deficient, 

or sterically hindered substituents. 

“Our reagent is something a medicinal 

chemist can pull off the shelf and drop into 

a round-bottomed flask or into 96 tubes in 

a rack,” Hartwig says. “Maybe the reaction 

doesn’t meet all the green chemistry needs. 

But it does meet the needs of medicinal 

chemists for milder and more versatile 

fluorinating reagents.” 

For Thomas M. Stevenson, a research 

fellow in discovery chemistry at DuPont 

Crop Protection , the ability of Baran, 

MacMillan, Hartwig, and others to apply 

organic synthesis methods to fluorinations 

is enabling fluorine chemistry in ways not 

possible before. 

“It’s true that we have traditionally 

bought our fluorine compounds and derivatized 

them because fluorine chemistry 

is hard to do, especially at the end of a synthetic 

sequence,” Stevenson says. “But in a 

perfect world we would like to have one intermediate 

that we can derivatize in many 

different ways. When optimizing a lead 

compound, we want to try CF 3 in almost 

every position in the molecule. 

“That is where this new chemistry comes 

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in handy,” Stevenson continues. “Diversification 

at the end of a synthesis rather than 

at the beginning is a real time-saver and is 

transforming our efficiency—it is really 

fantastic for our throughput and our ability 

to carry out optimization programs. And the 

idea that you can do this in a nonspecialist 

way—really anyone can do this chemistry— 

makes our job easier.” 

Stevenson says he and his colleagues are 

trying many of the newly reported methods. 

For example, he recently put two CF 3 

groups on a molecule in the last synthetic 

step, something not possible before. “For 

me it’s an exciting time to be a discovery 

chemist because we have the opportunity 

to make many molecules today that would 

have been difficult to make 25 years ago.” 

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FLUORINE SPECIALISTS themselves 

are taking inspiration from the transitionmetal-catalyzed 

cross-coupling reactions. 

Among them is Feng-Ling Qing of the Chinese 

Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute 

of Organic Chemistry (SIOC). 

SIOC has a long history in fluorine chemistry, 

Qing relates, and it even has a separate 

organofluorine chemistry department with 

10 research groups. The Shanghai area is 

home to many pharmaceutical and fine 

chemicals companies, and more are popping 

up across China, he notes. “Scientists at 

these companies often require fluorinated 

compounds, so they come to SIOC to discuss 

fluorine chemistry with us,” Qing says. 

In response, Qing’s group recently developed 

oxidative trifluoromethylation reactions 

that use copper and TMSCF 3 to introduce 

fluorinated groups into organic molecules. 

For example, his team has carried out 

trifluoromethylations of terminal alkynes 

via cross-coupling ( J. Am. Chem. Soc., DOI: 

10.1021/ja102175w ), trifluoromethylations 

of aryl boronic acids via cross-coupling 

( Org. Lett., DOI: 10.1021/ol1023135 ), and trifluoromethylthiolations—SCF 

3 group additions—of 

aryl boronic acids ( Angew. Chem. 

Int. Ed., DOI: 10.1002/anie.201108663 ). 

Given the functional group tolerance, 

broad substrate scope, and mild reaction 

conditions of these methods, Qing believes 

they can be used to fluorinate highly functionalized 

compounds at the later stages of 

a synthetic sequence. 

The influx of new methods has the added 

benefit of expanding the fluorine chemistry 

skill set of young synthetic organic chemists 

in industry, University of Florida’s Dolbier 

points out. “Many of the research chemists 

working at pharmaceutical and agrochemical 

companies come out of large academic 

organic synthesis groups and have no experience 

in fluorine chemistry,” Dolbier notes. 

What they know about fluorine, he says, 

comes from on-the-job training, including 

the fluorine chemistry short courses Dolbier 

teaches at pharma and agchem companies. 

Even when it comes to process chemistry, 

when syntheses are scaled up for commercial 

production, the fluorine chemistry 

steps are usually farmed out to contract 

research organizations that specialize in 

fluorine chemistry. It is unusual for pharmaceutical 

or agrochemical companies 

to hire people with any experience with 

fluorine, Dolbier says. “But that may change 

now that some synthetic organic groups are 

working with fluorine.” 

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COVER STORY 

One scientist who is showing how fluorine 

expertise could be more widespread 

among synthetic organic chemists is Harvard 

University’s Tobias Ritter . Classically 

trained as an organic chemist, but with 

experience in organometallics and fluorine 

chemistry as well, Ritter has focused on 

fluorine chemistry during the first few years 

of his academic career. As several chemists 

tell C&EN, Ritter is a “human 

catalyst” helping the new wave of 

fluorine chemistry pick up speed. 

Among the Ritter group’s 

achievements so far is a new 

imidazolium-based deoxyfluorinating 

reagent that transforms 

substituted phenols into aryl 

fluorides ( J. Am. Chem. Soc., DOI: 

10.1021/ja2048072 ). His team has 

also carried out silver-mediated reactions 

that use the commercial electrophilic fluorinating 

reagent Selectfluor to convert aryl 

tin compounds into aryl fluorides and aryl 

tin compounds and aryl boronic acids into 

trifluoromethoxy derivatives ( J. Am. Chem. 

Soc., DOI: 10.1021/ja105834t and 10.1021/ 

ja204861a ). 

Ritter and coworkers most recently 

devised a palladium-based electrophilic 

fluorinating reagent and used it in the 

late-stage synthesis of 18 F-labeled aromatic 

compounds for positron emission tomography 

(PET) diagnostic imaging ( Science, 

DOI: 10.1126/science.1212625 ). Preparing 

18 

F compounds has always been precarious 

because of the 110-minute half-life of 

Qing’s fluorinations 

R 

R 

B(OH) 2 

TMSCF 3 , CuI, KF 

CF 3 

TMSCF 3 , CuX, S 8 

SCF 3 

R 

R 

the isotope. The compounds are limited to 

simple molecules such as deoxyglucose. 

The new synthesis shows that much more 

diverse molecules can be used for PET. 

The originality of Ritter’s work makes 

these new methods “real home runs,” 

Scripps’ Baran says. “Ritter has turned 

out to be the poster child for the resurgence 

in fluorine chemistry.” Last year, 

to begin commercializing some of these 

successes, Ritter founded Boston-based 

SciFluor Life Sciences . 

WHEN IT COMES to true catalytic fluorination 

reactions, however, the new fervor 

over fluorine has run into a wall . Although 

many researchers—fluorine chemists and 

nonfluorine chemists alike—have tried to 

develop mild catalytic fluorinations that 

work on complex molecules, success has 

been limited. 

“Just five years ago a chemist would laugh 

at the idea of palladium-catalyzed nucleophilic 

trifluoromethylation of aryl halides,” 

Vladimir V. Grushin notes in a review of 

aromatic trifluoromethylations ( Chem. Rev., 

DOI: 10.1021/cr1004293 ). Studies by multiple 

research groups since then have proven 

that the reaction is not impossible, but these 

researchers can’t celebrate using palladiumcatalyzed 

cross-coupling chemistry in drug 

discovery chemistry just yet. 

A former DuPont research scientist who 

is now at the Institute of Chemical Research 

of Catalonia, in Spain, Grushin has shown 

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through his research dating back to the 

mid-1990s that cleanly executed reductive 

elimination of monofluorinated aryl groups 

from palladium intermediates is difficult to 

pull off. In reductive elimination, which is 

the last step of a catalytic cross-coupling reaction, 

the two molecular fragments bound 

to the metal catalyst are released and join to 

form the product. 

Grushin found that standard approaches 

to palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling using 

tertiary phosphine ligands favor formation 

of P–F bonds with the phosphine ligand on 

the metal, rather than desired C–F bonds 

with aryl substrates. His group overcame 

the problem by using a bulkier ligand and 

eventually reported a breakthrough in 2006: 

the first aryl trifluoromethyl compounds 

prepared by palladium-mediated crosscoupling. 

The reaction showed that catalytic 

aromatic fluorinations were at least possible. 

IN 2009, fluorine newcomer Stephen L. 

Buchwald ’s group at Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology built on those and 

other developments to design a palladiumcatalyzed 

reaction to form C–F bonds on 

prefunctionalized aryl rings. Buchwald’s 

team used aryl triflates as the substrate and 

CsF as a fluorine source to make various 

monofluorinated aryl compounds ( Science, 

DOI: 10.1126/science.1178239 ). In 2010, 

Buchwald’s team followed up with similar 

chemistry, using the ethyl analog of TMSCF 3 

as a CF 3 source to achieve the first palladium-catalyzed 

aryl trifluoromethylations 

( Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1190524 ). 

Buchwald emphasizes that much credit 

goes to Grushin for pointing the way. His 

group’s success, Buchwald says, stems from 

using one of its trademark bulky biaryl phosphine 

ligands, named BrettPhos, to create 

an aryl palladium fluoride complex. 

BrettPhos appears to prevent formation 

of P–F bonds and formation of a bridging 

fluorine in palladium intermediates that can 

block reductive elimination, he explains. 

The catalytic process still needs to be optimized. 

“There isn’t anything practical yet 

in terms of getting to scalable processes,” 

Buchwald says. The ligand is still too expensive, 

he notes, and the substrate scope needs 

to be expanded. 

Even so, Buchwald is not sure metalcatalyzed 

reactions for discovery chemistry 

can compete with the new radical chemistry 

from the groups of Baran and MacMillan. 

Their systems are better geared toward discovery 

research, Buchwald notes. “But everyone 

is moving in the right direction,” he 

says. “Hopefully we will be able to kick our 

palladium fluorination work up a couple of 

notches so that it will be user-friendly.” 

“In terms of achieving metal-mediated 

fluorine chemistry, we organic chemists are 

Johnny-come-latelies,” Buchwald admits. 

“But you see this type of discovery process 

happen in so many fields. 

“People are thinking about the same idea; 

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then if you get a slightly different take on it, 

the right student, and a little luck, you see 

the first successful paper,” Buchwald continues. 

“That’s why it’s important to have 

a lot of groups from different backgrounds 

working on topics such as catalytic fluorinations—inorganic 

chemists, synthetic 

organic chemists, fluorine chemists, and 

hybrids of the three.” ◾ 

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BUSINESS CONCENTRATES 

WESTLAKE MAY DROP 

BID FOR GEORGIA GULF 

In an earnings conference call on Feb. 21, 

Westlake Chemical CEO Albert Chao told 

analysts that his company may withdraw 

its offer to purchase rival vinyls producer 

Georgia Gulf . Georgia Gulf earlier rebuffed 

Westlake’s $1.2 billion acquisition offer, 

calling the price “far from compelling.” 

Although Chao said he is still interested in 

good-faith negotiations, he stated, “We are 

a disciplined acquirer with extensive industry 

knowledge, and we know what Georgia 

Gulf is worth.” If Georgia Gulf ’s board and 

management does not change its approach, 

Chao said, Westlake will likely withdraw its 

bid. In his own call with analysts, Georgia 

Gulf CEO Paul D. Carrico said, “We’re confident 

about the opportunities ahead for 

Georgia Gulf.” —MMB 

MOSAIC REACHES 

MINE SETTLEMENT 

Phosphate fertilizer producer Mosaic has 

reached a settlement with environmental 

groups that will allow it to ramp up operations 

at its phosphate rock mine in South 

Fort Meade, Fla. The mine has operated 

at reduced capacity since the Sierra Club 

and two other groups challenged Mosaic’s 

federal wetlands operating permit (C&EN, 

Aug. 9, 2010, page 14). The settlement, 

which is subject to court approval, calls for 

the donation of 4,171 acres of land for a park 

along with other conservation concessions. 

As a result, Mosaic says it will be able to begin 

operations on 7,000 acres with 10 years 

of additional phosphate reserves. — MSR 

BP, SINOPEC, AND SK 

PLAN CHINA COMPLEX 

BP , Sinopec , and South Korea’s SK Holdings 

have signed a memorandum of 

understanding to build acetic acid and 

1,4-butanediol (BDO) plants in Chongqing 

in southwestern China. The $1.1 billion 

project would include a 600,000-metricton-per-year 

acetic acid plant funded by 

BP, Sinopec subsidiary Sichuan Vinylon 

Works, and a state-owned investment firm. 

SK and Sichuan Vinylon would build a 

200,000-metric-ton BDO facility. The acetic 

acid facility would supply hydrogen to 

the BDO unit, which in turn would supply 

acetylene to the acetic acid plant. — JFT 

NOVEL DNA SEQUENCERS DEBUT 

Oxford Nanopore Technologies is preparing to 

launch new DNA-sequencing devices that use 

nanopore strand-sequencing technology. The 

method works by passing a single-stranded DNA 

polymer through a protein nanopore to identify 

individual DNA bases. According to the company, 

this approach allows for very long sequence 

read lengths, high throughput, real-time 

results, and minimal sample preparation. 

Instrumentation industry stock analysts 

are calling the new devices a disruptive 

and game-changing technology, especially 

in applied settings, and potential 

The MinION is 

small and disposable. 

competition for sequencing products from 

Life Technologies and Illumina . To be available by 

year-end, the GridION system consists of nodes with consumable cartridges. 

Each node, which can deliver tens of gigabytes of sequence data 

in 24 hours, can be used as a single desktop instrument or networked for 

larger analyses. The MinION is a disposable sequencing device about the 

size of a USB memory stick. It is expected to sell for less than $900 when 

available midyear. Oxford Nanopore was a 2005 spin-off of the University 

of Oxford. — AMT 

KOPPERS TO BUILD CHINA 

COAL TAR DISTILLERY 

Coal chemicals maker Koppers has signed 

a letter of intent to construct a coal-tarbased 

products complex in Pizhou City 

in China’s Jiangsu province. The complex 

would include a 250,000-metric-tonper-year 

coal tar distillation facility and 

downstream plants making needle coke and 

carbon black. The distillation facility would 

be jointly owned by Koppers and China’s 

Yizhou Group, and the downstream plants 

would be owned by Nippon Steel Chemical . 

Completion is targeted for early 2014. —MM 

BASF WILL PHASE OUT 

LEAD CHROMATE 

BASF plans to stop producing lead chromate 

pigments by the end of 2014. The firm 

says its lead chromate plant in Besigheim, 

Germany, will become a hub for replacements 

that offer the same yellow and red 

hues. BASF already offers alternatives to 

lead chromate, according to Stefan Sütterlin, 

head of pigments business management 

in Europe, but customers, particularly 

in the coatings industry, have resisted 

change. Starting in May 2015, though, Eu- 

rope’s REACH chemicals regulation bans 

the use of lead chromate pigments without 

government approval. — MM 

TA ACQUIRES BÄHR 

THERMOANALYSE 

TA Instruments , a subsidiary of Waters 

Corp. , has acquired Bähr Thermoanalyse . 

The instrument firm, based in Hüllhorst, 

Germany, employs 20 people and manufactures 

high-temperature thermal analysis 

systems. TA says the acquisition, coupled 

with its purchase of Anter Corp. in July 2011, 

will make it a leader in the thermal and mechanical 

characterization of ceramic, metal, 

glass, and other inorganic materials. —MSR 

FMC LOOKS TO CHINA 

FOR NEW INSECTICIDE 

FMC will license a new insecticide active 

ingredient developed by East China University 

of Science & Technology. The ingredient 

is manufactured in China by Shanghai 

Shengnong Pesticide Co. FMC will have 

exclusive rights to the insecticide outside 

of China. In addition, the three parties will 

collaborate on new pesticide research. 

OXFORD NANOPORE 

TECHNOLOGIES 


BUSINESS CONCENTRATES 

LANXESS 

In February, FMC licensed a plant-based 

fungicide called blad that was developed 

by researchers from Portugal’s Technical 

University of Lisbon. — MMB 

FERRO SECURES RARE- 

EARTH SOURCE 

Ferro has formed a joint venture with 

Baotou Jin Meng Rare Earth, a rare-earth 

refiner based in Inner Mongolia, China. 

The venture will produce ultrafine cerium 

oxide-based materials used to polish cover 

glass for electronic devices. Majorityowned 

by Ferro, the venture will be based 

at Ferro’s existing site in Suzhou, China. Jin 

Meng will be responsible for supplying rare 

earths to the venture. Chemical makers are 

adopting a variety of strategies to cope with 

Chinese export restrictions on rare earths. 

BASF recently signed a sourcing agreement 

with the Australian supplier Lynas. Shin- 

Etsu Chemical is investing in a rare-earth 

recycling facility in Vietnam. — JFT 

ENANTA SIGNS NOVARTIS 

FOR HEPATITIS DRUG 

Enanta Pharmaceuticals , a specialist in 

small-molecule drugs for infectious diseases, 

has entered a pact with Novartis for development, 

manufacture, and commercialization 

of its lead candidate, EDP-239, which 

comes from its NS5A hepatitis C virus inhibitor 

program. Enanta will receive an up-front 

payment of $34 million and is eligible for 

up to $406 million in milestone payments. 

NS5A is a nonstructural viral protein that is 

essential to viral replication. The protein has 

emerged as an important target for antiviral 

drug development, Enanta says. —RM 

MERCK AND PFIZER 

STRIKE GENERICS DEALS 

Merck & Co. and Brazil’s Supera Farma 

Laboratorios have formed a joint venture 

to market pharmaceuticals and branded 

generics in Brazil. The partners will initially 

market approximately 30 products across 

multiple therapeutic areas. Meanwhile, 

Pfizer and Shanghai-based Hisun Pharmaceutical 

have advanced plans for a joint 

venture to commercialize off-patent drugs 

in China and other markets. Pfizer will own 

49% of its joint venture with Hisun and invest 

$295 million in it. Merck will own 51% 

of its joint venture with Supera. Financial 

details of that deal were not disclosed. —RM 

LANXESS INVESTS IN 

SUCCINIC ACID MAKER 

Biobased succinic acid producer BioAmber 

has raised $30 million in a third round 

of venture funding. Current investors 

including Naxos Capital and Mitsui & Co. 

contributed $20 million. Specialty chemical 

firm Lanxess invested $10 million and 

will receive a seat on BioAmber’s board. 

Lanxess owns a site in Ontario that will 

house BioAmber’s first commercial-scale 

Lanxess will host BioAmber at this plant in 

Sarnia, Ontario. 

succinic acid plant. In addition, the firms 

are working to develop plasticizers based 

on succinic acid. Last November, BioAmber 

filed for an initial public offering of 

stock worth up to $150 million. — MMB 

FDA ADVISERS CLEAR 

VIVUS OBESITY DRUG 

Shares of the Mountain View, Calif.-based 

biotech firm Vivus nearly doubled last 

week after an FDA advisory committee 

recommended approval of its obesity pill 

Qnexa. In October 2010, FDA rejected 

Qnexa over concerns about the risk of cardiovascular 

events and birth defects. Last 

year, Vivus resubmitted its application for 

Qnexa, which combines the already approved 

drugs topiramate and phentermine, 

to include a postapproval monitoring strategy. 

FDA still has to give a final decision on 

the drug, but approval is “pretty much a 

done deal,” says Cowen & Co. stock analyst 

Simos Simeonidis. — LJ 

BUSINESS 

ROUNDUP 

CODEXIS’ CEO, Alan 

Shaw, has resigned from 

the company to pursue 

other interests. Peter 

Strumph, head of the 

industrial biotechnology 

firm’s pharmaceuticals 

business, is filling the role 

on an interim basis while 

Codexis searches for a 

new CEO. 

BASF has opened an 

industrial biotechnology 

and microbiology 

research center in Tarrytown, 

N.Y. Scientists 

at the lab will develop 

improved biotech production 

processes and antimicrobials 

that are active 

against biofilms. 

JSR has opened an R&D 

center for liquid-crystaldisplay 

raw materials in 

central Taiwan. Built at 

a cost of $15 million, the 

facility will provide a full 

range of materials development 

support capabilities 

to Taiwan’s display 

manufacturers, JSR says. 

MOMENTIVE Specialty 

Chemicals plans to close 

its phenolic resins plant in 

Pardubice, Czech Republic. 

About 20 employees 

will be laid off when the 

site closes on June 30. 

Momentive plans to 

transfer products made 

in Pardubice to other 

locations. 

SIGMA-ALDRICH has 

licensed Kyoto University’s 

induced pluripotent 

stem cell patent portfolio. 

The company will offer 

iPS-based cells, assays, 

and ADME/toxicology 

testing services for drug 

discovery and preclinical 

research. 

MORRIA Biopharmaceuticals 

has signed on 

Scynexis as chemical 

development and production 

partner for its anti-inflammatory 

drug MRX-4, 

which is being developed 

to treat allergic rhinitis. 

Morria says Scynexis has 

already improved its original 

synthesis of MRX-4. 

LIGAND Pharmaceuticals 

has licensed rights to 

DARA, a compound it acquired 

in its 2008 acquisition 

of Pharmacopeia, to 

Retrophin for $1 million 

in cash and potential 

payments of more than 

$75 million. Retrophin 

plans to develop DARA for 

rare nephropathies and 

other indications. 

JUBILANT Biosys will 

provide medicinal chemistry, 

electrophysiology, 

and other services to 

Mnemosyne Pharmaceuticals 

under a drug 

discovery collaboration. 

Jubilant says the pact will 

involve its scientists in 

Pennsylvania and India. 

GLAXOSMITHKLINE 

will license Galapagos ’ investigational 

compound, 

GLPG0778, and a backup 

compound, GLPG0555. 

Both were discovered 

and developed through 

an immunoinflammatory 

alliance between the two 

firms. Galapagos could 

receive more than $45 

million in milestone payments 

and royalties from 

GSK on the compounds. 


BUSINESS 

CHEMICAL FIRMS 

SUSTAIN INVESTMENTS 

Expecting muted economic growth, chemical makers plan 

MODEST INCREASES in R&D and capital spending this year 

MARC S. REISCH , C&EN NORTHEAST NEWS BUREAU 

CABOT CORP. 

CHEMICAL COMPANIES plan to increase 

spending on research and equipment this 

year but at a slower pace than they did last 

year. Concerned over the sovereign debt 

crisis in Europe, a weak economic recovery 

in the U.S., and a slowdown in the pace of 

growth in Asia, many chemical executives 

are tempering their future-oriented spending 

plans, according to C&EN’s annual 

survey. 

Seventeen U.S.-based firms say they will 

boost spending on new plants and equipment 

by 14.1% this year to a combined 

$13.0 billion. The increase marks a more 

modest uptick in capital expenditures 

compared with last year’s hefty rise of 

31.2% to $11.4 billion. 

Nonetheless, this 

year will mark the 

third annual spending 

increase after 

2009, when investment 

sank during the 

Great Recession. 

Eight U.S.-based 

firms report they will 

lift their research 

spending by 3.0% in 

2012 to a combined 

$4.4 billion. The 

increase follows an 

8.5% budget boost in 

2011 to $4.3 billion 

and points to the continued 

importance of 

R&D for the group. 

Even the recession 

did not interrupt the 

companies’ support 

for this important 

discovery activity. 

According to 

C&EN’s survey, the 

overall forecast for 

future-oriented 

spending continues 

to be bright. For the 

eight firms— Cabot , 

CAPITAL PROJECTS Spending will rise in 2012 for the third year in a row, 

reaching 6.8% of sales. 

$ Billions 

12 

10 

8 

6 

4 

4 

2002 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 2002 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 

NOTE: Values are for 14 chemical firms listed in the table on page 21. Excludes Ashland, Celanese, and 

Huntsman Corp. because 10 years of data are not available. SOURCES: C&EN surveys and estimates 

RESEARCH TRAJECTORY R&D spending is on an upward track but will 

stay steady as a percentage of sales. 

$ Billions 

5 

■ Current 

■ Constant 2002 

4 

3 

2 

2002 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 

% of sales 

8 

% of sales 

5 

2 

2002 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 

NOTE: Values are for eight chemical firms listed in the table on page 21. 

SOURCES: C&EN surveys and estimates, White House Office of Management & Budget 


4 

3 

7 

6 

5 

QUALITY WATCH A Cabot technician 

supervises extractions to determine 

product purity levels. 

Cytec Industries , Dow Chemical , DuPont , 

FMC Corp., W.R. Grace , Lubrizol , and 

NewMarket —that supplied both capital 

spending and R&D data, combined budgets 

in 2012 will increase 4.4% to $10.3 billion. 

Their combined budgets rose 19.2% and 

19.6% in 2010 and 2011, respectively, after 

plummeting 18.8% in 2009. 

The ratio of investment in new production 

facilities to investment in research 

is higher for the third consecutive year. 

Budgets for 2012 shuttle 57.4% of funds to 

capital projects, up from 56.8% in 2011 and 

52.4% in 2010. The high for the decade was 

60.9% in 2008, and the low was 49.8% in 

2009, when managers hit the capital spending 

brakes during the Great Recession. 

R&D funding generally doesn’t fluctuate 

as much as capital funding does. So when 

the economic outlook is up, capital spending 

rises and a proportionately smaller 

share of futureoriented 

budgets 

goes to research. This 

year, 42.6% of futureoriented 

spending is 

targeted at research, 

down from 43.2% in 

2011. The decade’s 

high was 50.2% in 

2009 when, despite 

the recession, surveyed 

companies 

increased R&D budgets. 

The low was 

39.1% in 2008. 

Budgets can change 

over time, and they 

did just that in 2011. 

Companies surveyed 

last February (C&EN, 

Feb. 21, 2011, page 19) 

predicted they would 

increase 2011 research 

expenditures by 2.8%, 

but the companies in 

this year’s group say 

they actually hiked 

spending by 8.5%. 

Similarly, those in last 

year’s survey expected 

to step up 2011 capital 

spending by 26.5%.

RESEARCH COSTS 

On average, eight chemical firms plan a modest 3.0% rise in spending 

ACTUAL PLANNED 

CHANGE 

R&D SPENDING 

PLANNED 

AS % OF SALES 

$ MILLIONS 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 a 2011 b 2012 c 2010–11 d 2011–12 e 2010 2011 f 

Cabot g $58 $69 $74 $71 $70 $70 $66 $66 -5.7% 0.0% 2.4% 2.1% 

Cytec Industries 74 76 82 75 73 83 85 87 16.4 2.4 2.7 2.8 

Dow Chemical h 1,164 1,305 1,310 1,492 1,660 1,700 1,646 1,700 -0.8 3.3 3.1 2.7 

DuPont 1,302 1,338 1,393 1,378 1,651 1,700 1,956 2,000 18.5 2.2 5.2 5.2 

FMC Corp. 97 95 94 93 101 101 105 110 4.0 4.8 3.2 3.1 

W.R. Grace 64 80 83 70 60 na 69 70 15.0 1.4 2.2 2.1 

Lubrizol 206 219 221 212 226 228 232 247 2.7 6.5 4.2 3.8 

NewMarket 70 77 82 86 91 na 106 111 16.5 4.7 5.1 4.9 

TOTAL $3,035 $3,259 $3,339 $3,477 $3,932 $4,265 $4,391 8.5% 3.0% 3.8% 3.6% 

ANNUAL CHANGE 2.5% 7.4% 2.5% 4.1% 13.1% 8.5% 3.0% 

a February 2011 estimate. b February 2012 estimate. c Budget for 2012. d Actual 2010 to February 2012 estimate. e February 2012 estimate to 2012 budget. f February 2012 estimate 

as a percentage of estimated 2011 sales. g Fiscal year ends Sept. 30. h Acquired Rohm and Haas in 2009. na = not available. SOURCE: C&EN surveys 

Those in this year’s group 

say they actually boosted 

spending by 31.2%. 

Of the 17 firms polled 

for their 2012 capital 

spending plans, 15 expect 

to increase spending, 

and two say they will 

make cuts. This compares 

with 16 that expanded 

budgets in 2011 

and one that made cuts. 

Cytec Industries 

plans to nearly double 

capital outlays to add capacity 

for its engineered 

materials and process 

separations businesses. 

Projects include increasing 

capacity to supply 

carbon-fiber composites 

used in aerospace applications. 

The firm is 

also spending $125 million 

to double capacity 

at its Welland, Ontario, 

site for phosphine gas 

and derivatives used in 

electronics, mineral processing, 

and agricultural fumigation. 

Ashland expects to increase capital outlays 

by 74.1% to $350 million in 2012. In a 

meeting with analysts in November 2011, 

Lamar M. Chambers, chief financial officer, 

explained that the acquisition of International 

Specialty Products at the end of 

August and “numerous projects we’re now 

pursuing” are behind the firm’s increased 

spending. He added that he expects Ashland 

to continue to spend roughly $350 million 

in each of the next two years to take advantage 

of “strong growth dynamics” in the 

company’s specialty ingredients business. 

CAPITAL INVESTMENTS 

On average, 17 chemical firms plan to boost spending by 14.1% this year 

PLANNED ACTUAL PLANNED CHANGE 

$ MILLIONS 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 a 2011 b 2012 c 2010–11 d 2011–12 e 

Air Products f $1,261 $1,055 $1,085 $1,179 $1,031 $1,450 $1,352 $1,700 31.1% 25.7% 

Albemarle 100 99 100 101 76 140 198 300 160.5 51.5 

Ashland f,g 175 154 205 174 206 na 201 350 -2.4 74.1 

Cabot f 188 141 199 106 108 250 230 225 113.0 -2.2 

Celanese 244 306 267 167 201 325 349 375 73.6 7.4 

Cytec Industries 103 115 196 194 116 180 117 225 0.9 92.3 

Dow Chemical h 1,775 2,075 2,276 1,410 2,130 2,400 2,687 2,500 26.2 -7.0 

DuPont i 1,532 1,585 1,978 1,378 1,508 1,800 1,843 2,100 22.2 13.9 

FMC Corp. 116 115 175 93 142 160 190 250 33.8 31.6 

H.B. Fuller 20 21 20 23 36 40 36 40 0.3 11.1 

W.R. Grace 119 137 132 94 113 145 142 150 25.7 5.6 

Huntsman Corp. 550 665 418 189 236 na 327 425 38.6 30.0 

Lubrizol 131 183 203 140 176 310 352 410 100.0 16.5 

NewMarket 26 31 32 38 34 na 54 65 58.8 20.4 

Praxair 1,100 1,376 1,611 1,352 1,388 1,650 1,797 2,300 29.5 28.0 

Solutia 106 150 84 44 66 125 105 150 59.1 42.9 

3M 1,168 1,422 1,471 903 1,091 1,300 1,379 1,400 26.4 1.5 

TOTAL $8,714 $9,630 $10,452 $7,585 $8,658 $11,359 $12,965 31.2% 14.1% 

ANNUAL CHANGE 20.9% 10.5% 8.5% -27.4% 14.1% 31.2% 14.1% 

a February 2011 estimate. b February 2012 estimate. c Budget for 2012. d Actual 2010 to February 2012 estimate. e February 2012 estimate 

to 2012 budget. f Fiscal year ends Sept. 30. g Acquired Hercules in 2008 and International Specialty Products in 2011. h Acquired Rohm and 

Haas in 2009. i Acquired Danisco in May 2011. na = not available. SOURCE: C&EN surveys 

Albemarle has slated a 51.5% increase in 

capital spending. Projects include a polyolefin 

catalyst expansion in South Korea and 

the construction of a facility in Saudi Arabia 

with joint-venture partner Saudi Basic Industries 

Corp. to make triethylaluminum, a 

Ziegler-Natta cocatalyst used in polyethylene 

production. The firm also has a bromine 

expansion under way at its Jordan Bromine 

joint venture with Arab Potash. 

C&EN predicts that the survey group’s 

capital spending as a percentage of sales 

will be 6.8% this year, the high for the past 

10 years and up from 6.3% in 2011. The 


estimate assumes group sales will increase 

3.0% in 2012. The 10-year low occurred in 

2004 when the group spent just 4.6% of 

sales. 

OF THE EIGHT FIRMS that provided their 

R&D spending forecasts, seven plan increases 

and one plans no change. Last year, 

six pushed up spending, and two cut back. 

Lubrizol plans the largest R&D percentage 

increase, 6.5%, among the group in 2012. 

Some of the increase will go to advancing 

lubricant additive research in the U.S., the 

U.K., China, Japan, and India, where the

BUSINESS 

firm has been upgrading its labs. Lubrizol 

was purchased in September 2011 by Berkshire 

Hathaway, a conglomerate controlled 

by billionaire investor Warren Buffett. 

FMC is slating a nearly 5% increase in 

R&D spending this year. The firm plans to 

direct funds across its product lines, which 

include agricultural chemicals, specialty 

chemicals such as lithium for car batteries, 

and industrial products. NewMarket, the 

parent of fuel additives maker Ethyl and 

lubricant oil additives maker Afton Chemical, 

also plans a nearly 5% increase in R&D. 

BASF , the chemical industry’s largest 

R&D spender in absolute terms, is not in 

this year’s survey because it provided its 

R&D spending plans too close to C&EN 

press time to be included in the analysis. 

However, it plans to spend nearly $2.4 billion 

on research this year, up 5.9% compared 

with 2011. The rate at which BASF plans to 

increase spending is more than twice that 

of the largest R&D spender in the survey, 

DuPont, which plans a 2.2% increase to $2.0 

billion. A BASF spokesman explains that the 

firm continues to increase R&D spending as 

it emphasizes growth through innovation. 

Other surveys of spending plans also find 

that chemical makers are cautiously increasing 

future-oriented investments. According 

to the economics and statistics department 

of the industry group American Chemistry 

Council (ACC), high energy prices, the debt 

crisis in Europe, a slowdown in economic 

growth in China, and last year’s earthquake 

in Japan all contributed to a global soft patch 

centered in manufacturing. 

In the future, ACC economists say, developed 

nations will continue to grow slowly 

while emerging markets grow more rapidly 

because of industrialization and consumerdriven 

demand. As a result, 90% of yearover-year 

increases in chemical industry 

capital spending will be directed to emerging 

markets between now and 2016. 

The trade association’s fall survey 

of the chemistry enterprise found that 

global capital spending by chemical firms 

increased 10.0% to $511 billion in 2011 and 

should rise 9.0% to $557 billion in 2012. By 

2016, ACC predicts, the global industry’s 

capital spending will reach more than 

$800 billion. 

In the U.S., ACC’s survey found, capital 

spending rose 7.0% in 2011 to $29.4 billion, 

and it will rise an additional 7.3% this year 

to $31.5 billion. Much of the spending will 

go toward replacing worn-out plants and 

equipment. Moving ahead, the economists 

say, the development of shale gas will be a 

game changer that will lead to new investments 

in petrochemicals and derivatives. 

When it comes to R&D, ACC’s survey 

found that U.S. chemical firms increased 

R&D budgets by 3.5% in 2011 to $57.4 billion 

and plan to increase spending another 

4.0% in 2012 to $59.7 billion. The survey 

includes pharmaceutical research spending, 

which the group says will rise at a faster 

pace than nonpharmaceutical spending. 

TAKING A GLOBAL perspective, the “2012 

Global R&D Funding Forecast,” put together 

by R&D Magazine and the nonprofit 

research group Battelle , predicts that 

worldwide R&D spending by all industries 

will grow 5.2% in 2012 to $1.4 trillion. Asian 

countries, according to the report, are leading 

the growth with an 8.6% increase in 

spending. European R&D will grow by 3.5%, 

and U.S. spending will rise 2.1%. 

TECHNOLOGY 

R&D In Emerging Countries Comes With Risks And Rewards 

As chemical firms increased their R&D 

spending over the past decade, many of 

them enlarged their research capabilities 

in developing countries. Those overseas 

investments have helped companies gain 

market share and increase profits, but 

they are not without risk. 

Dow Chemical has about 900 people 

working in R&D labs in Asia, with the largest 

contingent, roughly 500 people, in 

Shanghai. Having experts on the ground 

in a region that has become a manufacturing 

powerhouse means Dow can better 

contour products for the local market, according 

to William F. Banholzer, the firm’s 

chief technology officer (CTO). “You can’t 

solve Asian customers’ problems from 

the U.S.,” he says. 

Just about all of Dow’s researchers in 

China are native to the region. Their familiarity 

with local markets has helped Dow 

develop coatings materials, for instance, 

that reduce airborne formaldehyde, a 

lung irritant and probable carcinogen that 

is still widely used in industrial processes 

in China. 

Banholzer acknowledges that he worries 

about intellectual property (IP) theft 

in developing countries in which legal protections 

may not be as robust as in more 

developed ones. But he points out that 

IP theft occurs in developed countries 

too. For instance, Kexue Huang, a Dow 

researcher who was based in Indianapolis, 

recently pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to 

stealing Dow technology for making the 

insecticide Spinosad (C&EN, Sept. 26, 

2011, page 7). 

The best way for a company to protect 

itself, Banholzer says, is to make sure it 

has patent protection. Yakov Kutsovsky, 

Cabot’s CTO, agrees. “We made a conscious 

decision to patent our products in 

China,” Kutsovsky says. The commitment 

will go a long way to developing robust 

patent protection for all companies operating 

in China, including Chinese firms, 

he says. 

A smaller company than Dow, Cabot 

has 50 technical service employees at its 

Shanghai research center who tweak the 

firm’s product line to suit the needs of 

customers in China. Having such a team 

on the ground in the country is “a major 

competitive advantage,” Kutsovsky says. 

Although Cabot has not had any IP stolen, 

Kutsovsky says, the company takes 

a number of precautions in developing 

countries. For one, the firm takes steps 

to earn employee loyalty and keep turnover 

low. It also has protocols in place to 

safeguard information when it works with 

third parties. And it brings in critical technology 

from Europe and the U.S. only on 

an as-needed basis—and only with appropriate 

security precautions, he says. 

Like Dow, DuPont has a large contingent 

in developing countries. Combined, 

well over 1,000 researchers work at major 

DuPont research installations in Shanghai; 

Hyderabad, India; and Paulínia , Brazil, 

notes DuPont CTO Douglas Muzyka. 

These centers develop products for local 

markets and act as hubs connected to 

DuPont’s global R&D infrastructure. 

In China, for instance, local researchers 

developed a composite material strengthened 

with DuPont’s Kevlar p -aramid fiber 


The data, which include government 

R&D spending, indicate that U.S. federal 

government research spending will slip 

1.6% in 2012. However, academic funding 

will rise 2.9%, and industrial outlays will 

increase by 3.8%. 

Published in December 2011, the report 

takes note of the rising share of global R&D 

by China and India. Although the U.S. continues 

to lead other countries by performing 

almost one-third of global R&D, Asian 

countries as a group fund 36.7% of it. China 

has rapidly increased its share from 12.0% 

in 2010 to an expected 14.2% in 2012, and 

India’s share has grown from 2.6% to 2.9%. 

Over the same time period, the U.S. share 

has slipped from 32.8% to 31.1%. 

Another annual survey takes into account 

research attitudes among a variety 

of medium-sized to large U.S. industrial 

companies. According to the Industrial 

Research Institute ’s (IRI) “2012 R&D 

Trends Forecast,” 41% of 104 respondents 

plan a 2.5% or greater increase in R&D 

spending, about 53% plan to hold spending 

at about the same level, and 6% plan to 

make cuts. 

R&D managers who responded to the 

survey during the summer of 2011 “revealed 

steady optimism regarding their 

budget outlook,” says Richard R. Antcliff, 

chair of IRI’s research-on-research team. 

As a result, “R&D hiring remains positive,” 

he notes, “with an intensified focus on retaining 

top technical talent.” 

Weighing heavily on the minds of R&D 

leaders are ways to effectively manage innovation. 

Aware that their efforts are often 

the catalysts for prosperity and growth, 

many leaders are concerned about “showing 

the payoff on innovation to win senior 

management support and finding the right 

balance of technology and innovation investments,” 

Antcliff writes in the trends 

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for use in pipes that ventilate deep 

underground coal mines, Muzyka says. 

New products like this one helped Du- 

Pont’s sales in China increase by more 

than 80%, to $3.3 billion, between 

2009 and 2011. 

“We are concerned about the environment 

for patent protection in developing 

countries,” Muzyka tells C&EN. 

But “IP challenges exist in both the developed 

and the developing world.” Du- 

Pont has had to deal with a number of 

well-publicized IP theft cases in the U.S. 

The most recent one involved charges 

that five people, including two former 

DuPont employees and an employee 

of a Chinese firm, stole DuPont trade 

secrets for producing the white pigment 

titanium dioxide (C&EN, Feb. 13, 

page 7). 

Muzyka, who spent four years as 

president of DuPont China, concedes 

that operating in China has its IP challenges. 

“You have to manage IP security 

the best way you can,” he says. But 

Muzyka cautions that “companies that 

withdraw from China because they have 

had a bad experience make a mistake. 

Without risk, there can be no reward.” 

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BUSINESS 

ANEMIC DEMAND 

SLOWS EARNINGS 

CUSTOMER DESTOCKING returned in the fourth quarter, 

squeezing chemical company profit margins 

MELODY M. BOMGARDNER , C&EN NORTHEAST NEWS BUREAU 

U.S. CHEMICAL EXECUTIVES blamed 

macroeconomic forces and seasonal slowness 

for a lackluster fourth quarter of 2011. 

At the 20 firms tracked by C&EN, sales 

grew an average of 9.3%, and earnings 

drifted up 4.2% compared with the yearago 

quarter. The sector with the strongest 

showing was agriculture, where the fertilizer 

companies CF Industries and Mosaic 

saw earnings soar 119.5% and 36.5%, respectively. 

Without those results, the other 18 

firms’ combined earnings declined almost 

10% year-over-year. 

Dow Chemical, the largest U.S. chemical 

firm by revenue, had the steepest decline 

in earnings for the quarter, down 46.3% to 

$289 million. Dow Chief Executive Officer 

Andrew N. Liveris tried to explain the poor 

performance as he led off a conference 

call with investors. “The fourth quarter 

presented our industry with a challenging 

operating environment,” he said. “New uncertainty 

was driven mostly by the sovereign 

debt issues in Western Europe, coupled with 

traditional seasonality. It led to substantial 

destocking across supply chains, as customers 

reduced inventories prior to year end.” 

Midway through the quarter, demand 

for Dow’s products was so weak that it 

became expensive to run plants at the 

needed operating rates, which had declined 

to 69% from 89% earlier in the 

year. Dow aggressively shifted its pricing 

strategy to push volume out the door, according 

to Laurence Alexander, chemicals 

analyst at the investment firm Jefferies 

& Co. “As a result, operating rates rose to 

76% in December. This resulted in lower 

margins across segments: most notably 

in coatings and infrastructure solutions, 

and performance materials,” he wrote in a 

note to investors. Dow’s profit margin for 

the quarter narrowed to 2.1% from 3.9% in 

the fourth quarter of 2010. 

DuPont also saw skinny margins in the 

CHEMICAL INDUSTRY 2011 Fourth-quarter results: Sales grew 9.3%, earnings increased 4.2%, and profit margin shrank 

to 7.0% from 7.4% 

% change from year-earlier quarter 

30 Sales 

20 

10 

% change from year-earlier quarter After-tax earnings as % of sales 

180 Earnings 

10 Profit margin 

150 

8 

120 

6 

90 

4 

60 

30 

2 

0 

2010 2011 

0 

2010 2011 

0 

2010 2011 

NOTE: All sales, earnings, and profit margin data are based on chemical companies listed on page 26. 

TOP 10 RANKINGS 

Chemical industry leaders for fourth-quarter 2011 

RANK 

2011 ($ MILLIONS) 

SALES EARNINGS PROFITABILITY 

RANK 

RANK 

2010 ($ MILLIONS) 2010 

EARNINGS AS 

% OF SALES 

1 Dow Chemical $14,097 1 Mosaic $624 4 CF Industries 25.6% nl 

2 DuPont 8,425 2 CF Industries 439 nl Mosaic 20.7 5 

3 PPG Industries 3,517 3 Praxair 414 3 Sigma-Aldrich 17.7 1 

4 Mosaic 3,015 4 DuPont 325 2 Praxair 14.8 2 

5 Praxair 2,796 5 Air Products 292 5 Albemarle 14.0 3 

6 Huntsman Corp. 2,632 6 Dow Chemical 289 1 FMC Corp. 12.3 8 

7 Air Products 2,423 7 PPG Industries 216 6 Air Products 12.1 4 

8 Ashland 1,930 10 FMC Corp. 112 13 Solutia 10.5 nl 

9 Eastman Chemical 1,723 9 Sigma-Aldrich 108 10 W.R. Grace 7.0 11 

10 CF Industries 1,718 nl Eastman Chemical 100 9 PPG Industries 6.1 12 

RANK 

2010 

NOTE: Based on the companies listed on page 26. nl = not listed. 


fourth quarter. Although sales grew 13.8%, 

earnings fell by 29.8% to $325 million. CEO 

Ellen J. Kullman blamed the weaker earnings 

on a higher tax rate in 2011. To explain 

low volume growth, she pointed to cautious 

customers rather than slow economic 

growth. Kullman reminded analysts in a 

conference call last month that the company 

had already revised its guidance in 

December, when it warned about “market 

softness in electronics and customers’ 

conservative year-end cash management 

with further destocking in the polymer and 

industrial supply chains.” 

Meanwhile, both executives said the end 

of the year was unusually good for their 

agriculture businesses, thanks to strong 

demand from Latin America. Dow’s seed 

business enjoyed a sales increase of 22% 

compared with the year-ago quarter. Du- 

Pont’s sales of seeds and agricultural chemicals 

increased 8% in the quarter and 23% in 

the second half of 2011. In a note to clients, 

Deutsche Bank analyst David Beg leiter said 

DuPont’s strong finish in Latin America was 

unexpected and helped the company beat 

consensus expectations for the quarter. 

THE SAME WAVE from the Southern 

Hemisphere buoyed FMC Corp.’s results 

in the fourth quarter. The company’s sales 

of agricultural chemicals grew 22% in Latin 

America on strong demand in Brazil and 

new product introductions from a joint 

venture in Argentina. FMC also benefited 

from demand for its industrial chemicals, 

especially from overseas buyers of soda 

ash. In addition, the firm profited from 

higher prices for peroxygens, after it shifted 

its product mix toward specialty peroxygens. 

Overall, FMC saw the second-highest 

growth in earnings of the companies 

tracked by C&EN, up 40.0% to $112 million. 

In contrast, the destocking in the polymer 

supply chain that plagued DuPont was 

also evident at Albemarle. Slack volumes 

for the firm’s polymer additives resulted in 

5% lower sales, despite higher prices. Otherwise 

the firm had a strong quarter, raising 

sales and earnings by 17% apiece compared 

with the fourth quarter of 2010. Higher 

prices boosted sales of catalysts 25% in the 

quarter. Both prices and volumes increased 

in Albemarle’s fine chemicals segment. 

Industrial gas customers made the fourth 

quarter a good one at Praxair. In North 

America, sales increased 7%, which the firm 

attributed to growth in the manufacturing, 

energy, chemicals, and metals markets. 

Higher sales of specialty coatings for aviation 

and oil and gas drilling applications also 

contributed to earnings growth of 6.7%. 

But at industrial gases rival Air Products 

& Chemicals, seasonality in electronics, 

performance materials, and merchant 

gases pushed sales in the segment down by 

7%, which was just about offset by higher 

volumes in tonnage gases caused by the 

opening of new plants. Overall, earnings 

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slipped by a little more than 1% compared 

with the year-ago quarter. “As we expected, 

economic growth continued to slow this 

quarter, depressing volumes and limiting 

earnings growth,” commented Air Products 

CEO John E. McGlade. 

At Celanese, earnings declined 6.8% in 

the quarter due in part to slow sales in Europe. 

“This led to a sharp inventory destock- 

www.tainstruments.com 


BUSINESS 

CHEMICAL RESULTS 

A slow fourth quarter dragged down earnings at several big chemical firms 

FOURTH-QUARTER 2011 FULL-YEAR 2011 

SALES EARNINGS a CHANGE FROM 2010 PROFIT MARGIN b SALES EARNINGS a CHANGE FROM 2010 PROFIT MARGIN b 

($ MILLIONS) SALES EARNINGS 2011 2010 ($ MILLIONS) SALES EARNINGS 2011 2010 

Air Products $2,423 $292 1.3% -1.4% 12.1% 12.4% $10,004 $1,258 8.2% 6.3% 12.6% 12.8% 

Albemarle 707 99 16.9 16.5 14.0 14.0 2,869 436 21.4 32.9 15.2 13.9 

Ashland 1,930 95 34.7 31.9 4.9 5.0 7,000 -13 -16.9 def nm 3.4 

Cabot 762 40 9.8 -37.5 5.2 9.2 3,268 206 13 21.9 6.3 5.8 

Celanese 1,614 96 7.1 -6.8 5.9 6.8 6,763 606 14.3 42.3 9.0 7.2 

CF Industries 1,718 439 38.8 119.5 25.6 16.2 6,098 1,539 53.8 341.0 25.2 8.8 

Cytec Industries 731 40.3 4.4 16.5 5.5 4.9 3,073 179 11.8 20.1 5.8 5.4 

Dow Chemical 14,097 289 2.4 -46.3 2.1 3.9 59,985 2,959 11.8 30.8 4.9 4.2 

DuPont 8,425 325 13.8 -29.8 3.9 6.3 37,961 3,710 20.5 22.4 9.8 9.6 

Eastman Chemical 1,723 100 17.8 -3.8 5.8 7.1 7,178 652 22.9 26.8 9.1 8.8 

FMC Corp. 909 112 12.1 40.0 12.3 9.9 3,378 429 8.4 18.8 12.7 11.6 

H.B. Fuller 437 26 21.4 18.2 5.9 6.1 1,558 89 14.9 25.4 5.7 5.2 

W.R. Grace 826 58 19.2 28.9 7.0 6.5 3,212 269 20.1 30.0 8.4 7.7 

Huntsman Corp. 2,632 68 9.1 13.3 2.6 2.5 11,221 408 21.3 104.0 3.6 2.2 

Mosaic 3,015 624 12.7 36.5 20.7 17.1 11,174 2,341 32.2 86.1 21.0 14.9 

PPG Industries 3,517 216 16.9 5.4 6.1 6.1 14,885 1,095 21.4 -48.9 15.2 36.1 

Praxair 2,796 414 6.6 6.7 14.8 14.8 11,252 1,666 11.2 12.9 14.8 14.6 

Solutia 526 55 7.6 14.6 10.5 9.8 2,097 267 7.5 193.4 12.7 4.7 

Sigma-Aldrich 610 108 4.8 14.9 17.7 16.2 2,505 457 10.3 19.0 18.2 16.9 

Stepan 444 15 23.0 35.1 3.5 3.2 1,843 73 28.8 7.4 4.0 4.8 

TOTAL c $49,842 $3,512 9.3% 4.2% 7.0% 7.4% $207,324 $18,626 14.8% 36.3% 9.0% 7.6% 

a After-tax earnings from continuing operations, excluding significant extraordinary and nonrecurring items. b After-tax earnings as a percentage of sales. c Percentages were calculated 

from combined sales and earnings. def = deficit. nm = not meaningful. 

ing in the company’s acetyl intermediates 

segment, as well as a modest impact to volumes 

in the advanced engineered materials 

segment,” the company told investors. 

Volume declines were also evident at 

Huntsman Corp., but higher prices for 

polyurethanes, performance products, 

and pigments more than offset the impact, 

raising revenues by 9.1% and earnings 

by 13.3% compared with the 2010 fourth 

quarter. CEO Peter R. Huntsman described 

customer destocking as “aggressive,” but 

he assured investors that Huntsman’s businesses 

would revive with the improving 

global economy. 

Meanwhile, the coatings market was a 

mixed bag for paint-oriented companies 

such as PPG Industries, which reported 

flat volumes year-over-year. Sales in 

Europe dropped by 1%, but the firm saw 

strengthening global demand in markets 

including aerospace, automotive manufacturing, 

and general industry. Construction 

activity in developed regions was still anemic, 

PPG told investors. In total, quarterly 

revenues increased 16.9%, and earnings 

grew by 5.4%. 

PPG isn’t likely to see a rebound in U.S. 

construction activity for some time. In early 

February, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. 

Bernanke included a startling statistic in testimony 

to Congress. “Since 2009, the pace 

of single-family housing starts has averaged 

less than 500,000 units per year. During the 

15 years before the financial crisis, the pace 

of single-family starts had never fallen below 

1 million units per year.” 

Bernanke added that declines in home 

values may be causing a $200 billion to 

$375 billion reduction in annual consumer 

spending. On the other hand, in 2011, the 

U.S. economy added 160,000 jobs per 

month, and the unemployment rate fell by 

about 1%. That small advance likely contributed 

to higher personal spending in the 

fourth quarter. According to the Bureau of 

Economic Analysis , consumer spending 

increased 2.0% in the fourth quarter, after a 

third-quarter increase of 1.7%. Spending on 

durable goods increased 14.8%, compared 

with an increase of 5.7% in the third quarter. 

Overall, the gross domestic product 

(GDP) increased by an estimated annual 

rate of 2.8% in the fourth quarter. 

AS THE U.S. ECONOMY crawled out of the 

recession, chemical firms depended on developing 

countries such as China and Brazil 

to offer strong, consistent growth. But as 

2011 drew to a close, that approach began to 

look less reliable. In the fourth quarter, Du- 

Pont’s Kullman told analysts, “Auto builds 

were essentially flat, with gains in the U.S. 

and Japan offset by declines in every other 

region.” In fact, auto manufacturing in the 

U.S. increased 10% in 2011 compared with 

2010, according to J.D. Power & Associates , 

a marketing information company. J.D. 

Power anticipates 6% growth in 2012. 

While growth in the U.S. economy is 

accelerating—albeit from a low base— 

China’s staggering rate of growth is abating. 

China’s National Bureau of Statistics 

reported that the country’s fourth-quarter 

GDP growth slowed to 8.9% from 9.1% in 

the third quarter. 

Overall, chemical executives say they 

expect that the flat volumes that dogged 

the industry in the fourth quarter will continue 

into the spring and possibly even the 

summer of 2012. Anemic sales in Europe 

may continue even longer than that. End 

markets are expected to stabilize or accelerate 

in the second half of 2012. 

PPG CEO Charles E. Bunch told investors 

that he expects moderate strengthening 

in the U.S. but forecasts that global 

growth will remain uneven across regions 

and industries. “In the aggregate, 

emerging-region growth rates are expected 

to remain high compared to developed 

regions,” he said, “but more moderate and 

erratic than they have been in the past.” ◾ 


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ASTRAZENECA 

IN 2011, PHARMACEUTICAL companies 

got a glimpse of their not-too-distant future, 

and it isn’t a pretty sight. The level of 

annual product sales lost to generic competition 

has been rising since 2007, and it 

will peak in 2012. 

To overcome the resulting slowdown 

in sales and earnings growth, major drug 

firms have been shifting their businesses 

and drastically cutting R&D programs 

and staffing. Their challenge is to make 

it through this period, replace lost sales 

with new products, and expand into new 

regional markets. 

The global market for pharmaceuticals 

is growing 3–6% annually, according to the 

market research firm IMS Health . But most 

of the growth is occurring in emerging markets 

and not the traditional Western ones 

where the big drug companies are based. 

Although demand in developed markets 

will show some incremental growth, it will 

be more than offset by the impact of patent 

expirations. 

BUSINESS 

PHARMA SEES THE 

START OF THE END 

Amid SLOWING GROWTH in 2011, drugmakers 

took steps to prepare for the year ahead 

ANN M. THAYER , C&EN HOUSTON 


ON THE BUS 

AstraZeneca 

is counting on 

emerging markets, 

such as China, as 

patents expire in 

old ones. 

These dynamics were reflected in 2011 

sales and earnings results for the world’s 

major drug firms. Combined 2011 sales for 

the 11 companies C&EN tracks rose 3.2% to 

about $490 billion. In contrast, sales grew 

by double digits in 2010, although some of 

this was attributable to mergers. 

But combined figures obscure the fact 

that some firms got hit much harder than 

others by the patent expirations. Rather 

than tens of billions of dollars of lost sales 

spread around evenly, AstraZeneca , Eli 

Lilly & Co ., Pfizer , and Sanofi are bearing 

the brunt. They have lost, or will soon lose, 

patent protection on some of the industry’s 

biggest-selling products. In 2012, patents 

will expire on drugs whose combined annual 

sales total more 

than $40 billion, 

according to IMS 

Health. 

Among the recent 

losses was U.S. patent 

protection in 

November 2011 on 

Pfizer’s cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor. 

During peak years, Lipitor had annual sales 

exceeding $12 billion and accounted for 

about a quarter of Pfizer’s revenues. The 

full effects of the patent loss haven’t yet 

been seen, but in the fourth quarter alone 

Lipitor sales dropped 24%. 

Overall, Pfizer lost about $5 billion in 

revenues in 2011 from expiring patents. 

The company fought back by reaching its 

$4 billion cost-reduction target associated 

with the integration of Wyeth, purchased 

in late 2009, one year earlier than anticipated. 

Pfizer is also considering divesting 

its animal health and nutrition businesses, 

which would occur between July 2012 and 

July 2013 if it decides to move ahead. 

Pfizer reduced its sales forecast for 2012 

by about $2 billion. It now predicts that 

sales will be about 8% lower than in 2011 

because of patent expirations and the effects 

of currency exchange rates. Looking 

ahead, efforts to “fix the innovative core” 

will improve the company’s late-stage 

portfolio of compounds and lead to successful 

launches of novel products, Chief 

Executive Officer Ian Read told analysts in 

a recent conference call. 

BUT CITIGROUP stock analyst John T. 

Boris cautioned clients in a recent report 

that Pfizer executives may be too optimistic. 

“We expect Pfizer to see continued deterioration 

of its base business in the U.S., 

with execution risk on the pipeline, and 

potential restructuring issues,” he said. 

Competition from branded and generic 

drug firms could also jeopardize Pfizer’s 

growing business in emerging markets 

such as China, Brazil, Russia, India, Turkey, 

and Mexico, Boris added. 

Like Pfizer, many big pharma firms are 

betting on emerging regions for growth. 

Over the next five years, total spending 

on medicines in these markets is expected 

Combined figures obscure the fact that 

some firms got hit much harder than 

others by the patent expirations.

to double, compared with 2010, to reach 

about $300 billion per year, IMS forecasts. 

This level will surpass that of Germany, 

France, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. combined, 

and approach U.S. spending levels. 

GlaxoSmithKline has been working 

for nearly four years to shift the center of 

its business away from Western markets. 

“Our record in 2011 demonstrates that we 

are succeeding,” CEO Andrew Witty said 

when announcing annual results. GSK 

also has been fairly successful in launching 

new products to balance those lost 

to generics competition in the U.S. and 

Europe. The firm’s 2011 sales declined 3.5% 

to $44.1 billion, although they rose about 

4% on a constant exchange rate basis. Net 

income doubled to $9.6 billion. 

As part of its restructuring, GSK has 

been trying to deliver more from its R&D 

organization. Earlier this month, it unveiled 

the results of its 2008 program to 

form 38 “ discovery performance units ,” or 

DPUs, to focus efforts on specific disease 

and therapeutic areas (C&EN, Feb. 13, 

page 10). The idea was to create entrepreneurial, 

biotech-company-like operations 

that take greater responsibility for results. 

In the end, the number, size, and funding of 

the DPUs were juggled somewhat, and 40 

will continue for another three years. 

Other companies have taken drastic 

steps to increase R&D productivity while 

also trying to cut costs. Since 2007, AstraZeneca 

has been working to improve 

its long-term competitiveness. An initial 

restructuring phase delivered $2.4 billion 

in annual savings by the end of 2010, 

and reduced the company’s headcount by 

about 12,600. A second phase, started in 

2010, brought another $1 billion in cuts by 

the end of 2011 and should result in $1.9 billion 

in savings by the end of 2014. During 

this process another 9,000 jobs were eliminated. 

At the end of 2011, AstraZeneca had 

57,200 employees. 

In 2011, AstraZeneca lost nearly $2 billion 

in sales to generics competition and 

another $1 billion from the impact of government 

price interventions. Sales rose 

just 1.0% to $33.6 billion but were down 

about 2% in constant currency terms. The 

company’s earnings increased 2.8% to 

$9.9 billion. 

THE OUTLOOK for 2012 is grim. Later this 

year, AstraZeneca will lose patent protection 

on the bipolar disorder drug Seroquel 

IR in the U.S. and the cholesterol drug 

Crestor in Canada. Losses in other countries 

are on the horizon for the next few 

years. Both drugs are among the world’s 

top 10 drug products, according to IMS. 

And because of recent regulatory 

setbacks—such as for the diabetes treatment 

dapagliflozin, in development with 

Bristol-Myers Squibb —AstraZeneca has 

lowered its expectations for this year’s 

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markets. Earnings are also expected to be 

down about 16%. 

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BUSINESS 

PHARMACEUTICAL RESULTS 

Large drug companies post small sales increase, bigger earnings growth for 2011 

FOURTH-QUARTER 2011 FULL-YEAR 2011 

SALES EARNINGS a CHANGE FROM 2010 PROFIT MARGIN b SALES EARNINGS a CHANGE FROM 2010 PROFIT MARGIN b 

($ MILLIONS) SALES EARNINGS 2011 2010 ($ MILLIONS) SALES EARNINGS 2011 2010 

Abbott Laboratories $10,377 $2,295 4.1% 13.3% 22.1% 20.3% $38,851 $7,331 10.5% 12.8% 18.9% 18.5% 

AstraZeneca 8,656 2,102 0.5 7.4 24.3 22.7 33,591 9,909 1.0 2.8 29.5 29.0 

Bristol-Myers Squibb 5,454 905 6.7 12.4 16.6 15.8 21,244 3,913 9.0 5.1 18.4 19.1 

Eli Lilly & Co. 6,047 969 -2.3 -21.5 16.6 20.0 24,287 4,914 5.2 -6.2 20.2 22.7 

GlaxoSmithKline 11,235 2,317 -3.0 nm 20.6 def 44,093 9,557 -3.5 100.5 21.7 10.4 

Johnson & Johnson 16,255 3,129 3.9 9.3 19.2 18.3 65,030 13,867 5.6 4.4 21.3 21.6 

Merck & Co. 12,294 2,978 1.7 8.1 24.2 22.8 48,047 11,697 4.5 9.2 24.3 23.3 

Novartis 14,781 3,011 4.1 7.4 20.4 19.7 58,566 13,490 15.7 12.1 23.0 23.8 

Pfizer 16,746 3,863 -3.5 3.2 23.1 21.6 67,425 18,217 0.5 1.9 27.0 26.7 

Roche na na na na na na 45,282 11,376 -10.4 -4.4 25.1 23.6 

Sanofi-Aventis 11,019 2,690 8.8 13.0 24.4 23.5 43,244 11,395 3.2 -4.5 26.4 28.5 

TOTAL BIG PHARMA c $112,864 $24,259 1.8% 21.0% 21.5% 18.1% $489,660 $115,666 3.2% 7.7% 23.6% 22.7% 

Actelion na na na na na na $1,952 $419 -6.9% -28.5% 21.5% 27.9% 

Amgen $3,973 $1,039 3.4% -5.8% 26.2% 28.7% 15,582 4,858 3.5 -3.3 31.2 33.4 

Biogen Idec 1,327 370 8.9 6.9 27.9 28.5 5,049 1,446 7.1 10.0 28.6 27.9 

Cephalon 1,284 473 19.8 37.9 36.8 32.0 4,842 1,753 33.5 33.8 36.2 36.1 

Elan d 271 -135 -12.3 nm -49.8 def 1,246 561 6.5 nm 45.0 def 

Gilead Sciences 2,200 743 10.1 -4.6 33.8 39.0 8,385 3,039 5.5 -5.4 36.2 40.4 

TOTAL BIOTECH c $9,055 $2,490 7.3% -1.2% 27.5% 29.9% $37,056 $12,076 7.1% 8.6% 32.6% 32.1% 

NOTE: European company results are converted at Dec. 31, 2011, exchange rates, except for AstraZeneca and Novartis, which report in dollars. a After-tax earnings from continuing 

operations, excluding significant extraordinary and nonrecurring items. b After-tax earnings as a percentage of sales. c For companies reporting. Percentages are calculated from 

combined sales and earnings. d After-tax earnings from continuing operations, including special charges. def = deficit. na = not available. nm = not meaningful. 

2012 outlook, we remain committed to a 

long-term, focused, R&D-based strategy,” 

CEO David Brennan said when announcing 

the company’s results earlier this month. 

At the same time, AstraZeneca announced 

yet another set of restructuring moves, 

which are expected to yield $1.6 billion 

in annual savings by the end of 2014. The 

company will cut 7,300 employees, including 

about 2,200 in R&D. 

MEANWHILE, Novartis and Sanofi both 

outlined new strategies for growth and cost 

savings in 2011. Novartis achieved savings 

of $2.6 billion, or about 30% more than it 

did the previous year. The company also 

will divest, halt, or reduce operations at 10 

manufacturing sites. Novartis was the only 

major drug firm to post double-digit sales 

and earnings growth in 2011. 

Despite substantial growth in new 

product sales, 2012 will be an inflection 

point for Novartis. The company expects 

to lose about $2.6 billion in sales—$1.5 bil - 

lion connected to its blood pressure 

medication Diovan and the rest from the 

cancer drug Femara. The net result is 

expected to be a 2% decline in sales. This 

year, Novartis is shedding some 1,960 jobs 

in the U.S. to help generate $450 mil lion 

in savings. Despite these setbacks, Novartis 

expects 2012 results to be in line with 

2011. 

Sanofi also exceeded some of its costcutting 

goals, but it similarly faces some 

transitions. In 2011, two years ahead of 

schedule, the company met a $2.8 billion 

cost-cutting goal set in 2009. Some 

savings came from a 22% reduction in 

employees and the closure of 12 out of 

26 R&D sites. Sales in 2011 rose 3.2% to 

$43.2 billion, but earnings were down 4.5% 

to $11.4 billion, despite the acquisition of 

Genzyme. 

Sanofi lost almost $3 billion in sales to 

generics last year, CEO Christopher A. 

Viehbacher told analysts in a conference 

call. This year, Sanofi and partner Bristol- 

Myers will lose patent protection for the 

anticoagulant Plavix, which ranks as the 

world’s second-largest drug with annual 

sales of about $10 billion, and the blood 

pressure drug Avapro. 

But Sanofi has started to shift away 

from its older blockbuster products. New 

growth vehicles—including emerging 

markets, diabetes, vaccines, and consumer 

and animal health—accounted for 65% 

of sales last year, up from 43% in 2009. By 

2015, 80% of the company’s business will 

be in these areas, Viehbacher predicted. In 

a recent report, Morgan Stanley stock analyst 

Peter Verdult told clients that Sanofi 

has a “well-diversified business emerging 

from its patent cliff in 2013 and set to deliver 

high-single-digit earnings-per-share 

growth.” 

Also on the cusp is Lilly. Although its 

2011 sales were up 5.2% to $24.3 billion, 

sales fell about 2% in the fourth quarter 

as a result of patent expirations on the 

schizophrenia drug Zyprexa and the cancer 

treatment Gemzar that were only partially 

offset by growth in other products and in 

emerging markets. This year, the company 

expects, sales will decline about 8% and 

earnings will drop about 29%. Contributing 

to the decline will be about $3 billion less in 

Zyprexa sales. 

“By the end of 2011, Lilly had either met 

or exceeded several of the strategic goals 

we had previously outlined,” Chief Financial 

Officer Derica W. Rice said in a call 

with analysts. Since mid-2009, the company 

has cut $1 billion in spending and more 

than 5,500 positions from its workforce. 

“In addition, the 12 molecules currently in 

Phase III surpassed our goal of 10 by the 

end of 2011,” he said. “We remain focused 

on delivering on our commitments.” ◾ 


BUSINESS 

R&D SHAPES UP 

AT HEC PHARM 

Chinese newcomer sticks to ambitious plan 

to become an INNOVATIVE DRUG FIRM 

AT THE RATE it is hiring people and investing 

in its R&D infrastructure, it shouldn’t be 

long before China’s HEC Pharm becomes as 

well-known as India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories 

or Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. This obscure 

generic drug maker, with headquarters in 

the gritty industrial city of Dongguan in 

southern China, aims to launch innovative 

new drugs in China and, eventually, in the 

U.S., Europe, and other developed markets. 

At its R&D complex, the company has 

more than doubled its technical workforce 

during the past year to 1,200 researchers, 

VIDEO ONLINE 

For a video tour of HEC Pharm’s labs and employee 

housing complex, go to cenm.ag/hec. 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

As part of its lab 

buildup, HEC Pharm 

has equipped a liquid 

chromatography 

area that it calls its 

HPLC forest. 

most of whom live in company-provided 

housing. It is completing construction of 

two new buildings that will house biology 

labs and research facilities for clean energy 

materials that will be developed mostly 

by the firm’s chemists. And within a few 

months, it will break ground on a 21-floor 

apartment complex to house new hires 

and on a 12-floor research lab for new-drug 

R&D. In May 2011 HEC completed construction 

of its generic drug labs. 

“Developing new drugs remains our 

priority,” says Xinfa (Richard) Tang, director 

of HEC’s R&D 

center. “We want 

to become known 

as an innovative 

drug company.” 

The company’s 

R&D efforts are led 

by about 30 senior 

Chinese and foreign scientists with experience 

in the international drug industry. 

Hiring qualified researchers is a big part 

of HEC’s strategy. To fill its technical posi- 

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JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY/C&EN 

tions, it recruits by offering competitive salaries, family 

housing, subsidized meals, and other benefits. Fresh Ph.D. 

graduates get a starting salary of $24,000 and regular 

raises—a good wage by Chinese standards, says Tommy 

Lin, HEC’s director of intellectual property. The company 

hopes to employ 2,500 researchers within three years. 

It may appear foolhardy for a newcomer in the field of 

drug R&D to be so ambitious. But in fact, HEC is following 

a carefully conceived plan ( C&EN, Feb. 28, 2011, page 40 ). 

The plan is based on the company’s sound financial 

condition. Despite all the money it is pouring into its 

R&D capabilities, HEC is generating cash, Tang says. An 

established supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients 

and finished generic drugs mostly for China, the 

firm reported sales of $475 million in 2010. In Hubei 

province, in east central China, it operates the world’s largest plant 

for the antibiotic erythromycin. Further buttressing HEC’s financial 

resources is its parent company, HEC Group, a conglomerate 

whose main business is aluminum. 

HEC Pharm’s managers acknowledge that it will take years before 

they can launch innovative drugs in regulated markets. For now, the 

firm plans to introduce generic drugs in the U.S. and Europe. It just 

secured U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval to sell, under its 

own name, the antiretroviral drug zidovudine, commonly known as 

AZT. In Europe, it has been cleared to sell the macrolide antibiotic 

azithromycin. That approval marks HEC as the first Chinese company 

to sell a drug under its own name in Europe, Lin claims. 

It’s not as hard as it once was for a Chinese company to sell 

drugs in developed markets, Tang notes. Despite some wellpublicized 

quality problems—the heparin scandal of 2008 being 

the most prominent—the image of Chinese drugs in developed 

countries has on the whole improved in the past decade, Tang says. 

More important, European governments are trying to contain 

health care costs, and buying drugs from China is one way to do it. 

BEFORE LAUNCHING new drugs in developed markets, HEC 

plans to introduce them in China, Tang adds. Winning approval for 

a new drug in China is simpler than in the U.S., because in China a 

new drug does not have to be superior to an existing one. 

The firm is pursuing cardiovascular, antiviral, antitumor, and neurological 

compounds. It has obtained regulatory approval to start 

clinical trials in China for morphothiadine mesilate, a treatment for 

hepatitis B virus that was discovered, and later dropped, by Bayer. 

HEC isn’t the only company seeking to discover new drugs in 

China, says Greg B. Scott, president of ChinaBio , a Shanghai-based 

company that advises investors in China’s biotech sector. In Beijing, 

he notes, the start-up BeiGene is building oncology labs. In Hangzhou, 

another start-up, Ascletis , has raised $100 million to build 

drug discovery labs. And Aslan Pharmaceuticals, a Singapore-based 

biotech firm, conducts most of its research in China. 

But Scott questions whether new drugs without significantly 

improved efficacy will succeed in China. “If a drug isn’t superior to 

what’s already on the market, why would a patient buy it?” he asks. 

Moreover, drugs launched in China are at risk of being subject to 

price controls, he says. China recently more than tripled its list of 

price-controlled “essential drugs,” he points out. 

It’s too early to tell whether HEC’s vast investment in pharmaceutical 

R&D will eventually pay off. What is unquestionable is 

that the firm is making rapid progress in establishing an impressive 

R&D infrastructure. — JEAN-FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY 


GOVERNMENT & POLICY CONCENTRATES 

INDUSTRY MOVES 

TO DISMISS ‘MEGA’ 

PESTICIDE LAWSUIT 

A coalition of pesticide and chemical industry 

trade groups has filed a motion to dismiss 

the so-called mega lawsuit filed against 

EPA in January 2011 by the environmental 

advocacy groups Center for Biological Diversity 

and Pesticide Action Network North 

America. The lawsuit claims that EPA failed 

to consult the Fish & Wildlife Service or the 

National Marine Fisheries Service about the 

effects of hundreds of pesticides on endangered 

species when it approved the use of 

the pesticides. EPA is required to conduct 

such consultations under the Endangered 

Species Act (ESA). The industry groups 

argue that the complaint is fundamentally 

flawed because it does not specify which actions 

EPA did or did not take with respect to 

the required consultations. The groups also 

point out that the plaintiffs did not file their 

suit in the correct jurisdiction or within 

the deadline for challenging a pesticide 

registration under federal law. Jay J. Vroom, 

president and CEO of the pesticide industry 

group CropLife America , acknowledges that 

the ESA consultation process needs to be 

improved. But, he says, “the solution lies in 

stakeholder collaboration to develop a workable 

approach to pesticide ESA assessments 

rather than” via litigation. —BEE 

EARLIER ASSESSMENT 

SOUGHT FOR CHEMICALS 

New chemicals and technologies need to be 

comprehensively assessed before they reach 

the commercialization phase, according to a 

report from the UN Environment Program . 

Given the increasing pace of deployment, 

the world needs to break its pattern of first 

producing new technologies and chemicals 

and then trying to evaluate their impacts 

after the fact, the report says. Released last 

week, the report ranks minimizing risks 

from new chemicals and technologies as one 

of the top 10 emerging environmental issues 

that could have a major impact on human 

well-being and the planet. A reformed international 

system “could help society handle 

the inadvertent hazards caused by its novel 

technologies,” the report says. The report 

also highlights the need to repair “broken 

bridges” between science and policy-making 

to help develop solutions to environmental 

problems and to adapt to global change 

while attaining a green economy. —CH 

EPA LIMITS EMISSIONS 

FROM PVC FACILITIES 

EPA has issued final standards requiring facilities that produce polyvinyl 

chloride and copolymers to reduce emissions of several toxic air pollutants, 

including vinyl chloride, hydrogen chloride, and chlorinated dioxins 

and furans. The previous standard, established in 1976, set limits only for 

vinyl chloride. The agency expects the new rule to result in a total U.S. 

annual emission reduction of 238 tons of toxic air pollutants from largescale 

emitters. EPA says the standards are based on currently available 

technologies, and facilities will have “the flexibility to choose the most 

practical and cost-effective control technology or technique” to reduce 

their emissions. Facilities will be required to monitor emissions at certain 

points in the PVC production process to ensure that the standards are 

met. The U.S. currently has 17 PVC production facilities, with the majority 

located in Louisiana and Texas. EPA estimates it will initially cost industry 

$18 million in total capital investment to meet the rule’s requirements, 

with additional annual costs of $4 million. —GH 

OBAMA SEEKS FUNDS FOR 

WEAPONS DESTRUCTION 

The Obama Administration is seeking 

a significant increase in funding for the 

Defense Department ’s chemical weapons 

disposal program. The Administration is 

asking Congress to provide $779 million in 

fiscal 2013 to continue the construction of 

facilities in Kentucky and Colorado where 

stockpiles of obsolete chemical weapons 

are slated for destruction. Congress appropriated 

$477 million for the program in the 

current fiscal year. “The funding request 

for the Kentucky and Colorado disposal 

projects reflects the continued commitment 

by the Pentagon to the accelerated 

effort to rid us of these weapons,” says 

Craig Williams, director of the Chemical 

Weapons Working Group , a Kentuckybased 

watchdog organization. The Pentagon 

would direct $411 million to the Blue 

Grass Army Depot in Kentucky and $340 

million to the Pueblo Chemical Depot in 

Colorado. The 

remaining $28 

million would be 

used for program 

management. 

Under the 2013 

budget proposal, 

the Blue Grass 

Army Depot will 

continue to be 

funded to destroy 

the chemical 

weapons it stores. 

Disposal of about 2,600 tons of mustard 

agent at the Pueblo depot is expected to begin 

in 2015 and conclude in 2017. Disposal 

work at the Kentucky facility is scheduled 

to start in 2018 and finish in 2021. — GH 

NNSA, NATIONAL 

LABS AT ODDS 

“A breakdown of trust” exists between the 

three national nuclear weapons laboratories 

and the National Nuclear Security 

Administration, a semi-independent part 

of the Department of Energy that oversees 

the labs, according to a recent report by 

the National Research Council . The report 

blames NNSA micromanagement and close 

oversight for the problem, which the report 

says is most prominent at Los Alamos 

National Laboratory. The other weapons 

labs are Sandia National Laboratories and 

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 

Security problems that led to the close 

oversight have largely been 

resolved, NRC notes, but an 

“intrusive level” of oversight 

and a perceived lack of independence 

remain. The report 

says the oversight has resulted 

in restrictions in lab science. 

It urges NNSA to back 

off on reporting requirements 

and other oversight measures 

at the labs. This is the first of 

two reports of NRC’s review 

of the weapons labs. —JJ 

U.S. ARMY 


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©2012 Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC. All rights reserved. SIGMA-ALDRICH and ALDRICH are trademarks of Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC, registered in the US and other countries.

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78002


KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS/NEWSCOM 

AFFIRMING SCIENCE 

President’s 2013 BUDGET proposal provides 

increases to R&D and education 

GOVERNMENT & POLICY DEPARTMENT 

FEDERAL R&D Defense work 

dominates proposed fiscal 2013 budget. 

Commerce a 

Agriculture 2% 

2% 

NSF 

4% 

NASA 

7% 

Energy 

8% 

Health & 

Human Services 

22% 

Other b 

4% 

2013 R&D request = $141 billion 

Defense 

51% 

NOTE: Proposed budgets are for R&D activities 

only. a Proposed budget for 2013 includes funding 

for two mandatory projects: the Wireless Innovation 

Fund and the National Network for Manufacturing 

Innovation. b Agencies receiving a share less than 

1%, including EPA, Education, Homeland Security, 

Interior, the Smithsonian Institution, Transportation, 

and Veterans Affairs. 

SOURCE: White House Office of Science & 

Technology Policy 

SINCE TAKING OFFICE, President Barack 

Obama has touted the importance of basic 

research and science, technology, engineering, 

and mathematics (STEM) education 

for the economic prosperity of the U.S. 

Even in what has become a trying fiscal environment, 

the President does not appear 

to be wavering in his support. 

The 2013 budget request reaffirms his 

commitment. The $3.8 trillion proposal, 

which is within the spending caps imposed 

by the Budget Control Act of 2011, 

provides $140.8 billion for federal R&D, 

a 1.4% increase over the 2012 outlay. Of 

that amount, $64.0 billion, up 3.3% from 

2012, would support basic and applied research—the 

R in R&D. 

The Administration’s support for R&D 

focuses on several priorities. These include 

sustaining the growth of the National 

Science Foundation, the Department of 

Energy Office of Science, and the National 

Institute of Standards & Technology; promoting 

clean energy; supporting U.S. jobs 

through advanced manufacturing R&D; 

and preparing new innovators by ensuring 

effective STEM education. 

“In the State of the Union, I outlined 

a blueprint for an economy that is built 

to last—an economy built on new manufacturing, 

and new sources of energy, and 

new skills and education for the American 

people,” the President said at an event rolling 

out the 2013 budget request. Calling the 

2013 budget the details of that blueprint, 

Obama said that the request makes tough 

decisions about what programs to expand 

and which ones to scale back or terminate. 

The following review of proposed R&D 

spending at the federal agencies comes 

with some caveats. The numbers are given 

mostly as budget obligations—that is, 

the amount that agencies can contract 

to spend during the fiscal year. What the 

agencies actually spend, or outlay, during 

the year may be more or less. 

Also, the federal budget is a complex 

document with various ways of adding up 

programs and totals. As a result, sometimes 

the agency or department figures 

and the totals from the White House Office 

of Management & Budget are not the same 

and may be published in different places 

with different amounts. The variations are 

usually small and reflect alternative methods 

of allocating funds. 

Even in what has become a trying fiscal environment, the 

President does not appear to be wavering in his support. 


NSF: PRESIDENT 

MAINTAINS GROWTH 

FOR CORE RESEARCH 

The National Science Foundation fares 

particularly well in the President’s 2013 request, 

which proposes a budget 

of $7.4 billion, up 4.8% for 2013. 

This increase delays the planned 

doubling of the agency’s budget, 

4.8% 

but it’s still good news in an era of overall 

budget cuts. 

“The Administration and Congress have 

conveyed their clear determination to 

build on the nation’s history of success in 

leading-edge discovery and innovation,” 

NSF Director Subra Suresh said at an agency 

budget briefing. “That is the unambiguous 

message of the President’s 2013 budget 

request for NSF.” 

Much of the proposed increase would 

support areas important to the President’s 

larger economic goals, such as manufacturing 

and computing, and programs that 

are part of the OneNSF strategic plan, 

which aims to unify the agency behind a 

single purpose. One example that hits both 

priorities is the Cyber-Enabled Materials, 

Manufacturing & Smart Systems program, 

which would help turn static manufacturing 

processes into computer-based systems. 

Its budget would jump 82.3%, from 

$141 million in 2012 to $257 million in 2013. 

Research at NSF would get a 5.2% 

boost in funding, with the Directorate for 

Mathematical & Physical Sciences, which 

includes the Chemistry Division, seeing 

a 2.8% bump to $1.3 billion. The largest 

increase, 23%, goes to the Office of Integrative 

Activities, which supports interdisciplinary 

and NSF-wide research projects, 

such as many of the new OneNSF priorities. 

“We’ve made a very strong commitment 

to core frontier research in all of the 

fields of science and engineering, because 

this is really what drives innovation: basic 

research,” Suresh said. 

Funding for all disciplinary divisions 

would increase under the President’s proposal. 

Chemistry would get a 4.2% increase 

to $244 million in 2013. Other chemistryrelated 

fields would get increases, too, including 

5.5% for the Division of Molecular & 

Cellular Biosciences. However, these jumps 

would mean only a small change in the 

number of grants NSF awards; the overall 

funding rates for both competitive awards 

and research grants is projected to stay flat. 

Science, technology, engineering, and 

mathematics (STEM) education is a priority 

NSF 

Research activities and education programs are set to grow … 

$ MILLIONS 2011 a 2012 b 2013 c 2012–13 

CHANGE 

Research & related activities $5,608.4 $5,689.2 $5,983.3 5.2% 

Mathematical & physical sciences 1,312.4 1,308.9 1,345.2 2.8 

Geosciences 885.3 885.3 906.4 2.4 

Engineering 763.3 826.2 876.3 6.1 

Chemical, bioengineering & transport 158.8 171.5 179.4 4.6 

systems 

Biological sciences 712.3 712.4 733.9 3.0 

Computer & information science & 

engineering 636.1 653.6 709.7 8.6 

Polar programs 440.7 435.9 449.7 3.2 

Integrative activities 259.6 349.6 431.5 23.4 

Social, behavioral & economic sciences 247.3 254.3 259.6 2.1 

Cyberinfrastructure 300.8 211.6 218.3 3.2 

International science & engineering 49.0 49.9 51.3 2.8 

Artic Research Commission 1.6 1.5 1.4 -6.7 

Education & human resources 861.0 829.0 875.6 5.6 

Research equipment & facilities 125.4 197.1 196.2 -0.5 

Other 317.8 317.9 317.9 0.0 

TOTAL $6,912.6 $7,033.2 $7,373.0 4.8% 

… with core research programs slated for increases … 


CHANGE 

Ocean sciences $352.2 $351.9 $362.0 2.9% 

Materials research 294.9 294.6 302.6 2.7 

Physics 280.3 277.4 280.1 1.0 

Atmospheric & geospace sciences 257.7 258.7 264.1 2.1 

Mathematical sciences 239.8 237.8 245.0 3.0 

Astronomical sciences 236.8 234.6 244.6 4.3 

Chemistry 233.6 234.1 243.9 4.2 

Integrative organismal systems 212.6 212.3 220.5 3.9 

Earth sciences 183.8 183.5 189.2 3.1 

Environmental biology 142.7 142.6 143.7 0.8 

Molecular & cellular biosciences 123.9 125.8 132.7 5.5 

TOTAL $2,558.3 $2,553.3 $2,628.4 2.9% 

… and the number of grants climbing slightly 

2011 a 2012 b 2013 c 2012–13 

CHANGE 

Competitive awards 

Number 11,150 11,700.0 12,200 4.3% 

Funding rate 22% 22% 22% nm 

Research grants 

Number 7,550 7,850 8,150 3.8 

Funding rate 20% 20% 20% nm 

Median annualized size $125,950 $128,500 $128,700 0.2 

Average annualized size $156,200 $161,250 $160,500 -0.5 

Average duration, years 2.9 2.9 2.9 nm 

a Actual. b Estimated. c Proposed. nm = not meaningful. SOURCE: National Science Foundation 

for both the President and NSF. The agency 

would receive an additional $40 million 

in proposed funding, to $1.2 billion. A new 

math education program to be operated 

jointly by NSF and the Department of Education 

would receive $60 million to support 

programs at the K–12 and undergraduate 

levels, with each agency kicking in half of the 

program’s budget. Two previously funded 

undergraduate education programs would 

also get a funding boost: Widening Implementation 

& Demonstration of Evidence- 

Based Reforms would receive $20 million, 

up from $8 million, and Transforming Un- 



dergraduate Education in STEM would get 

$61 million, up $39 million. 

Funding for construction of major new 

research centers would stay essentially flat 

from last year, at around $196 million. The 

largest project, a continentwide environment 

observation system called the National 

Ecological Observatory Network, would 

receive $91 million, up from $60 million, or 

50.9% more than last year. Three other projects 

would continue to receive construction 

funding: the Advanced Laser Interferometer 

Gravitational-Wave Observatory, the Advanced 

Technology Solar Telescope, and the 

Ocean Observatories Initiative. 

To make many of these increases possible, 

NSF’s 2013 budget requests $67 million 

in cuts or consolidations, mainly from 

programs in computer science and math. 

Funding of the Nanoscale Science & Engineering 

Centers would also decrease by 

$5 million. Two public outreach programs— 

Communicating Science Broadly and 

Connecting Researchers with Public Audiences—funded 

at a total of $6 million would 

be eliminated. —ANDREA WIDENER 

NIH: FUNDING IS FLAT, 

BUT TRANSLATIONAL 

SCIENCE GROWS 

Under the proposed fiscal 2013 budget, the 

National Institutes of Health would receive 

$30.8 billion, the same amount 

enacted for 2012. The agency 

plans to concentrate on basic 

biomedical research, support for 

new investigators, and translational 

science. 

The National Center for Advancing 

Translational Sciences (NCATS) is the 

only one of NIH’s 27 institutes and centers 

that would see a meaningful budget 

increase in 2013. NCATS is a new center 

FLAT 

focused on accelerating drug development 

( C&EN, Feb. 14, 2011, page 25). The center 

would see an 11.1% increase compared 

with 2012, bringing its total 2013 budget to 

$639 million. 

The proposed NCATS budget includes 

$50 million for the Cures Acceleration 

Network (CAN), up $40 million from 2012. 

The program was authorized under the 

health care reform bill of 2010, but wasn’t 

funded until 2012 ( C&EN, Jan. 9, page 29). 

CAN aims to lower barriers between drug 

discovery and clinical trials and speed up 

the development of cures and treatments 

for various diseases. 

NIH 

Institute budgets remain flat; translational research center gets a boost 


CHANGE 

National Institutes $27,945 $27,777 $27,730 -0.2% 

Cancer 5,050 5,066 5,069 0.1 

Allergy & Infectious Diseases 4,768 4,485 4,495 0.2 

Heart, Lung & Blood 3,065 3,075 3,076 0.0 

General Medical Sciences 2,368 2,427 2,379 -2.0 

Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases 1,939 1,945 1,942 -0.2 

Neurological Disorders & Stroke 1,619 1,624 1,625 0.1 

Mental Health 1,475 1,479 1,479 0.0 

Child Health & Human Development 1,316 1,320 1,321 0.1 

Aging 1,099 1,102 1,103 0.1 

Drug Abuse 1,049 1,052 1,054 0.2 

Eye 700 702 693 -1.3 

Environmental Health Sciences 683 685 684 -0.1 

Arthritis & Musculoskeletal & Skin Diseases 533 535 536 0.2 

Human Genome Research 511 512 511 -0.2 

Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism 458 459 457 -0.4 

Deafness & Other Communication Disorders 414 416 417 0.2 

Dental & Craniofacial Research 409 410 408 -0.5 

Biomedical Imaging & Bioengineering 345 338 337 -0.3 

Nursing Research 144 145 144 -0.7 

Office of the Director 1,454 1,457 1,429 -1.9 

National Center for Advancing 

Translational Sciences 554 575 639 11.1 

National Library of Medicine 371 373 381 2.1 

National Center for Minority Health 

& Health Disparities 276 276 279 1.1 

National Center for Complementary 

& Alternative Medicine 127 128 128 0.0 

Buildings & Facilities 50 125 125 0.0 

Fogarty International Center 69 70 70 0.0 

TOTAL $30,846 $30,781 $30,781 0.0% 

a Actual. b Enacted. c Proposed. SOURCE: Department of Health & Human Services 

To offset the increases, the National 

Children’s Study—funded by the Office 

of the Director—would lose $28 million 

or 14.4%, bringing its budget down to $166 

million for fiscal 2013. The study plans to 

follow 100,000 U.S. children from before 

birth until age 21 to examine how genetics 

and environmental factors—such as air, 

water, diet, sound, and family dynamics— 

affect health. 

The National Institute of General 

Medical Sciences (NIGMS), the top NIH 

institute for the support of chemical research, 

would see a 2.0% decrease in 2013 

compared with 2012. Most of the cuts, or 

$51 million, would be directed at NIH’s Institutional 

Development Awards program, 

which aims to broaden the geographic 

distribution of NIH grants by funding investigators 

in states where success rates 

for NIH grants have been historically low. 

NIGMS got a 2.6% funding boost in 2012 to 

support the program. 

NIH expects to support 35,888 grants 

in 2013, down slightly from 35,944 in 2012. 

The agency estimates that 9,415 of the 

grants in 2013 will be new and competing 

awards, an increase of 672 grants or 7.1% 

compared with 2012. To pay for the new 

grants, NIH plans to cut some existing 

grants by 1%. NIH’s goal is to boost success 

rates, which are currently hovering around 

an all-time low of 18%. 

NIH advocates and health organizations 

are disappointed with the President’s flat 

budget request for NIH. “The Administration’s 

proposal to freeze the budget for 

NIH would mean that the NIH budget has 

failed to keep pace with biomedical inflation 

for 10 consecutive years,” says Darrell 

G. Kirch, president and chief executive officer 

of the Association of American Medical 

Colleges. That situation “would have dramatic 

consequences on the pace of medical 

innovation and harm communities around 

the nation,” he notes. 

If the proposed budget for NIH is enacted, 

“researchers will leave the field, poten- 


tial breakthroughs will be shelved, and new 

business opportunities grounded in medical 

discovery will evaporate as research 

institutions struggle with leaner budgets,” 

says Mary Woolley, president and chief 

executive officer of Research!America, a 

group that advocates for increased investments 

in federal R&D. A frozen budget 

for NIH will also “flatline medical breakthroughs 

in the coming years and stifle the 

business and job creation that begins with 

research and development,” she says. — 

BRITT ERICKSON 

DEFENSE: SCIENCE 

& TECHNOLOGY 

HOLD THEIR OWN 

The Administration’s fiscal 2013 budget 

request proposes cuts to the largest shareholder 

of federal R&D support: 

the Department of Defense. 

DOD would receive $69.7 billion 

for research, development, test, 

4.4% 

and evaluation in 2013, down 4.4% from 

2012. All R&D funds DOD receives include 

additional funds called Overseas Contingency 

Operations requests. 

DOD’s R&D proposal includes some 

$11.9 billion for early-stage science and 

technology programs. Of that, $2.1 billion 

would go to basic research, essentially the 

same as for 2012. The high-priority areas 

here are cybersecurity, robotics, advanced 

learning, information access, biodefense, 

and cleaner and more efficient energy. 

DEFENSE 

Basic research is flat as overall R&D increases 


CHANGE 

Operational systems development $30,441 $28,388 $26,394 -7.0% 

System development & demonstration 14,346 14,140 14,697 3.9 

Advanced component development 14,142 13,462 12,433 -7.6 

Advanced technology development 5,340 5,411 5,266 -2.7 

Applied research 4,329 4,739 4,478 -5.5 

RDT&E management support 5,661 4,584 4,268 -6.9 

Basic research 1,877 2,112 2,117 0.2 

TOTAL $76,136 $72,836 $69,653 -4.4% 

NOTE: All values include Overseas Contingency Operations requests. a Actual. b Enacted. c Proposed. RDT&E = 

Research, Development, Testing & Evaluation. SOURCE: Department of Defense 

The other two science and technology 

programs would see lower funding in 2013: 

Applied research would drop 5.5%, or $261 

million, to $4.5 billion, and advanced technology 

development would drop 2.7%, or 

$145 million, to $5.3 billion. 

Other highlights of the 2013 DOD 

request include expanded support of advanced 

manufacturing R&D through new 

public-private partnerships in targeted 

technology areas. And for agencywide 

programs, including the Defense Advanced 

Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the 

budget request proposes a 5.4% increase, 

for total funding of $5.5 billion. 

On the development side of R&D at 

DOD, funding for weapons-systems development 

activities would be reduced as 

systems mature and transition to the production 

phase. —SUSAN MORRISSEY 

DHS: SCIENCE & 

TECHNOLOGY OFFICE 

GETS RAISE 

Set at $668 million in fiscal 2012, the 

budget of the Department of Homeland 

Security (DHS) Science & Technology 

Directorate (S&T) would 

increase 24.4% in 2013, bringing 

its overall budget back up to 

24.4% 

$831 million. This increase would restore 

a significant portion of the funding the directorate 

lost when Congress trimmed its 

budget for 2012. 

S&T, DHS’s main source of scientific 

and technological expertise, had a budget 

of slightly more than $1 billion as recently 

as fiscal 2010. But as lawmakers cut federal 

spending in the wake of massive deficits, 

DHS has been on the chopping block. 



The President’s 2013 budget plan calls 

for S&T to spend $478 million on a variety 

of R&D programs, including biological defense 

and cybersecurity. For the 2012 fiscal 

year, Congress appropriated only $266 million 

for these initiatives. 

Under the Administration’s proposal, 

the largest amount—$135 million—would 

be used to develop tools to detect intentional 

and natural biologic events, with a 

focus on point-of-care diagnostic technologies, 

indoor sensors, and bioforensics. 

S&T would invest $120 million to develop 

technologies that assist the Transportation 

Security Administration in detecting 

explosives. And it would devote $65 million 

to cybersecurity research, focusing 

on identity and data privacy technologies, 

law enforcement forensic capabilities, and 

software assurance. 

The President’s proposal would provide 

S&T an additional $94 million to resume 

research in several areas that received little 

or no funding in fiscal 2012 such as border 

security, chemical attack resiliency, counterterrorism, 

and information sharing. 

Notably, the Administration recommends 

that no new funding be allocated 

for the construction of a biosecurity research 

lab in Manhattan, Kan. The budget 

proposal puts in question the future of 

the National Bio & Agro-Defense Facility 

(NBAF), which is slated to be built at a site 

near Kansas State University. 

Congress appropriated $50 million of 

the $150 million the White House sought 

for NBAF in fiscal 2012. That amount, the 

Administration says, is not sufficient to begin 

construction. The project is estimated 

to cost as much as $1 billion and would replace 

an aging facility at Plum Island, N.Y. 

“In light of this, the Administration will 

conduct a comprehensive assessment of 

the project in 2012, which will consider the 

cost, safety, and any alternatives to the current 

plan that would reduce costs and ensure 

safety,” the budget document states. 

NBAF critics have questioned the need 

for the new facility and its high price tag. 

Rep. Timothy H. Bishop (D-N.Y.), who has 

been leading an effort to kill the project, 

says the federal government should continue 

investing in research at the Plum Island 

Animal Disease Center, which is located in 

his Long Island district. 

Scientists at Plum Island study more 

than 40 highly contagious foreign animal 

diseases and several domestic diseases, 

including hog cholera and African swine 

fever. The site was selected in the 1950s 

because it is located off the U.S. mainland, 

away from livestock. 

“I am pleased that the President’s budget 

responded to the serious concerns I 

have expressed about NBAF,” Bishop says. 

“Even in the best fiscal situation, NBAF as 

currently proposed would be difficult to 

justify. In our current climate it is simply 

unaffordable.” 

The decision not to seek additional 

funding for NBAF does not necessarily kill 

the project. The White House could add 

money to the budget for construction in 

future years, or Congress could provide 

funding on its own. 

Beyond S&T, the Administration is 

seeking an overall DHS 2013 budget of 

$39.5 billion, a slight 0.5% decrease from 

DHS 

R&D funding gets a boost 


CHANGE 

Research, development & innovation $459.7 $265.8 $478.0 79.8% 

Management & administration 140.9 135.0 138.0 2.2 

Laboratory facilities 140.0 176.5 127.4 -27.8 

Acquisition & operations support 47.0 54.2 48.0 11.4 

University programs 39.9 36.6 40.0 9.3 

TOTAL $827.5 $668.1 $831.4 24.4% 

a Actual. b Enacted. c Proposed. SOURCE: Department of Homeland Security 

ENERGY 

R&D funding bumps up as priorities shift 


CHANGE 

Office of Science $4,897 $4,873 $4,992 2.4% 

Basic Energy Sciences 1,639 1,688 1,800 6.6 

High energy & nuclear physics 1,303 1,338 1,303 -2.6 

Biological & environmental research 595 610 625 2.6 

Scientific computing research 410 441 456 3.3 

Fusion energy 367 401 398 -0.7 

Other 583 395 410 3.8 

National Security 2,047 2,051 2,239 9.2 

Nuclear weapons 1,692 1,697 1,691 -0.3 

Nonproliferation 355 354 548 54.8 

Energy Resources 2,525 2,466 2,726 10.5 

Energy efficiency & renewable energy 1,421 1,446 1,860 28.6 

Fossil energy d 585 534 429 -19.7 

Nuclear energy 398 376 314 -16.5 

Electricity delivery & reliability 102 99 103 4.3 

Environmental cleanup 19 11 20 88.2 

ARPA-E 180 275 350 27.3 

TOTAL $9,649 $9,665 $10,307 6.6% 

a Actual. b Enacted. c Proposed. d Accounts for unspent funds of $151 million in 2011 and $187 million in 2012. 

ARPA-E = Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. SOURCE: Department of Energy 

the current $39.7 billion spending level. 

Included in some $1.2 billion for infrastructure 

protection and information 

security, $75 million of which would go to 

the Infrastructure Security Compliance Division. 

The office coordinates and manages 

activities under the department’s ammonium 

nitrate and chemical facility security 

programs. 

“The department’s fiscal 2013 budget 

request preserves core frontline priorities 

by cutting costs, sharing resources across 

components, and streamlining operations 

wherever possible,” Homeland Security 

Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement. 

Preventing terrorism and enhancing 

security remain the department’s top priorities, 

she added. —GLENN HESS 


ENERGY: MORE DOLLARS 

FOR CLEAN AND 

RENEWABLE ENERGY R&D 

For 2013, the President has proposed a Department 

of Energy budget of $27.2 billion, a 

3.2% increase over the 2012 appropriation. 

As Energy Secretary Steven 

Chu rolled out the proposal, 

he underscored familiar themes: 

6.6% 

a focus on clean and renewable energy R&D, 

support for domestic energy-related manufacturing, 

a drive to ensure U.S. leadership in 

the international energy technology marketplace, 

and the creation of more U.S. jobs. 

The department seeks $10.3 billion for 

overall R&D funding, a 6.6% jump over 

last year. The biggest share would go to the 

Office of Science, which would get $5.0 billion, 

2.4% more than in fiscal 2012. The Basic 

Energy Sciences program, which funds 

much chemical science, would get the largest 

funding boost, 6.6% to $1.8 billion. 

Another program of key interest to chemistry 

is the Advanced Research Projects 

Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which would get a 

27.3% increase to $350 million under the proposed 

budget. ARPA-E supports risky, highpotential 

R&D projects. In less than three 

years, it has funded 180 projects. While Congress 

supports ARPA-E, the levels it has appropriated 

have been far below those sought 

by the Administration. Last year, DOE proposed 

a budget of $600 million for ARPA-E, 

but Congress gave it only $275 million. 

DOE’s second-biggest energy research 

area is the Office of Energy Efficiency & 

Renewable Energy. It would get $1.9 billion 

in funding, a 28.6% increase from last 

year. Vehicle R&D technologies—such 

as advanced batteries, improved electric 

recharge capabilities, lightweight materials, 

and efficient internal combustion 

engines—would get $420 million, 24.2% 

more than last year. Efficiency research to 

support advanced building technologies 

would receive a 41.4% funding increase to 

$310 million. Funding would jump 7.3% 

to $310 million for solar energy R&D and 

35.5% to $270 million for biomass and biorefinery 

R&D. The budget for wind energy 

R&D would remain flat at $95 million. 

In presenting the 2013 budget, Chu cited 

wind as a DOE success story, noting that 

the agency will shift research focus from 

onshore to offshore wind energy. Onshore 

wind energy is now a mature technology 

and competitive with other new electricity 

sources, he said, whereas offshore wind 

energy is just getting started in the U.S. 

Nuclear energy faces cuts in this budget. 

The science component would drop 16.5% 

to $314 million and overall funding of the 

Office of Nuclear Energy would be cut 

10.3% to $770 million. Buried in the funds 

is some $60 million, Chu said, set aside for 

R&D to support recommendations of the 

Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear 

Future (C&EN, Feb. 13, page 33). The 

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consolidate radioactive waste currently 

stored at some 10 closed reactor sites, one 

of the commission’s recommendations. 

Chu’s proposed cuts notwithstanding, 

Congress historically has looked favorably 

on nuclear energy research, as well as fossil 

energy research, and has restored funding. 

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tion seeks $429 million, 19.7% less than the 

$534 million Congress appropriated in 2012. 

However, DOE intends to use only $347 million 

of that amount. Most of the funding requested 

in the 2013 proposal would be used 

for coal-related research for power plant efficiency 

and carbon capture technologies. 

Echoing the President, Chu stressed 

support for advanced manufacturing and 

the need for the U.S. to ramp up manufacturing 

efforts. He singled out a 2013 budget 

request for $290 million to fund the Advanced 

Manufacturing Office within DOE, 

which is a renamed and refocused version 

of DOE’s Industrial Technologies Program. 

For more than a decade, that office has 

been important to the chemical industry, 

providing guidance and promoting industrial 

energy efficiency. 

Previous Administrations had slashed 

the program’s funding and discussed 

its elimination. In 2008, its budget was 

$63 million, but in 2011, Chu sought $320 

million and received $116 million from 

Congress. This year’s proposal would more 

than double the office’s funding. 

The 2013 budget does not include money 

for DOE’s controversial loan guarantee program, 

which has been under attack by Republicans 

in the House of Representatives. 

Chu continued to stress the importance 

of other federal programs to encourage 

private clean energy investments, such as 

the production tax credit to encourage investment 

in wind and solar energy projects. 

These programs, Chu said, have for the first 

time since 2008 put the U.S. ahead of China 

in private and government clean energy 

investments, with a $47 billion to $56 billion 

U.S. advantage in 2011. 

When Chu presented DOE’s 2013 budget 

to the Senate Energy & Natural Resources 

Committee on Feb. 16, he emphasized 

“tough choices” and cuts. Many senators, 

however, thought the budget was too grand 

and the cuts too shallow. 

President Obama’s budget, committee 

ranking minority member Sen. Lisa 

Murkowski (R-Alaska) said, “largely ignores 

the greatest threat to our economy— 

the more than $15 trillion debt.” 

She criticized Chu’s support for tax 

credits for new energy technologies and 

advanced manufacturing and efficiency programs. 

But she opposed efforts to remove 

some $4 billion in yearly tax breaks for oil 

and gas companies, reductions Chu had underscored 

in his testimony. 

The conflicting themes continued 

throughout the three hours senators 

NIST 

Research and services are slated for big gains 


CHANGE 

Laboratories & services $497.4 $567.0 $648.0 14.3% 

Physical Measurement Laboratory 122.5 123.9 126.5 2.1 

Material Measurement Laboratory 98.3 106.3 124.8 17.4 

Information Technology Laboratory 67.1 97.0 112.9 16.4 

Engineering Laboratory 64.8 73.3 84.5 15.3 

Standards coordination & special programs 15.4 30.5 56.8 86.2 

Center for Neutron Research 41.5 41.5 40.9 -1.4 

Center for Nanoscale Science & Technology 28.1 33.1 40.2 21.5 

Innovations in measurement science program 20.2 20.2 20.2 0.0 

Corporate services 18.8 18.5 18.5 0.0 

Postdoctoral research associates program 11.0 13.0 13.0 0.0 

Strategic & emerging research initiative fund 9.7 9.7 9.7 0.0 

Hollings Manufacturing Extension 

Partnership 128.4 128.4 128.0 -0.3 

Construction of research facilities 69.9 55.4 60.0 8.3 

Advanced Manufacturing Technology 

Consortia 0.0 0.0 21.0 nm 

Technology Innovation Program 44.8 0.0 0.0 nm 

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program 9.6 0.0 0.0 nm 

TOTAL d $750.1 $750.8 $857.0 14.1% 

a Actual adjusted for NIST internal reorganization. b Enacted. c Proposed. d Excludes one-time revitalization funds 

for the Wireless Innovation Fund ($300 million) and the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation ($1 billion). 

nm = not meaningful. SOURCE: National Institute of Standards & Technology 

peppered Chu with questions. They criticized 

Chu for offering loans and support 

to clean energy companies, but equally 

blasted him for not offering loans, grants, 

and research support for industries in 

their particular states. The hypocrisy was 

bipartisan. 

DOE’s proposal is unlikely to survive 

in its current form in a deeply divided 

Congress during a volatile election year. In 

2012, Chu sought $29.5 billion and wound 

up with $3 billion less. —JEFF JOHNSON 

COMMERCE: R&D 

FUNDING IS UP AT 

NIST, DOWN AT NOAA 

Both research agencies of the Department 

of Commerce—the National Institute of 

Standards & Technology (NIST) and the 

USDA 

Food research takes a hit 


CHANGE 

National Institute of Food & Agriculture $1,356 $1,353 $1,271 -6.1% 

Agricultural Research Service 1,164 1,126 1,130 0.4 

National Agricultural Statistics Service 156 159 179 12.6 

Economic Research Service 82 78 77 -1.3 

TOTAL $2,758 $2,716 $2,657 -2.2% 

a Actual. b Enacted. c Proposed. SOURCE: U. S. Department of Agriculture 

National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration 

(NOAA)—would receive funding 

boosts in the 2013 budget. The increase in 

NIST’s budget would keep the agency’s 

core internal labs on an extended budgetdoubling 

track. 

NIST would be particularly rewarded 

by the emphasis on manufacturing to support 

the economic recovery. The agency’s 

budget would increase 14.1%, 

to $857 million. Nearly half of 

the increase would go “to support 

NIST’s efforts in promoting 

emerging manufacturing 

challenges in new technology areas like 

biomanufacturing, nanomanufacturing, 

14.1% 

NIST 

advanced materials, and systems technologies 

like smart manufacturing,” NIST Director 

Patrick D. Gallagher said at a budget 

briefing. 

For example, the $45 million Measure- 


ment Science for Advanced Manufacturing 

initiative would bring NIST and industry 

together to identify important research areas 

and to set standards in different manufacturing 

sectors. A companion project, 

the Advanced Manufacturing Technology 

Consortia, would use its $21 million funding 

to provide cost-sharing grants to industry 

coalitions that are working to improve 

manufacturing and address industrywide 

research challenges. 

The 2013 proposal also includes large, 

one-time infusions to NIST for two mandatory 

projects. The National Network for 

Manufacturing Innovation would bring 

$1 billion to the lab to help develop new 

manufacturing technologies with broad applications. 

This would be a joint project with 

the Departments of Defense and Energy, as 

well as the National Science Foundation. 

Another $300 million, from the Wireless 

Innovation Fund, would support development 

of a reliable, secure broadband system 

for first responders and other public safety 

personnel. 

NIST’s internal research labs would 

receive substantial support as well, slated 

for a 14.3% increase to $648 million in 

2013. The Material Measurement Laboratory, 

which includes much of the basic 

chemistry research at NIST, would get a 

17.4% boost to $125 million. Other labs that 

would get double-digit increases are the 

Center for Nanoscale Science & Technology, 

up 21.5% to $40 million; the Information 

Technology Laboratory, up 16.4% to $113 

million; and the Engineering Laboratory, 

up 15.3% to $85 million. 

NOAA would receive a funding increase 

of 3.1%, or $154 million, bringing its total 

budget to $5.1 billion. But overall 

funding for R&D at the agency 

3.1% 

NOAA 

would drop 3.8%, to a proposed 

2013 budget of $552 million. 

The Office of Oceanic & Atmospheric 

Research, which oversees some 

of NOAA’s basic science, would receive a 

funding increase of 7.6% to $414 million 

in 2013. To balance this gain, several programs 

would be cut or canceled. 

The Administration continues to support 

a proposed reorganization of the Department 

of Commerce—although the 2013 budget 

requests are presented for the current 

agency structure. The reorganization would 

consolidate six business and trade agencies 

under a single Cabinet-level department 

and move NOAA to the Department of the 

Interior. None of the changes have been approved 

by Congress yet. —ANDREA WIDENER 

AGRICULTURE: RESEARCH 

FUNDS DECLINE 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s research 

budget would take a hit under the 

2013 proposed budget. USDA would receive 

$2.7 billion for agricultural R&D, a decrease 

of $59 million, or 2.2%, compared with 2012. 

Four USDA agencies have jurisdiction 

over research: the National Institute of 

Food & Agriculture (NIFA), the Agricultural 

Research Service (ARS), 

the National Agricultural Statistics 

Service (NASS), and the 

Economic Research Service 

(ERS). 

NIFA, which funds extramural research, 

would see its budget fall to $1.3 billion, a 

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decrease of $82 million, or 6.1%, compared 

with 2012. The cuts include $129 million of 

Farm Bill programs that are subject to reauthorization 

this year. 

Funding for NIFA’s primary competitive 

research grants program, the Agriculture 

& Food Research Initiative, would rise to 

$325 million, an increase of $61 million, 

or 23.1%, compared with 2012. AFRI’s 

research priorities include feedstocks for 

biofuel production, food security, food 

safety, and minimizing antibiotic resistance 

transmission through the food chain, 

nutrition, and obesity prevention. 

ARS, which conducts in-house research 

in agricultural sciences, would see its 2013 

budget rise to $1.1 billion, an increase of 

$4 million, or 0.4%, compared with 2012. 

The increase would be used to address environmental 

challenges facing agricultural 

production and laboratory infrastructure. 

Agricultural statistics would get a large 

boost in 2013. NASS would receive $179 million, 

an increase of $20 million, or 12.6%. Of 

that increase, $3.4 million would fund county-level 

statistics for selected commodities. 

The 2013 NASS budget also includes 

$63 million, an increase of $20.9 million, to 

support the Census of Agriculture. Funding 

of ERS, the agency that provides economic 

and other social science information about 

agriculture, food, and the environment, 

would drop to $77 million, a decrease of 

$1 million, or 1.3%, compared with 2012. — 

BRITT ERICKSON 

EPA: FUNDS FOR SCIENCE 

& TECHNOLOGY UP 

The President proposes an overall budget 

cut for the Environmental Protection 

Agency. However, he asks Congress 

to provide a slight increase 

of 1.7% to EPA’s science and 

technology efforts, raising this 

1.7% 

funding from nearly $794 million in 2012 to 

$807 million in 2013. 

“Science remains the foundation of the 

work of the EPA, and this budget continues 

our investment in cutting-edge research,” 

Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said at the 

budget rollout. 

The proposal includes $14 million to 

study the safety of hydraulic fracturing. Also 

known as fracking, this is a drilling method 

that uses sand, chemicals, and water under 

pressure to extract natural gas from shale. 

The agency seeks $6 million to continue a 

congressionally recommended investiga- 

EPA 

Chemical safety, pesticide licensing research to increase 


CHANGE 

Sustainable communities $192.4 $170.7 $165.7 -2.9% 

Chemical safety & sustainability 131.4 131.3 134.7 2.6 

Clean air & climate 142.7 124.4 127.1 2.2 

Safe & sustainable water 117.5 113.5 121.2 6.8 

Air, climate & energy 119.8 98.8 105.9 7.2 

Operations & administration 69.4 72.0 75.5 4.9 

Homeland security 60.6 42.0 40.1 -4.5 

Enforcement 16.4 15.3 15.6 2.0 

Pesticide licensing 6.6 6.6 7.1 7.6 

Indoor air & radiation 7.7 6.8 6.7 -1.5 

IT/data management 3.5 3.7 4.0 8.1 

Water—human health protection 3.7 3.8 3.6 -5.3 

Congressionally mandated projects 5.6 5.0 0.0 nm 

TOTAL $877.3 $793.7 $807.3 1.7% 

a Actual. b Enacted. c Proposed. nm = not meaningful. SOURCE: Environmental Protection Agency 

tion into whether fracking can pollute underground 

drinking water supplies. EPA also 

requests an additional $8 million to expand 

the research to other possible effects of 

fracking. “In collaboration with the Department 

of Energy and the U.S. Geological 

Survey, we will begin to assess the potential 

impacts of hydraulic fracturing on air quality, 

[surface] water quality, and ecosystems,” 

Jackson explained. 

The President’s budget also seeks an increase 

for chemical-related research in 2013, 

asking for nearly $135 million, up from $131 

million in 2012. EPA would use $4.1 million 

for a type of green chemistry research called 

sustainable molecular design. “This effort 

will provide new principles for alternative 

chemical design and reduce the likelihood 

of unwanted toxic effects of nanomaterials 

and other chemicals,” according to budget 

documents. “EPA will use this program to 

generate the critical information needed by 

manufacturers to develop inherently safer 

processes and products that minimize or 

eliminate the associated adverse impacts 

on human health and the environment that 

could result from the manufacturing, use, 

and disposal of chemicals.” 

Additionally, the EPA budget proposal 

includes $81 million for the popular Science 

To Achieve Results program, which 

funds graduate fellowships and research 

grants to universities. 

In a belt-tightening move, the proposed 

budget would also do away with some 

research efforts at EPA. For instance, the 

agency would eliminate its clean car technology 

effort, saving $8 million, based on 

DATA ONLINE 

2012 funding levels. Instead, other federal 

programs, including the Department of Energy’s 

Vehicles Technology Program, will 

focus on development of advanced automotive 

technology, budget documents say. 

EPA would slash another $8 million 

from its science and technology budget by 

ceasing grants for research on radon. The 

agency also would discontinue research on 

the effects of cleaning materials in schools 

for a savings of $1 million. —CHERYL HOGUE 

NASA: PLAN 

SCALES BACK MARS 

EXPLORATION ACTIVITIES 

The President proposes a slight drop in 

funds for the National Aeronautics & Space 

Administration in fiscal 2013. 

The $17.7 billion request—down 

0.3%, or $59 million, from 2012— 

builds on the agency’s current 

0.3% 

space infrastructure and prioritizes technologies 

and capabilities for future space 

travel. 

The proposed budget, however, also 

includes cuts in areas such as planetary 

science and astrophysics to balance the 

requested increases. “Tough choices had to 

be made,” NASA head Charles F. Bolden Jr. 

said at the budget rollout. 

One area that would see funding growth 

is Earth science. Some $1.8 billion, up 

1.4%, would support NASA’s fleet of Earth 

observation spacecraft aimed at collecting 

data on climate change, the environment, 

and natural disasters. The 2013 budget also 

To view 2013 budget tables for STEM education, USGCRP, 

and NNI, visit this story at cen-online.org. 


NASA 

Exploration, technology development are set to grow 


CHANGE 

Science $4,919 $5,074 $4,911 -3.2% 

Space operations 5,321 4,196 4,013 -4.4 

Exploration 3,928 3,721 3,933 5.7 

Cross-agency support 3,130 3,003 2,848 -5.2 

Space technology 0 548 699 27.6 

Construction, environmental compliance & 

restoration 433 486 619 27.4 

Aeronautics 534 569 552 -3.0 

Education 146 136 100 -26.5 

Inspector general 36 38 37 -2.6 

TOTAL $18,447 $17,771 $17,712 -0.3% 

a Actual. b Enacted. c Proposed. SOURCE: Office of Management & Budget 

would provide $628 million, up 21% from 

2012, to get the James Webb Space Telescope 

on schedule to launch in 2018. 

For human space exploration, the budget 

proposes $830 million to develop commercial 

capability to transport crew to the 

International Space Station. The amount 

would be more than twice the $406 million 

the program received in 2012. The budget 

also would provide $2.9 billion for the continued 

development of a deep-space crew 

capsule and a heavy-lift rocket to launch 

humans into space. That amount is down 

about 7% from the 2012 level. 

To balance the requested increases, 

NASA proposes to streamline agency operations 

and to cut funding of the Mars 

robotic exploration program by nearly 

40%, to a total budget of $361 million. 

The request would also end plans for the 

ExoMars mission, a joint effort with the 

European Space Agency to explore the red 

planet. —SUSAN MORRISSEY 

INTERAGENCY 

INITIATIVES: EDUCATION, 

CLIMATE SCIENCE, 

NANOTECH ALL GROW 

The President’s emphasis on science, 

technology, engineering, and mathematics 

(STEM) education is reflected by the 

$3 billion he seeks for it across 13 agencies, 

a 2.5% increase. This budget request comes 

on the heels of his call for an additional 

1 million graduates with STEM degrees, up 

by 33% from current graduation rates. 

The Administration’s education efforts 

focus on two areas: improving college-level 

STEM education, primarily at the undergraduate 

level, and improving K–12 teacher 

effectiveness. And the funding proposals 

follow those lines. In total dollars, the largest 

boosts would be $111 million, or 21.5%, to 

$628 million for the Department of Education 

and $40 million, or 3.4%, to $1.2 billion 

for the National Science Foundation. 

The Administration also 

asks for more coordination 

between NSF and the 

Department of Education. 

For example, a new initiative 

to improve mathematics education at the 

K–12 and undergraduate levels will require 

collaboration between the two agencies. 

The $60 million initiative will be equally 

funded by both agencies. 

One focus of both the math initiative and 

other STEM programs is identifying efforts 

that have been proven to work on the small 

scale. “There is a great opportunity there 

to scale up those programs,” said Carl Wieman, 

associate director for science at the 

White House Office of Science & Technology 

Policy (OSTP), at a budget briefing. 

President Obama also proposes a 5.6% 

THE BUDGET PROCESS: 

PROPOSAL NOW GOES 

TO CONGRESS 

2.5% 

Education 

The fiscal 2013 budget now goes to the 

House of Representatives and Senate 

Appropriations Committees, where it 

is divided into 13 appropriations bills. 

Hearings will be held on each bill by 

various committees, and legislation will 

emerge that sets the levels of spending 

for all federal departments and agencies. 

The numbers approved by Congress 

may be very different from those 

originally proposed by the Administration, 

but historically, R&D has not been 

radically changed. The whole process is 

supposed to be completed and the bills 

signed by the President by Sept. 30, the 

last day of fiscal 2012. 

increase in the U.S. Global Change Research 

Program (USGCRP), a multiagency 

science effort on climate change. The program 

was funded at $2.4 billion in 2012, and 

the President seeks nearly $2.6 billion for 

it in 2013. 

The funding request for USGCRP represents 

“an affirmation of support” for federal 

climate-change research, says John P. Holdren, 

OSTP Director. 

The U.S. Geological Survey, which saw 

a significant cut in its USGCRP funding 

in 2012, would see a major 

percentage increase under 

the President’s plan, which 

proposes $68 million in 2013 

funding, up 15.3% from 2012 

funding of $59 million. 

In tems of dollars, the National Aeronautics 

& Space Administration would see 

the biggest jump in USGCRP funding, up 

5.7%, or $79 million, to nearly $1.5 billion in 

2013 from just less than $1.4 billion in 2012. 

The funding in part would support development 

of several research satellites. 

The proposed 2013 budget also would 

boost nanotechnology research. The National 

Nanotechnology Initiative 

(NNI), established in 2001 to coordinate 

nanotech R&D among 

25 federal agencies, would receive 

$1.8 billion, an increase of 

5.6% 

USGRCP 

4.1% 

NNI 

$70 million, or 4.1%, compared with 2012. 

The Department of Energy and the Environmental 

Protection Agency would each 

contribute double-digit percent increases 

to NNI in 2013. DOE would invest a total 

of $443 million, an increase of $128 million, 

or 40.6%, compared with 2012. And EPA 

would invest $19 million, a jump of $2 million, 

or 11.8%. 

On the other hand, the NNI contributions 

of Departments of Defense and Homeland 

Security would each decrease by double-digit 

percentages. DOD’s investment 

would fall almost 20% to $289 million, while 

DHS’s would drop 14.3% to $6 million. 

Federal agencies that participate in 

NNI plan to continue to invest in three 

signature initiatives: solar collection and 

conversion, sustainable nanomanufacturing, 

and nanoelectronics. The agencies 

also plan to follow the NNI environmental, 

health, and safety research strategy released 

in fall 2011 to protect public health 

and the environment while fostering 

nanotech product development and commercialization 

( C&EN, Oct. 31, 2011, page 

28). —BRITT ERICKSON, CHERYL HOGUE, 

ANDREA WIDENER 



FDA USER FEES SWELL 

Agency proposes HUGE INCREASE in industrypaid 

fees to ensure food, drug safety 

BRITT E. ERICKSON , C&EN WASHINGTON 

UNDER PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s proposed 

fiscal 2013 budget , the Food & Drug 

Administration would receive a total of 

$4.5 billion—an increase of $654 million, or 

17.1%, compared with 2012. The bulk of the 

increase, $643 million, would come from 

industry-paid user fees. 

In 2013, FDA would receive a total of 

$2.0 billion in user fees, a 48.5% increase 

from 2012. The agency’s $2.5 billion in allocated 

money, on the other hand, is only 

0.4% higher than the 2012 level. 

The projected increase in user fees for 

2013 includes first-ever fees for food, food 

packaging, cosmetics, generic drugs, and 

biosimilars, or generic-like versions of 

complex biological drugs. Congress has to 

approve the proposed fees, and it also needs 

to reauthorize existing user fee programs 

for prescription drugs and medical devices 

by Sept. 30, the end of this fiscal year. 

Food safety would continue to be a priority 

for FDA in 2013 under the proposed 

budget. The agency is asking for $220 million 

from the food industry in new registration 

and inspection user fees to beef up 

inspections of food facilities and the review 

of imported food as required under the 

Food Safety Modernization Act. 

It is unclear whether Congress will go 

along with the proposed food-safety user 

fees. Similar fees were included in early 

versions of the food-safety legislation, but 

they did not make it into the final bill that 

was signed into law last year. 

Increased globalization of the foodpackaging 

market has also prompted FDA 

to propose $5 million in new user fees to 

support FDA’s safety review of new foodpackaging 

materials. And FDA is requesting 

$19 million in new user fees for cosmetics. 

The money would be used to enhance 

international activities, improve outreach 

and communications, and strengthen science 

in FDA’s cosmetics program. 

For the first time, FDA is asking for 

$299 million in new user fees from manufacturers 

of generic drugs. The money 

would be put toward speeding up the review 

of low-cost generic drugs. Under the 

proposed budget, FDA would also receive 

$20 million from manufacturers of biosimilars 

to help cover the cost of reviewing 

the safety and efficacy of those products. 

In terms of existing user fee programs, 

FDA would receive $713 million from prescription 

drug manufacturers, an increase 

of $11 million or 1.6% compared with 2012. 

The budget proposal also includes $70 million 

in medical device user fees, an increase 

of $12 million or 20.7% compared with 

2012. FDA, however, is still working out the 

agreement with the medical device industry 

regarding user fees for 2013. The agency 

anticipates that the medical device fees will 

actually be higher than what is reflected in 

the proposed budget. 

It is now up to Congress to reauthorize 

the Prescription Drug User Fee Act and the 

Medical Device User Fee & Modernization 

Act, as well as consider the host of other 

fees proposed by FDA for 2013. Lawmakers 

in the House of Representatives are already 

working on legislation to authorize such 

fees. Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) introduced 

the Generic Drug & Biosimilar User Fee Act 

(H.R. 3988) earlier this month. Prescription 

drug and medical device user fee bills are 

expected to be introduced soon. 

THE HOUSE Energy & Commerce Subcommittee 

on Health held three hearings 

earlier this month to consider FDA user 

fees for prescription drugs, generic drugs 

and biosimilars, and medical devices. 

Members used the opportunity to address 

a laundry list of concerns related to FDA’s 

USER FEES 

Industry-paid fees are slated to grow significantly 


CHANGE 

Prescription drug $667 $702 $713 1.6% 

Family Smoking Prevention & Tobacco 

450 477 505 5.9 

Control Act 

Human generic drug d 0 0 299 nm 

Food registration & inspection d 0 0 220 nm 

Medical device 62 58 70 20.7 

Animal drug 19 22 31 40.9 

Biosimilars d 0 0 20 nm 

Cosmetics d 0 0 19 nm 

Mammography Quality Standards Act 19 19 19 0.0 

Food reinspection 0 15 15 0.0 

Medical products reinspection d 0 0 15 nm 

Food recall 0 12 13 8.3 

Animal generic drug 5 6 8 33.3 

Color Certification Fund 8 8 8 0.0 

International courier d 0 0 6 nm 

Export Certification Fund 3 3 5 66.7 

Food-contact notification d 0 0 5 nm 

Priority review voucher 0 5 0 -100.0 

TOTAL USER FEES $1,233 $1,326 $1,969 48.5% 

NOTE: Totals may not sum because of rounding. a Actual. b Enacted. c Proposed. d New user fee proposed for 2013. 

nm = not meaningful. SOURCE: Department of Health & Human Services 

“We are concerned that if a national system doesn’t go into 

place, we run the risk of having a patchwork of state laws.” 


egulatory process, some of which could delay reauthorization and 

approval of the user fees. 

Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-Pa.), chair of the health subcommittee, 

has made it a goal to mark up FDA user fee legislation this spring. 

Amendments to the legislation, however, will likely slow its progress 

through Congress. 

For example, some Republicans—including Pitts—are pushing 

to add controversial language that would require FDA to promote 

economic competitiveness, innovation, and job creation. “Some 

4 million jobs in the U.S. are directly or indirectly supported by the 

drug industry,” Pitts pointed out at a Feb. 1 hearing on prescription 

drug user fees. 

At the hearing, Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Texas) questioned 

whether the lack of predictability in FDA’s drug approval process is 

driving American drug manufacturers overseas. “Does FDA’s slow 

approval process send venture capitalists elsewhere where they 

can find more stability? Is there a way to continue to streamline the 

approval of single-molecule drugs?” he asked. 

On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), 

ranking Democrat on the Energy & Commerce Committee, and 

others spoke in opposition to adding a job-creation component to 

FDA’s mission. “FDA should not take jobs into consideration when 

it is reviewing the safety and effectiveness of a new medicine,” 

Waxman stressed. 

“It appears that many of these proposals are driven by rhetoric 

insisting that FDA has become too demanding of companies seeking 

to market their drugs and devices,” Waxman said. But such 

claims are not backed up by data, he noted. “To the contrary, I am 

aware of some studies showing, for example, that FDA actually approves 

drugs faster than our counterparts in Europe,” he said. 

Other lawmakers at the hearing questioned whether FDA is 

putting too much weight on risk and not enough on benefit when 

approving new drugs and whether current conflict-of-interest provisions 

are making it difficult for FDA to find qualified experts to 

serve on drug review advisory committees. 

Several lawmakers also brought up the growing problem of 

prescription drug shortages, as well as concerns over the quality 

of the increasingly globalized pharmaceutical supply chain. FDA’s 

deputy commissioner for global regulatory operations and policy, 

Deborah M. Autor , emphasized the need for a federal system to 

track drugs throughout the supply chain. “We are concerned that if 

a national system doesn’t go into place, we run the risk of having a 

patchwork of state laws,” Autor testified. 

Other members of the committee focused on the safety of cosmetics, 

adverse effects of pharmaceuticals in children, and the lack 

of new antibiotics in the pharmaceutical pipeline. 

CONCERNS ABOUT drug shortages and the quality of the drug 

supply chain were also raised at a Feb. 9 hearing by the same subcommittee 

on user fees for generic drugs and biosimilars. Both 

problems are hitting the generic drug industry particularly hard. 

To help improve the quality of the supply chain, FDA will ensure 

that foreign generic drug companies are both held to the same 

quality standards that U.S. companies must meet and inspected biennially, 

Janet Woodcock, director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation 

& Research, told lawmakers. Currently, U.S. drug facilities 

are inspected more often than those overseas, she acknowledged. 

Woodcock also explained why FDA needs to levy generic drug 

user fees to speed up the review process. The number of generic 

drug applications submitted to FDA has skyrocketed over the past 

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FDA 

Proposed budget increases investment for food and drug safety 


CHANGE 

Human drugs $956 $979 $1,259 28.6% 

Foods 836 883 1,084 22.8 

Center for Tobacco Products 421 455 482 5.9 

Devices & radiological health 378 376 387 2.9 

Biologics 325 329 333 1.2 

Headquarters & Office of the Commissioner 213 223 281 26.0 

Animal drugs & feeds 161 166 184 10.8 

National Center for Toxicological Research 61 60 59 -1.7 

Buildings & facilities 10 9 5 -44.4 

Other 329 352 412 17.0 

TOTAL d $3,690 $3,832 $4,486 17.1% 

BUDGET REQUEST $2,457 $2,506 $2,517 0.4% 

USER FEES $1,233 $1,326 $1,969 48.5% 

a Actual. b Enacted. c Proposed. d Includes industry user fees. SOURCE: Department of Health & Human Services 

few years. “The current backlog of applications 

pending review is estimated to be 

over 2,500,” Woodcock noted. “The current 

median time to approval is approximately 31 

months,” she said. FDA and the generic drug 

industry are hoping to cut that approval 

time to 10 months. 

As part of an agreement reached last 

fall between the generic drug industry and 

FDA, “we have recommended a one-time 

backlog fee of $50 million paid at the start 

of the program,” Woodcock told lawmakers. 

FDA would commit to clearing up the 

backlog within five years, she said. 

Any manufacturer that has a new generic 

drug application pending on Oct. 1 and 

has not received tentative approval from 

FDA will be subject to the one-time fee. 

The amount of the fee will be calculated by 

dividing $50 million by the total number of 

new generic drug applications pending on 

Oct. 1. 

As Congress moves ahead with the reauthorization 

of FDA user fees and consideration 

of new ones, the pharmaceutical 

and generic drug industries are urging lawmakers 

to avoid adding controversial provisions 

that would slow down the process. 

Some Democrats are also hoping to 

get the bills passed quickly. “We must 

reauthorize and establish these essential 

programs in a timely way so that FDA can 

do its job protecting the health and safety 

of America’s patients,” Waxman said at the 

hearing on prescription drug user fees. “It 

would be irresponsible to allow this legislation 

to become a vehicle for the wish lists of 

members seeking to move their own controversial 

bills.” ◾ 

molecules 

materials 

an international conference 

on materials science 

in drug development 


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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY CONCENTRATES 

COURTESY OF MICHAEL TREACY 

IMMUNITY MEETS THE 

INTERNAL CLOCK 

Most organisms have a circadian clock that 

coordinates gene expression to the rhythm 

of a 24-hour cycle. Researchers led by Erol 

Fikrig at Yale University now report that 

expression of a gene required for detecting 

pathogenic viruses and bacteria also 

ebbs and flows under clock control, hitting 

a minimum during sleeping hours and a 

maximum during wakeful periods. This 

direct molecular link between circadian 

clocks and innate immune systems could 

help medical researchers know when a 

patient is most vulnerable to infection and 

when to administer a vaccine for optimal 

protection against a pathogen ( Immunity, 

DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2011.12.017 ). Fikrig 

and coworkers focused on expression of 

a gene called Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9), 

which is a component of the mammalian 

innate immune system that acts as a first 

scout for invading microbes. They found 

that mice had a better chance of survival 

against pathogens when an infection happened 

during the animal’s wakeful hours, 

when TLR9 was maximally expressed. The 

team also found that vaccines provided 

better long-term protection against pathogens 

when the vaccine had been given during 

wakeful times of the day. — SE 

AMORPHOUS SILICON 

LAID BARE 

Amorphous silicon’s atomic structure has 

more order to it than previously thought, 

according to a report ( Science , DOI: 10.1126/ 

science.1214780 ). The structural insights 

CLOSE-UP This TEM image shows 

amorphous silicon; a structural 

model is overlaid. The model contains 

ordered silicon clusters (red) in a less 

structured matrix (blue). 

SEMICONDUCTOR FILMS 

MADE ON WATER 

Materials scientists have demonstrated a simple, inexpensive technique 

for growing ultrathin semiconductor sheets on the surface of water ( ACS 

Nano, DOI: 10.1021/nn2050906 ). Current methods for making thin films, or 

nanomembranes, involve growing 

the materials on a solid substrate 

such as silicon and then etching 

away the substrate to release the 

membrane. This expensive, timeconsuming 

method limits the 

types of materials that scientists 

can make because the membrane’s 

crystal structure ends up 

matching that of the substrate. In 

the new method, Xudong Wang 

and colleagues at the University 

of Wisconsin, Madison, ditched 

the usual solid substrate and 

instead simply mixed two zinc 

oxide precursors in water and 

then added a high concentration 

of the surfactant sodium dodecyl 

sulfate. In a few hours, the water was covered with a zinc hydroxy dodecyl 

sulfate membrane a few hundred nanometers thick. The researchers then 

scooped up the film using a silicon or carbon substrate and heated it to produce 

a final zinc oxide film. Wang thinks the method holds promise for producing 

flexible electronics, light-emitting diodes, and medical sensors. — JNC 

H 2 N 

could be useful for improving solar cells 

or liquid-crystal displays, two of the many 

products for which the material has applications. 

Amorphous silicon is an allotrope 

of elemental silicon. Since the 1930s, most 

scientists have represented amorphous 

silicon’s structure by what’s called the continuous 

random network model, 

in which the silicon atoms form 

a disordered network and some 

atoms have less than fourfold coordination. 

The model agrees with 

structural data obtained by X-ray 

diffraction, but it isn’t consistent 

with data from electron microscopy. 

Arizona State University’s Michael M. J. 

Treacy and the University of Oxford’s Konstantin 

B. Borisenko used computer models 

to show that another structure—an inhomogeneous 

paracrystalline structure—is 

in better agreement with all the available 

data. The paracrystalline model suggests 

the structure consists of 1- to 2-nm ordered 

clusters of silicon atoms embedded in a less 

structured matrix of silicon atoms. — CD 

This micrograph shows a zinc hydroxy dodecyl 

sulfate membrane on a silicon substrate. The inset 

photo reveals the scale of the millimeters-wide 

film, which is floating on water in a petri dish. 

SELENIUM MAKES 

LUCIFERIN GLOW RED 

N 

S 

N 

Se 

O 

Aminoseleno-D-luciferin 

OH 

Swapping selenium for sulfur in an analog 

of d -luciferin makes the compound glow 

red, rather than the usual yellow-green 

gleam of d -luciferin, when it meets up with 

the firefly luciferase 

enzyme 

( Angew. Chem. Int. 

Ed., DOI: 10.1002/ 

anie.201105653 ). 

Stanford University’s 

Nicholas 

R. Conley, W. E. 

Moerner , and coworkers developed the selenium-substituted 

compound, aminoseleno- 

d -luciferin, by replacing sulfur with 

selenium in amino- d -luciferin, an orangeglowing 

analog of the firefly’s key light-up 

chemical. They hoped that red-shifting the 

compound would allow its emission to be 

observed from deeper within tissue, thereby 

making it superior to d-luciferin in bioluminescence 

imaging studies. The selenium 

ACS NANO 


SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY CONCENTRATES 

substitution had little effect on the compound’s 

ability to bind to luciferase, but it 

had less light output than amino- d -luciferin 

in in vitro studies, in part because of its 

lower quantum yield. In vivo, the seleniumsubstituted 

compound was about as good 

as amino- d -luciferin, presumably because 

of a trade-off between its greater tissue 

penetration and its lower quantum yield. 

Because 77 Se is a stable nucleus for magnetic 

resonance imaging (MRI), the researchers 

believe the compound could find use in bimodal 

bioluminescence-MRI studies. —BH 

CATALYTIC PARTICLES 

FEATURE SPATIAL- 

ACTIVITY HOT SPOTS 

The level of catalytic activity mediated by 

one type of crystal facet can vary across the 

surface of that facet and also among several 

facets of a single type. This finding by 

Cornell University chemists suggests that 

knowing the surface structure of crystalline 

catalyst particles alone is not sufficient 

for predicting activity ( Nat. Nanotechnol., 

DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2012.18 ). Decades 

ago, researchers found that some crystal 

facets, or faces, of solid catalysts are more 

catalytically active than others. Catalyst 

manufacturers have used that information 

to fine-tune preparation methods to 

enhance exposure of the most active facets. 

Cornell’s Peng Chen and coworkers used 

fluorescence microscopy with single-molecule 

resolution to monitor light-producing 

catalytic reactions on gold nanorods and 

discovered that facet-dependent activity 

turns out to be unexpectedly complex. 

By examining hundreds of highly faceted 

nanorods they determined that catalytic 

activity within a single facet exhibits a reactivity 

gradient that tends to increase from 

the center toward the facet edges. In addition, 

the relative reactivities of the ends 

and sides of nanorods vary widely among 

samples even though they exhibit the same 

types of facets, the team reports. — MJ 

CHONDROITINS 

FREAK FISH OUT 

Behavioral ecologists have long noticed 

that when a fish is injured nearby members 

of the same species will rapidly flee. But 

how this alarm signal is transmitted has 

remained a mystery. Researchers led by 

Suresh Jesuthasan of Singapore’s Duke- 

SURESH JESUTHASAN 

A spoonful of chondroitin scares these 

zebra fish. 

NUS Graduate Medical School and the 

Agency for Science, Technology & Research 

report that one component of this chemical 

signal is chondroitin sulfate, a polysaccharide 

that is part of fish skin ( Curr. Biol., DOI: 

10.1016/j.cub.2012.01.061). Jesuthasan’s 

team studied schools of zebra fish to discover 

this fear factor. The researchers note 

there are probably other molecules involved 

in raising an alarm, because chondroitin sulfate 

is common to many species of fish but 

fish respond strongly only to injury signals 

from members of their own species. The 

search is now on for additional molecules 

that trigger species-specific alarm responses, 

as well as receptors in the olfactory epithelium 

that detect the chemicals. —SE 

PHOTOSWITCH MOLECULE 

CONTROLS PAIN 

A light-activated compound that resembles 

the anesthetic lidocaine might lead 

the way to future pain 

therapy, according 

to a report 

( Nat. Methods, 

DOI: 10.1038/ 

nmeth.1897 ). 

Anesthetics typically 

suppress pain, but they 

take a while to wear off and 

are indiscriminate in 

which nerve cells they 

inhibit. Now, Richard H. 

Kramer of the University 

of California, Berkeley; 

Dirk Trauner of the University 

of Munich; and coworkers have developed 

a photoswitchable compound 

that targets specific neurons and 

can be turned on and off at will. 

N 

O 

O 

N 

+ N 

N 

H 

trans-QAQ 

500-nm 

light 


O 

380-nm 

light 

cis-QAQ 

They demonstrated that the lidocaine-like 

molecule, quaternary ammonium-azobenzene-quaternary 

ammonium (QAQ), 

blocks ion channels in pain-sensing nerve 

cells when in its trans form. After exposure 

to 380-nm light, QAQ switches to its cis 

form, unblocking the channels and allowing 

the neurons to transmit pain signals. 

The researchers regenerated trans- QAQ 

with 500-nm light. When applied to the 

eyes of mice along with the chili-pepper 

compound capsaicin, trans- QAQ slipped 

into the rodents’ nerve cells through the 

protein receptor TRPV1 and lessened the 

critters’ response to pain. Fiber-optic systems 

will be needed to use compounds like 

QAQ inside humans, the scientists say, but 

meanwhile these photoswitches can help 

map pain circuitry in the body. —LKW 

MISFOLDED PROTEINS 

DIRECT NANOPARTICLES 

N 

+ N 

N 

H 

O 

+ N 

N 

H 

In biological fluids, nanoparticles end up 

coated with a mixture of proteins and lipids, 

a process that determines the ultimate 

destination of the nanoparticles. By exploiting 

that so-called protein corona, Paul 

Wentworth Jr. of the University of Oxford 

and Scripps Research Institute and Oxford 

graduate students Kanlaya Prapainop 

and Daniel P. Witter have shown they can 

direct diagnostic nanoparticles to specific 

cell types (J. Am. Chem. Soc., DOI: 10.1021/ 

ja300537u ). The researchers chemically 

modified the surface of CdSe/ZnS quantum 

dots with cholesterol 5,6- seco sterol 

atheronal-B, an inflammatory metabolite 

that triggers misfolding of apolipoprotein B 

in the corona. The conformational 

change 

+ N exposes binding sites 

in apolipoprotein 

B for receptors on 

the surface of macrophages, 

which take up the nanoparticles via 

receptor-mediated endocytosis. Different 

cell types can be targeted by 

using different molecules to expose 

binding sites for other receptors, 

N 

the researchers note. Kenneth A. 

Dawson , an expert on proteinnanoparticle 

interactions at 

University College Dublin, calls 

such reprogramming “a creative 

NH 

and inventive way of thinking of 

the problem—working with the 

corona, not trying to eliminate it 

but using it wisely.” — CHA

BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY 

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 

SCIENTISTS SCOPE 

OUT FRIGID LAKES 

Russian, American, and British teams prepare to 

explore lakes deep under ANTARCTICA’S GLACIERS 

SARAH EVERTS , C&EN BERLIN 

RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS made international 

headlines this month when they 

bored 3.8 km—2.5 miles—into Antarctic 

ice to contact an ancient lake that had 

been undisturbed for millions of years. 

They reached their target just as extreme 

weather conditions from the impending 

Antarctic winter forced them to leave the 

icy continent. 

Feted at home and internationally for 

an engineering feat that was 20 years in the 

making, the Russian scientists will have to 

wait until Antarctica’s 

next summer—a whole 

10 months away—before 

they can analyze 

their bounty, ancient 

water from Lake 

Vostok that gushed 

into their borehole. 

Valery Lukin , head 

of the Russian mission, 

tells C&EN that waiting 

nearly a year before 

his team can study the 

Lake Vostok sample 

will require patience 

similar to that of Mars 

mission scientists who 

had to wait years after 

a launch to get data. 

UNDERGROUND TREASURE 

Three missions to explore 

Antarctica’s underground lakes 

are in the works. Here’s how the 

Russian, British, and American 

projects stack up. 

The analogy is apt because anything living 

in the harsh conditions of Lake Vostok, 

possibly exotic microbes with a 15 millionyear-old 

pedigree, may provide clues about 

life on other planets. 

By the time Lukin and his colleagues 

return to Antarctica to examine their lake 

sample, British and American scientists will 

have launched their own major explorations 

of two other subterranean 

waterways on the 

continent. If these 

ANTARCTICA 

Lake Ellsworth 

South Pole 

1,000 miles 

+ 

Lake Vostok 

Lake Whillans 

LAKE LAKE LAKE 

VOSTOK ELLSWORTH WHILLANS 

Country Russia U.K. U.S. 

Depth beneath ice to dig (meters) 3,769 3,000 800 

Time under glacier (million years) 15–25 0.1–1.0 0.1–1.0 

Volume of lake (km 3 ) 5,400 0.5–1.4 0.5 

Depth of lake (meters) 200–800 150 10–15 

Area of lake (km 2 ) 14,000 29 60 

Funding (millions of U.S. dollars) na 10.5 10.0 

NOTE: These are current estimates. More accurate figures will be available after explorations 

next year. na = not available. SOURCES: British Antarctic Survey, National Science Foundation 


ICY INVESTIGATIONS 

The British mission 

sets up to explore 

Lake Ellsworth, which 

lies 3 km below 

Antarctica’s ice. 

new explorations 

go according to 

plan, scientists 

on the U.S. and 

U.K. projects will 

acquire, after a 

few days of concentrated 

activity and a decade of planning, 

much more data about subglacial lakes than 

the current Russian effort is likely to—albeit 

on smaller, less isolated lakes. The 

explorations could yield information about 

paleoclimates; ancient, exotic microorganisms; 

and biogeochemical fluxes from Antarctic 

lakes to exterior oceans. 

Of the hundreds of waterways buried 

below Antarctic glaciers, the Americans 

chose to study Lake Whillans , which is 

“more like a river of ice than a lake,” says 

John C. Priscu , a Montana State University 

biogeochemist who is involved with the 

U.S. mission, which is being funded by the 

National Science Foundation. 

BECAUSE MANY of Antarctica’s subglacial 

water systems drain to the Southern Ocean 

via Lake Whillans, the water sampled there 

will likely contain a diverse collection of 

microbes from different subglacial lakes 

on the continent, Priscu says. The plan is to 

bore at least five holes to Whillans at multiple 

points on the water way’s trajectory to 

the Southern Ocean starting next November 

or December, he says. 

In particular, the American scientists 

will check to see how microorganisms in 

Whillans’ waters are metabolizing iron 

and how this metabolism contributes to 

global geochemistry cycles. “We think [the 

microbes] might be mining insoluble 

ferric iron [from the bedrock] for their 

metabolism and then releasing 

soluble iron that then flows to 

the ocean,” he says. If iron goes 

from the subglacier lakes into 

the Southern Ocean, then more 

algae can grow there, which 

would create a CO 2 sink, Priscu 

adds. 

This kind of subglacial microbial 

metabolism could be 

affecting the geochemistry of 

the surrounding ocean, and thus 

weather and climate, in ways 

that have not yet been included 

in climate models, says Brent C. 

Christner , a microbiologist at 

Louisiana State University involved 

in the U.S. mission. “This 

work is probably not going to

“That’s the spirit of Antarctic research. 

We could all go to the deepest part, get 

some sediment, and split the costs.” 

LATEST NEWS FROM 

C&EN AT THE 

INTERFACE OF 

CHEMISTRY AND 

BIOLOGY 

make things simpler” for climate modelers, 

he adds. 

The British mission, also set to start next 

November or December, is focused on Lake 

Ellsworth , a fjordlike lake that has been 

isolated from the outside world for about 

half a million years, says the British Antarctic 

Survey’s David Pearce , who is part 

of the U.K. project. Both Lakes Ellsworth 

and Vostok are isolated water systems, but 

Vostok is likely millions of years older and 

has a volume that’s about 10,000 times 

greater than Ellsworth, Pearce explains. 

“Vostok is very ancient and big, so there 

could be some really interesting bio diversity 

there,” Pearce says. “If Vostok is full of life, 

then Ellsworth probably is too. If either lake 

is sterile then this would also be incredibly 

interesting because there’s currently no 

known sterile place on Earth,” he adds. 

If any of the teams find microbial life in 

their samples, they will sequence the microbes’ 

DNA and also try to figure out what 

the microbes are subsisting on, Christner 

says. In such bitterly cold and high-pressure 

environments microbes could survive 

off organic dust trapped in the glacier, 

which melts into the lake water below. Or 

microbes might consume minerals that are 

pulverized (and thus liberated) when Antarctic 

ice grinds over bedrock. Or the lakes’ 

floors may be dotted with hydrothermal 

vents that spew hydrosulfide or iron oxide 

snacks to microbes nearby. 

BOTH THE U.K. AND U.S. teams will bore 

pathways through glaciers to Lakes Ellsworth 

and Whillans using hot water that’s 

been sterilized with ultraviolet light and 

filters. It’s a faster route than the Russians’ 

mechanical boring route, and it doesn’t 

require potential contaminants such as 

kerosene. But so far hot-water boring has 

been tested only through about 2 km of ice, 

about two-thirds of the distance the U.K. 

team needs to traverse next December to 

reach Ellsworth but farther than the American 

team will have to bore down to Lake 

Whillans, Pearce says. 

A disadvantage of using hot water to 

reach the underground lakes is that “as 

soon as you create the hole it starts to 

freeze again,” Pearce says. His team will 

have a mere 24 hours to bore into the lake, 

sample all 150 meters of the Ellsworth 

water column, collect samples at the lake’s 

bottom, and complete a host of other experiments 

before the hole refreezes. 

Still, if successful, these experiments 

could yield much more data than will the 

sample of Vostok’s surface lake water that 

burst up into the borehole, which will freeze 

over the winter and be collected by the Russian 

mission next November or December. 

The Vostok experiment “is like going out 

to Lake Superior in midsummer, taking a 

bucket of water, and going back to the lab 

to analyze it,” Priscu says. “They don’t have 

any sediment or water column. They just a 

have a sip of water to study.” 

However, Russia’s Lukin says that his 

team will still be able to search for microbial 

life, do chemical analyses, and study the 

structure of the ice crystals in their frozen 

lake water sample. Lukin adds that the Russian 

team plans to send equipment deeper 

into the lake during the following summer 

season (2013–14) using a new Russiandesigned 

system under development. The 

new system will deploy equipment into 

the lake that has been protected from any 

boring chemicals as it traveled downward. 

Lukin takes issue with the American and 

British hot-water-boring technology, which 

he says could harm microbes in the lakes by 

heating them up. 

Pearce estimates that it could take many 

years to prepare for a thorough study of 

Lake Vostok. It took more than a decade to 

plan Ellsworth, he says. “Vostok has more 

ice to dig through, it’s much deeper and has 

much more water.” 

Priscu say that he thinks a research trip 

deep to Vostok’s bottom should be part of 

an international effort. Lukin says he’s open 

to discussing a cooperative mission if all the 

costs of exploration are shared. “That’s the 

spirit of Antarctic research,” Priscu says. 

“We could all go to the deepest part, get 

some sediment, and split the costs.” ◾ 

biological 

SCENE 

An up-to-the-minute 

collection of news from 

C&EN about research and 

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chemistry and biology. 

Coverage includes 

biotechnology, molecular 

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chemical biology, 

neuroscience, natural 

products, enzymology, 

and structural biology. 

CEN-ONLINE.ORG/ 

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Learn what British scientists hope to find at the bottom of 

Lake Ellsworth at cenm.ag/antarctic. 


C&EN TALKS WITH 

PENNY CHISHOLM 

MIT BIOLOGIST discusses the benefits of public outreach 

CRAIG BETTENHAUSEN , C&EN WASHINGTON 

PROCHLOROCOCCUS is the smallest 

cell on the planet that can harvest 

energy directly from the sun. This tiny 

marine cyanobacterium, less than 

1 µm across, represents a huge portion 

of the ocean biomass; an estimated 

10 27 of them roam the oceans. Yet scientists 

were unaware of Prochlorococcus 

until 1985, when Massachusetts Institute 

of Technology biologist Sallie 

W. (Penny) Chisholm and colleagues 

from Woods Hole Oceanographic 

Institution spotted a chlorophyll 

fluorescence coming from a tiny cell 

careening through the capillary tube 

of their flow cytometry apparatus. The discovery begat a sea change 

in the understanding of the ocean’s food web. 

In addition to its outsized role in the ecosystem, Prochlorococcus 

also has the smallest genome of any O 2 -evolving organism, at around 

2,000 genes. The portion that codes for the photosynthetic machinery—1,200 

genes that are conserved across the many different 

strains—composes the most succinct genetic picture of photosynthesis 

available. But even 26 years after the discovery of Prochlorococcus 

, though the organisms “contribute a significant fraction of global 

photosynthesis,” Chisholm laments, “nobody knows about them.” 

Chisholm perceives a gap in the public’s scientific literacy surrounding 

photosynthesis, which frustrates her because the process 

is so central to life. She points to a 1997 video produced by the Harvard-Smithsonian 

Center for Astrophysics, in which freshly minted 

Harvard University and MIT graduates are handed a seed and a log 

and asked where the mass of a tree comes from. The students offer 

water and nutrients drawn from the soil as candidates and are incredulous 

when presented with the idea that the vast majority of the 

mass is derived from CO 2 in the air. 

The general public “doesn’t understand photosynthesis, and 

they should,” Chisholm recalls venting to her friend Molly Bang, a 

children’s book author, in 2001. A few years later, Bang was looking 

for another science topic to follow up on her 2004 book “ My Light ,” 

which teaches children about electricity and introduces the idea 

that it ultimately comes from the sun. In 2005 Chisholm and Bang 

began work on what would become their 2009 collaboration “ Living 

Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life .” It 

is solidly a children’s book, but kids are far from the 

only targeted audience. “Most adults aren’t going to 

buy a book about photosynthesis for themselves,” 

Chisholm tells C&EN, “but they might buy one for 

their children and read it to them.” 

In “Living Sunlight” Chisholm and Bang focus 

on photosynthesis on land, writing at a kindergarten 

to fifth-grade reading level about how plants 

absorb the sun’s rays and use that energy to convert 

water and CO 2 into glucose, which then feeds the 

JAMES M. LONG 

“Most adults 

aren’t going to 

buy a book about 

photosynthesis for 

themselves, but 

they might buy one 

for their children 

and read it to them.” 


rest of the food web. The colorful illustrations 

and simple text are supplemented 

with an appendix that is more 

substantial than those found in most 

children’s books. The pair teamed up 

for another book, titled “ Ocean Sunlight: 

How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas ,” 

that is slated to come out in May. 

The upcoming work opens by reminding 

readers about land plants 

and then asks: If life on land depends 

on plants and there’s all this life in the 

sea, where are the plants of the sea? 

“ ‘Ocean Sunlight’ has been the hardest 

thing I’ve ever done,” Chisholm 

says. The hardest bit was boiling her life’s work down to its essence 

and not letting other details sneak in. But given Chisholm’s enthusiasm 

for the research, she found it hard to leave the details out. 

In “Ocean Sunlight,” for example, Chisholm and Bang talk about 

bottom-up population control, the idea that the availabilities of nitrogen 

and phosphorus limit the growth of phytoplankton like Prochloroccus 

. However, top-down control, wherein predation limits 

populations, is mentioned only in passing. It’s complex, Chisholm 

says. “We’re trying to teach systems dynamics to six year olds.” 

WRITING CHILDREN’S BOOKS has forced Chisholm to set priorities 

and think holistically about how her work fits in a larger context. 

In much the same way, teaching undergraduate classes has helped 

Chisholm develop a vision for her research and a compelling way to 

explain its importance to scientists and laypeople alike. 

That broader perspective has an impact in the lab. “Thinking 

about the big picture,” Chisholm argues, “has become a great asset 

for my research. It helps me identify the fundamentally important 

questions—it provides a compass for our work.” Communicating 

with the general public pays dividends in that process, she says, and 

collaborating with Bang on “Living Sunlight” and “Ocean Sunlight” 

has been an extension of that. 

Because of the books, she is invited to speak at a wide range of 

events. For example, she gives regular talks on the MIT alumni 

lecture circuit, and she speaks to MIT’s Knight Science Journalism 

program each year. “Anytime you’re invited to do a talk for a general 

audience, go for it; there is no better way” to get 

down to the core of a scientific problem, she says. 

“At most universities, there are more opportunities 

for outreach than there is faculty interest or 

time,” Chisholm notes. To her, however, outreach to 

the general public should be a priority for scientists, 

right alongside the demands of research, funding, 

and management. “I’ve been enjoying the taxpayers’ 

dollars for 35 years, having all this fun in the lab, so 

I feel it’s really important that I make every effort I 

can for them to understand what we learn.” ◾

Meet Dr. Robert S. Langer 

Dr. Robert S. Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, 2006 U.S. National Medal of Science 

winner, 2008 Millennium Prize recipient, and the 2012 Priestley Medal winner, will be signing copies of 

C&EN at the ACS Spring National Meeting in San Diego. Dr. Langer has authored more than 1,100 

research papers, has approximately 800 issued and pending patents worldwide that have been licensed 

or sublicensed to more than 220 companies, and has had a hand in creating some 25 companies. Dr. 

Langer is being awarded the Priestley Medal in recognition of cutting-edge research that helped create 

the controlled-release drug industry and the field of tissue engineering. He will be featured on the cover 

of the March 26, 2012, issue of C&EN. 

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 

11:00 a.m. to Noon 

ACS Booth 

ACS Spring National 

Meeting & Exposition 

San Diego, CA

AWARDS 

2012 ACS NATIONAL 

AWARD WINNERS 

Recipients are HONORED FOR CONTRIBUTIONS 

of major significance to chemistry 

FOLLOWING IS THE FINAL set of vignettes 

of recipients of awards administered by 

the American Chemical Society for 2012. A 

profile of Robert S. Langer, the 2012 Priestley 

Medalist, is scheduled to appear in the 

March 26 issue of C&EN along with his 

award address. 

Chi-Huey Wong, winner of the Arthur 

C. Cope Award, and most of the other national 

award winners will be honored at 

an awards ceremony that will be held on 

Tuesday, March 27, in conjunction with the 

spring ACS national meeting in San Diego. 

The Arthur C. Cope Scholar awardees will 

be honored at the fall ACS national meeting 

in Philadelphia, Aug. 19–23. 

The Arthur C. Cope Award recognizes 

and encourages excellence in organic 

chemistry; it consists of a medal, a cash 

prize of $25,000, and an unrestricted research 

grant of $150,000 to be assigned by 

the recipient to any university or nonprofit 

research institution. Each Cope Scholar 

Award consists of $5,000, a certificate, and 

an unrestricted research grant of $40,000 

for any university or nonprofit research 

institution. Arthur C. Cope and Arthur C. 

Cope Scholar Awards are sponsored by the 

Arthur C. Cope Fund. 

ARTHUR C. COPE AWARD 

“The most important figure in the development 

of carbohydrate synthesis using 

enzymatic catalysis and a major contributor 

to glycobiology”—that’s the way chemistry 

professor George M. Whitesides of Harvard 

University describes his former grad student 

and postdoc Chi-Huey Wong. Wong 

has earned the 2012 Arthur C. Cope Award 

for developing pioneering techniques for 

the chemical and enzymatic synthesis of 

carbohydrates and glycoproteins. These 

techniques have solved major problems and 

created new opportunities in carbohydrate 

chemistry and biology. 

Wong and coworkers have devised a va- 

EDITED BY SOPHIE L. ROVNER 

riety of innovative methods for the chemical 

and enzymatic synthesis of complex 

carbohydrates, glycoproteins, and related 

substances. And they have 

used directed evolution and 

genetic engineering to develop 

new enzymes and substrates 

for these syntheses. 

The strategies they have 

developed “elegantly fuse 

chemistry and biology into 

a novel, environmentally 

friendly approach for largescale 

synthesis and for the 

study of carbohydratemediated 

biological recognition 

reactions associated 

Wong 

with cancer, bacterial and 

viral infections, and immunological 

function,” according 

to chemistry professor Jeffery W. Kelly 

of Scripps Research Institute. The Wong 

group’s “groundbreaking research also 

laid the framework for much of the current 

interest in carbohydrate microarrays, posttranslational 

protein glycosylation, and 

carbohydrate-based drug discovery and 

vaccine design.” 

Wong and coworkers achieved the first 

synthesis of a glycoprotein and the first 

large-scale enzymatic synthesis of oligosaccharides. 

The researchers developed 

new aldol reactions and irreversible transesterifications 

that have been widely used 

in asymmetric synthesis. 

They developed a programmable approach 

to carbohydrate synthesis that provides 

a relatively fast, automated route to 

oligosaccharides for new cancer vaccines, 

carbohydrate microarrays, and other applications. 

And new probes they developed 

to identify posttranslational glycosylation 

modifications of proteins can be used to 

identify new glycoprotein markers associated 

with cancer and other diseases. 

“Chi-Huey’s contribution to carbohydrate 

synthesis is unmatched,” notes 

Ryoji Noyori, president of the Japanese 

research institution RIKEN. “His seminal 

accomplishments have totally changed the 

way carbohydrate research is carried out. 

Without him, the current level of this significant 

scientific field could not have been 

attained.” 

Wong, 63, received B.S. and M.S. degrees 

in chemistry and biochemistry at National 

Taiwan University. He earned a Ph.D. in 

organic chemistry in 1982 and worked as 

a postdoc, both in Whitesides’ group. He 

joined the faculty of Texas A&M University 

in 1983 and moved to Scripps in 1989. Since 

2006, he has also served as president of 

Academia Sinica, in Taipei, Taiwan. 

Wong’s previous honors 

include a 1993 Cope Scholar 

Award from ACS, the 1999 

Claude S. Hudson Award in 

Carbohydrate Chemistry 

from the ACS Division of 

Carbohydrate Chemistry, 

and the ACS Award for 

Creative Work in Synthetic 

Organic Chemistry in 2005. 

He could well add some 

other major prizes to 

his collection in years to 

come. “I believe there will 

eventually be new Nobel 

Prizes in carbohydrate 

biochemistry,” Whitesides 

notes, “and Chi-Huey will certainly be a 

strong candidate for one.” —STU BORMAN 

COURTESY OF CHI-HUEY WONG 

ARTHUR C. COPE 

SCHOLAR AWARDS 

Jeffrey Aubé, 53, had little exposure to 

chemistry while growing up. 

His mother was a nurse, and his father, 

a pipe fitter. Aubé dreamed of becoming a 

musician. 

“I wasn’t interested in chemistry when 

I was young,” Aubé says. “I went to college 

completely unencumbered by any intention 

of going into science.” 

But at the University of Miami, Aubé excelled 

in his chemistry courses and began 

conducting research in the lab of Robert E. 

Gawley, then a chemistry professor at the 

university. “All of a sudden, I was experiencing 

organic chemistry in a completely 

different way than I had seen it in class,” 

Aubé says. “I fell in love with research.” 

Aubé earned a B.S. degree in chemistry 

from the University of Miami and a Ph.D. in 

organic chemistry from Duke University. 

He went on to complete a postdoc at Yale 


University. Aubé is the first 

person in his family to earn a 

college degree. 

Today, Aubé is a professor 

of medicinal chemistry 

at the University of Kansas. 

His research group is best 

known for its discovery of 

the intramolecular Schmidt 

reaction, in which an alkyl 

azide and a ketone react to 

form a lactam. 

In the classic Schmidt reaction, 

a six-membered ring 

such as cyclohexanone can 

be converted into a sevenmembered 

ring. “If you use 

Aubé 

our variation, you can attach the azide to 

the cyclohexanone so your product now 

has two rings associated with it, and it just 

so happens that those kinds of two-ring 

structures with a nitrogen at one of the 

ring fusions are present in a lot of different 

natural products,” Aubé says. 

The intramolecular Schmidt reaction 

“allows one to consider synthesis of 

otherwise untouchable targets, such as 

the prototypical twisted amide 2-quinuclidone,” 

says Brian M. Stoltz, professor 

of chemistry at California Institute of 

Technology. “In my own research, we were 

able to construct this long-standing target 

only through the use of the intramolecular 

Schmidt reaction.” 

Using the intramolecular Schmidt reaction, 

Aubé says, members of his group have 

made a number of alkaloids isolated from 

frog toxins. They’ve also made alkaloids 

from traditional Chinese medicine, such 

as the molecule stenine. Aubé’s group was 

able to reduce the number of steps in its 

previous synthesis of stenine by more than 

half. 

“What is most impressive about Jeff is 

that the field learns something it did not 

know every time he discloses one of his 

publications,” says Dale L. Boger, professor 

of chemistry at Scripps Research Institute. 

Aubé continues to develop new methodologies 

and uses those reactions to build 

chemical libraries. He screens those libraries 

and follows up on interesting biological 

leads for potential drugs. 

“Jeffrey Aubé has consistently built 

a record of excellence in the development 

of synthetic methods and their 

application to the syntheses of natural 

products, physical organic chemistry, and 

bioorganic chemistry,” says Barbara N. 

Timmermann, professor and chair of the 

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS 

Described by colleagues as 

fearless for his willingness 

to tackle intractable biochemical 

problems, Squire 

J. Booker is being honored 

with an Arthur C. Cope 

Scholar Award for his efforts 

to understand enzymes that catalyze 

“kinetically challenged” reactions. 

The enzymes that Booker studies typically 

use S-adenosyl-l-methionine (SAM), 

iron-sulfur clusters, or both to generate 

cellular oxidants under anaerobic conditions. 

The pathways arose during primordial 

times, when cells had to work without 

oxygen, Booker says. His 

studies require special experimental 

care, because 

much of the work must be 

done anaerobically—including 

growing crystals for X- 

ray crystallography. 

Booker’s work is “always 

highly original and rigorously 

designed and executed,” one 

colleague says. “I expect him 

to become one of the most 

highly regarded authorities 

on biological mechanisms.” 

An associate professor 

of chemistry and biochemistry 

and molecular biology 

department of medicinal 

chemistry at the University 

of Kansas. “All of these 

efforts are characterized 

by an unusual degree of 

creativity, attention to 

detail, rigor, and above 

all, individuality.” —LINDA 

WANG 

Booker 

at Pennsylvania State University, Booker 

started his research program by studying 

lipoic acid synthase, an enzyme that had 

stymied other researchers, says his Penn 

State colleague J. Martin Bollinger Jr. The 

enzyme produces lipoic acid, a cofactor 

used by several other enzymes, by inserting 

sulfur atoms into octanoic acid through a 

mechanism involving a SAM-derived radical. 

Booker and coworkers found that the 

sulfur atoms are sourced from a sacrificed 

iron-sulfur cluster. 

More recently, Booker studied SAM-dependent 

methylation of RNA carbon atoms 

that are normally considered inert to such 

reactions. Both of the enzymes he studied 

methylate RNA in bacterial ribosomes; one 

group promotes normal ribosome func- 

tion and the other promotes antibiotic 

resistance. Booker and colleagues found 

that the methylation mechanism involves 

a ping-pong reaction in which the enzymes 

first transfer a methyl group from SAM to a 

cysteine residue, then a second SAM generates 

a 5'-deoxyadenosyl radical that relocates 

the methyl from the cysteine to the 

adenosine base through a radical-addition 

mechanism. 

Booker has also studied a bacterial 

enzyme that uses iron-sulfur clusters to 

make quinolinic acid as part of the bacterial 

biosynthetic pathway for nicotinamide 

adenine dinucleotide (NAD + ), a common 

cellular cofactor. One of his findings is that 

the amount of oxygen available regulates 

one of the enzymes in the NAD + synthetic 

pathway through a dithiol/disulfide redox 

switch: In the disulfide form, the enzyme 

activity is 10 times as much as when it’s in 

the dithiol form. That makes sense, Booker 

says, because bacteria require higher concentrations 

of NAD + to grow in aerobic 

conditions. His group continues to tease 

out the details of the switch 

and the enzyme’s catalytic 

chemistry. 

Booker, 46, earned a B.A. 

degree with a concentration 

in chemistry from 

Austin College in 1987 and 

a Ph.D. in chemistry from 

Massachusetts Institute of 

Technology in 1994. 

Aside from Booker’s 

laboratory successes, he is 

lauded for his mentorship 

and ability to turn students 

into outstanding scientists. 

Booker’s combination of 

critical analysis and interpersonal 

skills also puts him in demand for 

service to Penn State as well as the broader 

chemistry community. Booker rarely refuses 

a request for his time, Bollinger says, “he 

is as unselfish and community-minded as he 

is scientifically gifted.” —JYLLIAN KEMSLEY 

PENN STATE U DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY 

Timothy F. Jamison’s penchant for making 

and mixing things can be traced back 

to his part-time job in high school at 

Swensen’s, an ice cream parlor where he 

made 100 or so gallons of the treat on a 

typical afternoon. 

At age 44, Jamison is still enamored 

with making and mixing things, but of a 

different kind. Inspirational high school 

teachers and a formative undergraduate research 

experience convinced him to trade 


ACS AWARDS NEWS 

ice cream for more challenging synthetic 

targets. Now, as a chemistry professor at 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

Jamison develops new synthetic methods 

and uses them to make natural products. 

“Tim Jamison has made numerous substantial 

contributions to 

the array of synthetic methods 

available to organic 

chemists,” says fellow MIT 

organic chemist Stephen L. 

Buchwald. 

The cornerstone of 

those contributions is 

nickel. The Jamison lab has 

devised nickel-catalyzed 

transformations for reductively 

coupling alkynes with 

aldehydes, for combining 

α-olefins with aldehydes, 

and for coupling alkynes and 

alkenes with epoxides. 

The last reaction goes 

Jamison 

against the normal dogma that both reactants 

need a multiple bond for the coupling 

reaction to proceed with low-valent metals, 

Buchwald says. 

To demonstrate the power of these nickel-catalyzed 

synthetic reactions, Jamison 

has used them to complete “a number of innovative 

and efficient total syntheses of interesting 

natural products,” Buchwald says. 

Among them is a route to terpestacin, a 

molecule isolated from a fungus that has 

been shown to inhibit angiogenesis and 

interfere with HIV infection mechanisms. 

Jamison’s team members used their nickel 

chemistry to stitch together the natural 

product’s 15-member macrocycle and 

to correct the structure of its purported 

diastereomer. 

His team later used nickel methods 

to diastereoselectively construct the 

18- member macrocycle of amphidinolide 

T1, a marine natural product with 

antitumor properties. And they used their 

nickel-based strategies to build acutiphycin, 

a macrocycle of similar size and activity 

isolated from blue-green algae. 

More recently, Jamison “obtained the 

first real solution to the 20-year-old problem 

of modeling the chemistry proposed by 

Columbia University’s Koji Nakanishi for 

the biosynthesis of ladder polyether natural 

products,” Buchwald says. 

Ladder polyethers are behind the toxic 

algae blooms commonly known as red 

tides. Back in 1985, Nakanishi proposed that 

the algae made such ladder polyethers by 

way of a cascade of enzyme-catalyzed epox- 

ide-opening reactions. Two decades later, 

after many other chemists had tried and 

failed, Jamison’s team managed to model 

Nakanishi’s proposed chemistry. The key 

was carrying out the chemistry in water at 

neutral pH—just as nature does. 

Jamison’s team went 

on to demonstrate that its 

epoxide cascade chemistry 

can be used to make various 

natural products containing 

ladder polyether motifs. 

A native of northern 

California, Jamison got his 

undergraduate degree in 


of California, Berkeley. A 

Fulbright fellowship then 

took him to the Swiss Federal 

Institute of Technology 

(ETH), Zurich. He then 

completed his graduate 

degree in chemistry as well 

as a postdoc at Harvard University. He 

started his independent career in 1999 at 

MIT, where he has remained ever since. — 

AMANDA YARNELL 

MEGHAN M. JAMISON 

Cleaning glassware—it is a task most 

chemists would file under “drudgery.” But 

Anna K. Mapp sees it differently. While a 

premed student at Bryn Mawr College, the 

place where Arthur C. Cope got his start as 

a faculty member, Mapp’s sudsy work-study 

job eventually spurred a change of heart. As 

her college years progressed, 

she worked her way up from 

glassware washing to synthetic 

studies of Taxol. By 

the end of her senior year, 

Mapp realized she didn’t 

want to go to medical school 

anymore. “I knew I wanted 

to stay in research, because 

that was what I loved,” she 

says. 

Today, Mapp, 41, does 

what she loves at the University 

of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 

Her lab specializes in understanding 

the chemistry 

behind gene regulation. 

Mapp 

Mapp’s route to chemical biology began 

at the University of California, Berkeley, 

where she delved into total synthesis for 

her doctorate with Clayton H. Heathcock. 

She then studied nucleic acid recognition 

as a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral 

fellow with Peter B. Dervan. She began 

her independent career at Michigan in 

2000. The university “has a long tradition 

of supporting multidisciplinary research,” 

Mapp says. “It seemed like a great place to 

be able to evolve and grow.” 

In a few short years, Mapp was making 

the conference rounds, describing the 

artificial transcription factors her team 

could fashion from small molecules. It was 

at one such conference that her science 

captivated Jon Clardy of Harvard Medical 

School, an expert in the chemical biology of 

natural products. 

“I was blown away by the clarity of her 

ambition, of where she wanted to go,” Clardy 

says. Fast-forward to today, and “she’s 

pretty much done it, just the way she said 

she would,” he adds. “Anna exemplifies the 

best of what chemical biology can be.” 

“In my 40-year career at Berkeley, I 

had the good fortune to be associated 

with a host of excellent students,” says 

Heathcock, now an emeritus professor 

there. “The one that has given me the 

greatest pride is Anna Mapp.” 

Mapp “has done incisive and meaningful 

experiments while adroitly avoiding the 

morass that can plague work in biological 

systems,” adds chemical biologist Ronald 

T. Raines of the University of Wisconsin, 

Madison. “She is a star!” 

Award committees agree, having presented 

Mapp with a Presidential Early 

Career Award for Scientists & Engineers, 

a Sloan Research Fellowship, and a National 

Science Foundation CAREER award, 

among other prizes. 

Beyond making artificial 

transcription factors, 

Mapp’s team tries to understand 

both the thermodynamics 

and kinetics 

that govern gene activation. 

She’d like to see her 

work translate into more 

therapeutics that target 

transcription. Controlling 

transcription factors that 

feature small-molecule 

binding pockets, such as 

the androgen receptor, is 

relatively straightforward 

today, Mapp says. “But 

most transcription factors aren’t regulated 

by small-molecule binding,” she says. “So 

you’re losing out on a lot of good targets.” 

When she isn’t fishing for transcriptional 

binding partners, Mapp likes to fish 

in the more traditional sense. Last summer, 

she taught her son to fly-fish, just as her 

father taught her. —CARMEN DRAHL 

ADAM J. MATZGER 


Like all Dutch students, E. W. (Bert) Meijer 

had to decide upon a major before he 

could begin his university studies in the 

Netherlands. With his natural aptitude for 

science, Meijer could have easily chosen 

physics or biology. But he settled upon 

chemistry, he says, because it was rooted 

in physical laws but also required one’s 

imagination. 

Imagination, it turns out, has played 

an important part in 

Meijer’s career. For his 

“creative and visionary 

use of supramolecular 

interaction to create 

novel functional self-assembled 

architectures, 

which has introduced 

new materials and the 

concept of multistep 

noncovalent synthesis,” 

Meijer is being honored 

with this award. 

For the past 20 years, 

Meijer 

Meijer, who is 56, has been teaching and 

conducting research at Eindhoven University 

of Technology, in the Netherlands. 

He is currently Distinguished University 

Professor of Molecular Sciences, professor 

of organic chemistry, and director of the Institute 

for Complex Molecular Systems. 

But Meijer took a major detour before 

beginning his academic career. After completing 

his doctoral studies in traditional 

organic chemistry at the University of 

Groningen, in the Netherlands, Meijer 

spent a decade as an industrial researcher 

in his home country, working at Philips 

Research Laboratories in Eindhoven and 

at DSM Research in Geleen. “Due to that 

detour,” he says, “I came to the conclusion 

that I could really bring something additional 

to materials science if I used a purely 

organic chemistry approach.” 

Indeed, by bringing his organic chemistry 

skill set to materials science, Meijer 

has introduced a new class of dendrimers 

and has developed the concept of supramolecular 

electronics and supramolecular 

polymers. More recently, Meijer has been 

working in the area of complex molecular 

systems. The challenge in this new area of 

organic chemistry is to create multicomponent 

functional systems by combining 

covalent and noncovalent synthesis. 

“I think the strength of chemistry is 

making things,” Meijer says. “For centuries, 

it was making molecules. For the future, 

it will be synthesizing objects out of more 

than one molecule.” 

Meijer has “contributed enormously to 

the evolution of chemistry by exploring 

and developing the field of supramolecular 

chemistry and closing the gap between 

organic chemistry and materials science,” 

says Craig J. Hawker, a materials science 

and chemistry professor at the University of 

California, Santa Barbara. 

“There are few who can boast Meijer’s 

conceptual impact in the areas of dendrimers, 

conducting 

polymers, chiral 

assembly and recognition 

of polymers, 

self-assembly, and 

dynamic noncovalent 

macromolecules,” 

adds Massachusetts 


chemistry 

professor Timothy 

M. Swager. “Bert is 

generally the first 

to make a discovery, 

authoritatively characterize the properties, 

and establish a new paradigm.” 

“The biggest hurdle that you have is 

to continuously go out of your comfort 

zone,” Meijer says of his success pushing 

the boundaries of science. “But that’s what 

keeps me excited.” 

In addition to his research and teaching, 

Meijer often speaks about science to the 

general public. He gives talks to schoolchildren 

and even gave a lecture at the Lowlands 

outdoor music festival in the Netherlands, 

speaking about why we cannot make 

life in the lab. —BETHANY HALFORD 

DSM RESEARCH 

Over a career that spans five decades, David 

I. Schuster has tackled chemical challenges 

as varied as mechanistic organic photochemistry, 

the molecular basis of schizophrenia, 

the chemical reactivity of fullerenes, 

and most recently, 

solar energy conversion. 

Schuster, a New York 

City native, says his interest 

in chemistry began with 

his high school chemistry 

class in Far Rockaway. As an 

undergraduate at Columbia 

University, he frequently 

tutored his classmates and 

found that teaching came to 

him as naturally as chemistry 

did. Schuster went to California 


for his graduate work, studying 

with John D. Roberts to Schuster 

earn a Ph.D. in chemistry and physics. He 

then caught the organic photochemistry 

bug, and at the urging of Caltech chemistry 

professor George S. Hammond, he went to 

the University of Wisconsin, Madison, to do 

postdoctoral studies with Howard E. Zimmerman. 

Their work together is regarded 

as a landmark in the field. In the fall of 1961, 

Schuster joined the faculty at New York University, 

where he would spend his entire career, 

officially retiring at 70 in 2005 to devote 

himself to research as a professor emeritus. 

Schuster has worked in many areas of 

chemistry, but it’s his contributions to the 

fundamental understanding of photochemical 

and photophysical phenomena that are 

being recognized with this award. “Over 

his long and distinguished career, Schuster 

has made monumental contributions to the 

understanding of the reactions of electronically 

excited states of organic molecules,” 

says Caltech chemistry professor Harry B. 

Gray. “Indeed, he is among the pioneers of 

mechanistic organic photochemistry.” 

“It was a fun time,” Schuster says of his 

organic photochemistry work during the 

1960s, ’70s, and early ’80s, “when we and 

others were discovering the rules of photochemistry. 

We were trying to understand 

how and why reactions occur and how one 

can change the course of photochemical 

reactions in organic systems.” 

More recently, Schuster has been creating 

nanoscale functionalized interlocked 

molecules, such as rotaxanes and catenanes. 

These systems feature peripheral electron 

donors, such as porphyrins, with C 60 as the 

electron acceptor, for study of the dynamics 

of long-range photoinduced electron-transfer 

processes and energy storage. 

In addition to his research accolades, 

Schuster has an “unparalleled track record 

in teaching and mentoring scientists, especially 

undergraduates,” according to his 

former student Phil S. Baran, 

a chemistry professor at 

Scripps Research Institute. 

Schuster has mentored 53 

Ph.D. students, at least 15 

postdocs, and more than 

150 undergraduates—an experience 

he has found “extremely 

gratifying.” He is, in 

fact, far more eager to talk 

about his students’ achievements 

than his own. 

Schuster has continued 

doing research since his 

retirement, publishes frequently, 

and gives invited 

COURTESY OF DAVID SCHUSTER 


AWARDS 

lectures, but he has scaled back his time 

at NYU to explore other passions. He is a 

talented pianist and also volunteers weekly 

at the New York Philharmonic Archives. He 

strongly believes that keeping busy keeps 

him young. “For 76, I’m doing quite well,” 

he says. “My memory is excellent, and I still 

have a full head of hair with only a tinge of 

gray.” —BETHANY HALFORD 

Scott A. Snyder knows just how important 

it is to expose young people to research 

experiences. 

Now a natural products chemist and an 

associate professor of chemistry at Columbia 

University, Snyder, 35, credits his parents 

with fostering his interests in math and science. 

Snyder’s mother is a high school calculus 

teacher, and his father is a biochemistry 

professor at the State University of New 

York, Buffalo. Snyder recalls that growing 

up, he spent many days experimenting in his 

father’s research lab. 

That preparation paid off. In high 

school, Snyder was selected to attend the 

U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad study 

camp. He says the experience allowed him 

to meet other high school students who 

were excited about chemistry. 

By the time Snyder 

began his undergraduate 

studies at Williams College 

in Williamstown, Mass., he 

had made up his mind to become 

a chemist. 

Snyder went on to earn a 

Ph.D. from Scripps Research 

Institute, where he worked 

under the guidance of K. C. 

Nicolaou on the chemistry 

and biology of the marinederived 

antitumor agent 

diazonamide A. He and 

Nicolaou also coauthored 

the textbook “ Classics in 

Snyder 

Total Synthesis II,” which is one of the bestselling 

graduate titles in chemistry. 

Snyder then completed a postdoc at 

Harvard University in the lab of Nobel 

Laureate E. J. Corey, with whom he accomplished 

the enantioselective total synthesis 

of four members of the dolabellane family 

of natural products. 

At Columbia, Snyder is developing 

new strategies for the total synthesis of 

complex, stereochemically dense natural 

products derived from resveratrol, a molecule 

found in red wine that is believed to 

have a number of health benefits. His group 

has also developed a number of reagents 

to prepare halogenated natural products. 

To date, the group has completed the total 

synthesis of more than 40 compounds. 

“Scott’s creativity and inventiveness, 

and his ability to look at total synthesis 

from a totally different 

perspective than that of the 

best-known organic chemists, 

represent his greatest 

strengths,” says Madeleine 

M. Joullié, a professor of 


of Pennsylvania. “He appears 

to have a unique talent 

to harvest all the known 

chemical knowledge and 

reduce it to its simplest and 

most elegant form, and he 

can visualize the most complicated 

molecules in terms 

of very simple concepts that 

require few steps.” 

EILEEN BARROSO/COLUMBIA U 

Tang 

Snyder’s projects “have had deep impact 

on both synthetic design and methods 

development, evidenced not only by total 

citations but also by their routinely being 

among the most highly read papers in both 

JACS and Angewandte Chemie,” says Nicolaou, 

chair of the chemistry 

department at Scripps. “It 

is clear that Snyder has developed 

a truly unique synthesis 

style and is already a 

leader in his field.” 

In addition to his research, 

Snyder is helping to 

foster the next generation of 

scientists by providing opportunities 

for high school 

and undergraduate students 

to work in his lab. “Having 

had that chance to do research 

[when I was a young 

student] was a key factor 

in my decision to become a 

chemist,” he says. “I try to do the same for 

others each summer.” —LINDA WANG 

Influenced by his father’s work as a polymer 

chemist, Yi Tang developed an early 

interest in the chemical sciences. He began 

by studying chemical engineering, earning 

a bachelor’s degree at Pennsylvania State 

University in 1997. 

Later, as he pursued a Ph.D. in chemical 

engineering under David A. Tirrell at 

California Institute of Technology, Tang 

developed a passion for chemical biology. 

After reading about Chaitan Khosla’s work 

producing erythromycin in Escherichia coli 

in 2001, Tang says, “I decided to pursue the 

field of natural product biosynthesis and 

went on to do a postdoc with him” at Stanford 

University. 

At 35, Tang, a professor in both the 

chemical and biomolecular 

engineering department 

and in the chemistry and 

biochemistry department 

at the University of 

California, Los Angeles, 

has already “elucidated 

fundamental aspects of 

the biosynthesis of natural 

products,” says Tirrell, 

professor of chemistry and 

chemical engineering at 

Caltech. 

Tang has made discoveries 

“that have provided new 

approaches to control of 

biosynthesis by reconstituting 

the enzyme clusters needed for in 

vitro biosynthesis of natural products and 

semisynthetic derivatives of active drugs,” 

Tirrell adds. 

Tang’s most important contribution involves 

fungal iterative polyketide synthases—enzymes 

that use a unique set of biochemical 

rules in the synthesis of complex 

polyketides, Tirrell says. Although these enzymes 

had previously been identified, Tang 

has made important contributions to their 

understanding. “He has developed a beautiful 

in vitro platform to dissect the function 

of a 300-kilodalton enzyme that catalyzes 

over 50 steps to synthesize the complex 

natural product lovastatin,” Tirrell explains. 

“That goal has been actively pursued 

for the last 15 years, but prior to Tang’s 

work, no one had been able to accomplish 

complete biochemical reconstitution.” 

Tang’s work on the lovastatin pathway 

also led to a chemoenzymatic process for 

the production of simvastatin, a semisynthetic 

derivative of lovastatin and the active 

ingredient in the multi-billion-dollar, cholesterol-lowering 

drug Zocor, Tirrell says. 

The process developed in Tang’s laboratory, 

which has been adopted by industrial 

biotech company Codexis, will significantly 

decrease the cost of making this drug. 

During his career, Tang has made a major 

impact on the study of assembly of biologically 

important natural products, especially 

polyketides and alkaloids, says John C. 

Vederas, a professor of chemistry at the 

University of Alberta. “He has great depth 

of understanding of biochemical reaction 

mechanisms, elegant original concepts for 

COURTESY OF YI TANG 


execution of very difficult experiments, and 

phenomenal insight into genetic manipulation 

and protein expression in both eukaryotes 

and prokaryotes.” 

Not surprisingly, Tang has already received 

many awards during his career, including 

the Society for Industrial Microbiology 

& Biotechnology Young Investigator 

Award, the American Institute of Chemical 

Engineers’ Allan P. Colburn Award, and 

a Sloan Research Fellowship. He is “very 

honored” to have been chosen to receive 

this award, he says. “It feels very special 

to be recognized by the organic chemistry 

community for my work in the burgeoning 

field of natural products biosynthesis.” — 

SUSAN AINSWORTH 

The sight of spacecraft piercing the sky 

inspired a generation. Some, like Michael 

R. Wasielewski, were not content to sit in 

idle wonder—they had to know how it was 

done. Wasielewski’s curiosity about the 

processes that drive rocket propulsion attracted 

him to the field of chemistry. 

After completing his Ph.D. in 1975 with 

Leon M. Stock at the University of Chicago, 

Wasielewski did postdoctoral research 

with Ronald Breslow at Columbia University, 

where he became interested in the 

use of biomimetic methods to explore the 

chemistry of photosynthetic systems. 

Today, as the Clare Hamilton 

Hall Professor of Chemistry 

at Northwestern University, 

Wasielewski leads a 

lab that is at the cutting edge 

of artificial-photosynthesis 

research. His group uses ultrafast 

transient absorption 

spectroscopy, time-resolved 

electron paramagnetic 

resonance spectroscopy, and 

synchrotron-based X-ray 

scattering, among other 

techniques, to characterize 

the behavior of photogenerated 

electrons in organic Wasielewski 

systems. Wasielewski is also 

director of the Department of Energy-sponsored 

Argonne-Northwestern Solar Energy 

Research Center (ANSER). He also holds an 

appointment at Argonne as a senior scientist 

at the Center for Nanoscale Materials. 

His work using structural techniques 

to relate structure and function in organic 

donor-acceptor systems led to his nomination 

for this year’s award. Wasielewski 

“pioneered the strategy of using electron 

donor-acceptor molecules 

having well-defined molecular 

architectures to successfully 

mimic photosynthetic 

systems, leading to 

long-lived, efficient charge 

separation and storage,” 

Northwestern colleague 

Mark A. Ratner says. 

In addition to carrying 

out mechanistic studies of 

photosynthesis, Wasielewski’s 

team is also developing 

new materials with potential 

applications in solar 

energy production. Early 

results suggest that the 

materials might exhibit “singlet fission.” 

In this process, the absorption of a photon 

produces two electron-hole pairs instead 

of the single pair normally produced. This 

enhancement could increase the maximum 

NANCY J. WASIELEWSKI 

FORUM ON POLYMERS FOR AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS 

This collection of articles highlights the significant progress 

that continues to be made in the development of new 

polymers for aerospace applications and the need for more 

research to meet future challenges. 

Available online now! 

pubs.acs.org/acsami 


AWARDS 

theoretical efficiency of solar cells made 

from the materials by as much as 30%. 

Wasielewski’s lab is also investigating 

quantum effects in organic materials with an 

eye toward quantum computing. His group 

is exploring a phenomenon known as “spin 

teleportation,” wherein the quantum state 

of a molecule at one location can be replicated 

at another location. With his organic 

materials, he says, his team is close to accomplishing 

this feat with light and to read 

the teleported states using microwave pulse 

sequences. The use of organic materials offers 

the potential to “deploy the arsenal of 

organic chemistry, including the tools of selfassembly,” 

to make materials for massively 

parallel computational systems, he says. 

Wasielewski was elected as a fellow of 

the American Association for the Advancement 

of Science in 1995. His recent honors 

include the 2004 Inter-American Photochemical 

Society Award in Photochemistry, 

the 2006 James Flack Norris Award in 

Physical Organic Chemistry from ACS, and 

the 2008 Porter Medal. 

When asked to sum up his work, 

Wasielewski says, “The magic word is multidisciplinary.” 

His research demands expertise 

in organic, physical, inorganic, and 

materials chemistry, as well as instrumentation. 

Jovan Giaimuccio, a former group 

member now at Independent Project Analysis, 

says, “The opportunity to be exposed to 

so many advanced forms of scientific experimentation 

gives Mike’s students the ability 

to discern scientific discovery from experimental 

artifact.” —CRAIG BETTENHAUSEN 

For young Jin-Quan Yu, his favorite chore 

was like a mystical quest. Every month, he’d 

trek to a store 2 miles from his home in a 

remote village in southeast China to collect 

free salt for his family. The vendor would 

give Yu empty linen bags that once contained 

kilograms of salt. He’d take the bags 

home, wet them, and evaporate the water to 

collect the salt crystals that emerged, as if 

by magic. Yu says he wasn’t thinking about 

chemistry then, but he’s pretty sure the experience 

was the first indication that he had 

“good lab hands.” 

Yu, 46, has since put 

his hands to use in C–H 

activation, arguably the 

hottest area of organometallic 

chemistry. He is “a 

phenom,” says University 

of California, Berkeley, organometallic 

chemist John 

F. Hartwig. “This guy is on 

fire and full of ideas.” 

A desire to study medicine 

led Yu to earn a bachelor’s 

degree in chemistry 

at Shanghai’s East China 

Normal University. “In the 

village it could get really 

Yu 

scary if you were ill,” Yu recalls. “We pretty 

much relied on Chinese herb extracts.” 

Yu earned his master’s under Shu-De Xiao 

at the Guangzhou Institute of Chemistry. 

There, Yu’s research led to a catalyst for 

ton-scale production of dihydromyrcenol, 

a lily-of-the-valley-scented compound used 

in shampoos and perfumes. 

Fascinated by enzyme catalysis, Yu attended 

the University of Cambridge to earn 

a Ph.D. with Jonathan B. Spencer. He then 

joined E. J. Corey’s Harvard University lab 

as a postdoc, hoping to do total synthesis. 

But Corey steered Yu toward another 

project—allylic C–H oxidation. Yu was reluctant 

at first, but became enthralled with 

the challenge of converting normally inert 

C–H bonds to C–C or C-heteroatom bonds. 

After Harvard, Yu began independent 

research back at Cambridge as a Royal Society 

Research Fellow. In 2004, he became an 

assistant professor at Brandeis University. 

In 2007, he moved to Scripps Research 

Institute, where he is currently a full professor. 

He’s garnered many honors, including 

a Sloan Research Fellowship, the Japanese 

Society of Synthetic Organic 

Chemistry’s Mukaiyama 

Award, and numerous 

awards from pharmaceutical 

companies. 

“I consider Jin-Quan’s 

pivotal contributions to the 

C–H activation field to be 

some of the very best in the 

area,” says Yu’s Scripps colleague 

and chemistry chairman 

K. C. Nicolaou. 

“Many groups have 

been focusing on sp 2 C–H 

bond functionalization, 

but Dr. Yu recognized that 

the chemistry of sp 3 C–H 

bond functionalization is potentially much 

richer,” says Huw M. L. Davies, who studies 

C–H activation at Emory University. 

In 2008, for example, Yu discovered the 

first palladium(II)-catalyzed coupling of 

sp 3 C–H bonds with sp 3 organoboron reagents. 

Yu’s team also developed the first 

palladium-catalyzed enantioselective C–H 

activation reactions. Yu says the key is using 

ligands that weakly coordinate to palladium. 

“By the time I retire, I hope synthetic 

chemists, particularly those in the pharmaceutical 

industry, will use C–H activation 

on a daily basis, like they do cross-coupling,” 

Yu says. 

In his spare time, Yu likes to play soccer. 

His favorite position? “Right wing,” 

Yu says. “I want to strike and score.” — 

CARMEN DRAHL 

JANET HIGHTOWER/SCRIPPS 

GABOR SOMORJAI 

AWARDED HONDA PRIZE 

Gabor A. Somorjai, professor of chemistry 


is the winner of the 2011 Honda Prize 

for his pioneering contributions to surface 

chemistry. The Honda Prize, awarded 

by the Honda Foundation, is Japan’s first 

international science and technology 

award. The Honda Foundation was created 

by Honda Motor’s founder Soichiro 

Honda and his younger brother Benjiro 

Honda. 

Somorjai’s discoveries in surface chemistry 

and catalysis have led to a better understanding 

of friction, lubrication, adhesion, 

and adsorption. 

Somorjai’s peers refer 

to him as the “father of 

modern surface chemistry.” 

He received a 

medal, a certificate, 

and 10 million yen (approximately 

$129,000) 

during an award ceremony 

in Tokyo in 

November 2011. Somorjai 

CAROLYN BERTOZZI 

TO DELIVER CHEMICAL 

BIOLOGY LECTURE 

Carolyn R. Bertozzi, the T. Z. & Irmgard 

Chu Distinguished Professor of Chemistry 

and professor of molecular and cell biology 


has been awarded the 2012 ACS Chemical 

Biology Lectureship in recognition of her 

pioneering contributions to research at the 

interface of chemistry and biology. 

Bertozzi’s research focuses on profiling 

changes in cell-surface glycosylation as- 


sociated with cancer, 

inflammation, and 

bacterial infection and 

exploiting this information 

for development 

of diagnostic and therapeutic 

approaches. 

The lectureship is 

sponsored jointly by 

ACS Chemical Biology Bertozzi 

and the ACS Division 

of Biological Chemistry. Bertozzi will present 

a lecture during the spring ACS national 

meeting in San Diego. 

ANGELA GRONENBORN 

AWARDED HAMMES 

LECTURESHIP 

Angela M. Gronenborn, Rosalind Franklin 

Chair of the department of structural biology 

at the University of Pittsburgh School 

of Medicine, has been awarded the 2012 

Gordon Hammes ACS Biochemistry Lectureship, 

which is jointly administered by 

the editor-in-chief of Biochemistry and the 

ACS Division of Biological 

Chemistry. 

The award honors 

outstanding contributions 

in scientific 

research at the interface 

of chemistry and 

biology. Gronenborn 

is being recognized 

for her achievements Gronenborn 

in the development of 

nuclear magnetic resonance methodologies 

for the determination of biomolecular 

structure and in the subsequent application 

of those methodologies to proteins of particular 

biological interest. 

She will deliver a lecture during the fall 

ACS national meeting in Philadelphia. 

NOMINATIONS SOUGHT 

FOR 2012 PAULING AWARD 

Nominations are being accepted for the 

2012 Linus Pauling Medal Award. Sponsored 

jointly by the Oregon, Portland, and 

Puget Sound ACS local sections, the award 

is presented annually in recognition of outstanding 

achievement in chemistry in the 

spirit of and in honor of Linus Pauling, a 

native of the Pacific Northwest. The medal 

will be presented at a symposium to be held 

this fall in Seattle. 

Nominations should consist of a concise 

curriculum vitae that includes significant 

publications and a list of honors and 

awards, along with a summary (400–1,000 

words) of scientific achievements, including 

explanations that clearly outline the 

importance of the nominee’s work. Letters 

seconding the nomination are encouraged. 

Scientists of all nationalities are eligible 

for this award. However, the award will not 

be given for work for which the nominee 

has already received a Nobel Prize. 

Please send an e-mail with a PDF of 

the nomination documents by April 10 

to William Reinhardt at rein@chem. 

washington.edu . 

LINDA WANG compiles this section. 

Announcements of awards may be sent to 

l_wang@acs.org . 


MEETINGS 

PITTCON 


IN ORLANDO 

Gathering aims to be the PREMIER ANNUAL CONFERENCE 

and exposition on laboratory science 

THE PITTSBURGH CONFERENCE on Analytical 

Chemistry & Applied Spectroscopy 

will be held on March 11–15 at the Orange 

County Convention Center in Orlando. The 

conference, which annually attracts more 

than 15,000 attendees from industry, academia, 

and government from 90 countries 

worldwide, is sponsored by the Spectroscopy 

Society of Pittsburgh and the Society 

for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh. 

As of C&EN’s press time, Pittcon 2012 

has more than 900 exhibitors registered to 

appear in more than 1,800 booths. Some 

2,000 technical presentations and nearly 

100 short courses are planned. 

All conference information, including 

registration and housing, is on the Web at 

pittcon.org . Registration for the entire conference 

costs $230, and one-day registration 

is $115. The cost for full-time students with a 

valid ID is $25 for the entire conference. 

The American Chemical Society’s Division 

of Analytical Chemistry (ANYL) is 

again providing programming at Pittcon. 

Its symposia are titled “Measurement Tools 

for Reactive Oxygen & Nitrogen Species,” 

“Integrated Microfluidics,” “Looking Ahead 

to a New Era of Analytical Chemistry Education,” 

“Multidimensional Chromatography,” 

“Use of Ionic Additives in Separations,” 

“Young Investigator in Separation Science 

Award,” “Differential Ion Mobility Spectrometry 

(FAIMS): New Instrumentation 

& Applications,” and “Hydrogen Deficient 

Radicals for Biomolecular Characterization 

by MS.” Organized contributed sessions will 

also be held on “It’s Not Your Grandmother’s 

Quant Course Anymore: New Tactics 

for a New Age,” “Celebrating the Future of 

Analytical Chemistry—The ACS Division 

of Analytical Chemistry Graduate Fellows,” 

“Fast Separations,” and “Modeling Chromatographic 

Systems.” An analytical poster 

session will be offered as well. 

PITTCON AT A GLANCE 

Dates: March 11–15 

Location: Orlando 

Information Contacts: Program, 

program@pittcon.org ; Exposition, 

expo@pittcon.org ; General 

Information, info@pittcon.org 

Website: pittcon.org 

R. Graham Cooks, Henry B. Hass Distinguished 

Professor of Analytical Chemistry 

at Purdue University, will deliver the 

Pittcon 2012 Plenary Lecture at 4:30 PM 

on Sunday, March 11. He will speak about 

“Ambient Ionization and Mini-Mass Spectrometers: 

In Situ MS for Everyone.” 

Steven A. Benner, distinguished fellow at 

the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, 

will deliver the Capstone Lecture, 

“Redesigning DNA: Fixing God’s Mistakes,” 

at 5 PM on Wednesday, March 14. A complimentary 

mixer will follow the lecture. 

Conferee networking sessions, which 

are free to all registered attendees, will 

provide a forum for participants to meet 

other people with similar interests, share 

experiences regarding new technology, and 

brainstorm new ideas. These two-hour, 

facilitated sessions enable conferees and 

exhibitors to discuss topics of mutual interest 

or solve problems specific to certain 

instrumentation. 

EXPOSITION. The exposition provides 

attendees with hands-on access to instrumentation, 

laboratory apparatuses, 

and other lab-related products and services. 

Hours are 9 AM to 5 PM on Monday, 

March 12, through Wednesday, March 14, 

and 9 AM to 3 PM on Thursday, March 15. 

Pittcon features “expo only” hours from 

11 AM to 2 PM when no technical sessions 

are scheduled, so attendees won’t have to 

skip a technical session to visit the expo. 

In the center of the exposition floor, an 

area dubbed Technology Park will provide a 

place to relax and network, view a da Vinci 

surgical robot and surgical simulator as 

well as exhibitor videos, and obtain complimentary 

copies of industry publications. 

Specialty areas on the floor this year will 

include New Exhibitors, Life Sciences, and 

LIMS. Posters will be displayed in two areas, 

Red and Blue, located at each end of the 

exhibit floor. Other amenities include afternoon 

mixers on Tuesday and Thursday, a 

tram to ease travel around the exhibit floor, 

and Internet and Twitter cafés (#pittcon). 

AWARDS. Eleven awards will be presented 

at Pittcon to recognize scientists who have 

made outstanding contributions to analytical 

chemistry and applied spectroscopy. 

Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award: 

Alan G. Marshall , distinguished research 

professor, Florida State University. 

Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award: W. E. 

Moerner , professor of chemistry, Stanford 

University. 



Technical Program 

The ACS Division of Analytical 

Chemistry, Analitica 

Latin America, the 

Association of Laboratory 

Managers, the Coblentz 

Society, the International 

Association of Environmental 

Analytical Chemistry, 

the Japan Analytical 

Instruments Manufacturers’ 

Association, Lab Manager 

Magazine , the Professionals’ 

Network in Advanced 

Instrumentation 

Society, the Royal Society 

of Chemistry, the Society 

for Applied Spectroscopy, 

and the Society for Electroanalytical 

Chemistry 

are all programming partners 

for Pittcon. 

Five days’ worth 

of invited symposia, 

workshops, and oral 

and poster sessions will 

provide comprehensive 

coverage of the latest 

developments in analytical 

chemistry, applied 

spectroscopy, life sciences, 

bioanalysis, food 

sciences, and related disciplines. 

Selected symposia 

will be recorded and 

remain available on the 

Web for 60 days after the 

conference to registered 

attendees only. 

Symposia are planned 

in the following broad 

subject areas: 

Art/Archaeology 

Atomic Spectroscopy/ 

Elemental Analysis 

Bioanalytical 

Biomedical 

Biospectroscopy 

Pittcon Heritage Award: Genzo Shimadzu 

Sr. (1839–94) and Genzo Shimadzu Jr. 

(1868–1951) of Shimadzu Corp.; Shigehiko 

Hattori, chairman of Shimadzu’s board, 

will accept the award. 

Pittsburgh Conference Achievement 

Award: Christy L. Haynes , associate professor 

of chemistry, University of Minnesota. 

ACS Division of Analytical Chemistry 

Award for Young Investigators in Separation 

Science: Jared L. Anderson , professor of 

analytical chemistry, University of Toledo. 

Bomem-Michelson Award from the Coblentz 

Society/ABB: Joel M. Harris , distinguished 

professor of chemistry, University 

of Utah. 

Charles N. Reilley Award of the Society 

for Electroanalytical Chemistry (SEAC): 

Debra R. Rolison , head of advanced electrochemical 

materials at the Naval Research 

Laboratory in Washington, D.C. 

Dal Nogare Award: Purnendu K. Dasgupta 

, professor of chemistry, University 

of Texas, Arlington. 

Ralph N. Adams Award in Bioanalytical 

Chemistry: Jonathan V. Sweedler , professor 

of chemistry, University of Illinois, 

Urbana-Champaign. 

Williams Wright Award from the Coblentz 

Society: Richard Crocombe , director 

of strategy deployment, Thermo Fisher 

Scientific. 

Young Investigators Award of SEAC: 

Lane A. Baker , assistant professor of chemistry, 

Indiana University, Bloomington. 

Nominations are also being solicited for 

four of next year’s Pittcon awards: 

Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry 

Award. The award includes a cash prize 

and travel costs to Pittcon. The honor 

recognizes significant contributions to the 

field of analytical chemistry, including the 

introduction of a significant technique, 

theory, or instrument and the provision of 

exceptional training or a fertile environment 

for progress in analytical chemistry. 

Nominations are due by April 27. 

Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award. This 

award honors outstanding contributions in 

the field of applied spectroscopy. Nominations 

are due by March 30. For more information, 

visit the Spectroscopy Society of 

Pittsburgh’s website at ssp-pgh.org. 

Pittsburgh Conference Achievement 

Award. This award is presented annually at 

Pittcon to recognize outstanding achievements 

in analytical chemistry and/or applied 

spectroscopy. To be eligible for the 

Education/Teaching 

Electrochemistry 

Environmental 

Fluorescence/ 

Luminescence 

Fuels, Energy & 

Petrochemical 

General Interest 

Homeland Security/ 

Forensics 

Liquid Chromatography 

Magnetic Resonance 

Mass Spectrometry 

Materials Science 

Microfluidics/Lab on a 

Chip 

Nanotechnology 

Neurochemistry 

Pharmaceutical 

Proteomics & Other 

“Omics” 

Safety 

Sensors 

Vibrational Spectroscopy 

2013 award, nominees must have completed 

their Ph.D. on or after March 1, 2002. 

Nominations are due by April 10. 

Ralph N. Adams Award in Bioanalytical 

Chemistry. The prize, which includes a 

cash award and travel expenses, recognizes 

significant contributions to the field of bioanalytical 

chemistry, broadly defined. The 

recipient will have introduced a significant 

technique, theory, instrument, or application 

important to the life sciences and will 

have also provided an exceptional environment 

to educate bioanalytical chemists. 

Nominations are due by April 30. 

EMPLOYMENT. Pittcon offers a free 

Employment Bureau service during the 

meeting. The bureau provides a venue for 

candidates to review active job openings— 

which typically number 500 to 1,000—and 

for employers to review candidate résumés 

and schedule interviews. To qualify for this 

service, a participant must be registered 

either as a conferee or as an exhibitor for 

Pittcon 2012 and must also register as 

either a candidate or an employer. Candidates 

and employers are highly encouraged 

to register for the Employment Bureau 

before Sunday, March 11. 

Candidates should bring printed and 

electronic résumés and a computer or 

other device for accessing the Internet 

and e-mail. The Employment Bureau 

will be located in the Valencia Ballroom 

(room 415AB) at the convention center. 

Further details can be found at pittcon.org/ 

attendees/employment.php . 

For the first time, Pittcon will also offer 

a Career Information Center, where 

candidates can ask questions about résumé 

preparation and interviewing, and 

an Employer Information Center, where 

candidates can ask questions and obtain 

literature from employers. Both services 

will be available in room 315A. 

SHORT COURSES. The Pittcon 2012 Short 

Course Program will consist of nearly 100 

courses in areas including pharmaceuticals, 

biomedical and other life sciences, physical 

and analytical techniques, computer 

and environmental applications, quality 

assurance, laboratory management, instrumentation, 

chemometrics, and education. 

Further details can be found at pittcon.org/ 

short . Registration fees range from $335 

for half-day courses to $1,300 for two-day 

courses. Students receive a 50% discount. 

Attendees who take three paid courses receive 

free conference registration. ◾ 


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IMPORTANT NOTICES 

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■ These advertisements are for readers’ 

convenience and are not to be construed 

as instruments leading to unlawful 

discrimination. 

POSITIONS OPEN 

WE ARE THE LEADERS in resorcinol technology for 

industrial and consumer products. With a research 

facility in Harmarville and a manufacturing plant in 

Petrolia, we are the only manufacturer of resorcinol 

in the U.S. 

Jobs at Indspec Chemical Corporation: 

Research Chemist: Job Number 2054. Experience 

with industrial polymers preferred. Preparing materials 

at lab and pilot plant scale a plus. Travel required. 

Staff Scientist: Job Number 1864. Lab experience 

in chromatography required. Performs non-routine 

analyses of compounds, polymers , etc. using a variety 

of chromatographic methods to provide qualitative results. 

Strong organic chemistry background required. 

Both jobs located in Harmarville, PA, and require 

BS in Chemistry with 5+ years’ experience. For info 

and to apply, go to www.oxy.com/careers; ‘Available 

Positions’; ‘Search Available Positions’ and enter the 

job number above. We offer very competitive, comprehensive 

salary and benefits. EOE. 

CHEMIST AND CHEMICAL ENGINEER 

Southern Wisconsin 

SHINE Medical Technologies is dedicated to being 

the world leader in safe, clean, affordable production 

of medical tracers and cancer treatment elements. We 

are seeking several key positions to finalize our design, 

license, and build our state-of-the-art facility. Connect 

with our website for full details on our Chemist 

and Chemical Engineer positions at www.shinemed. 

com. SHINE is subject to U.S. Export Controls regulations 

(U.S. Citizen, U.S. Permanent Resident, Asylee, 

or Refugee). Submit resume to careers@shinemed. 

com. EEO Employer. 

ACADEMIC POSITIONS 

THE DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGI- 

CAL ENGINEERING at the South Dakota School of 

Mines and Technology seeks exceptional candidates 

for a nine-month, tenure-track faculty position at the 

rank of Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor. Preference 

will be given to candidates with experience and 

research interest in Advanced Materials, Bioengineering, 

Engineering Science, Health and Nutrition, and/ 

or Sustainable Energy and Clean Water Technologies. 

Exceptional candidates with other research interests 

will also be considered. 

Candidates will have an earned doctorate in Chemical 

Engineering or a closely related discipline at the 

time of appointment. The Chemical and Biological 

Engineering Department promotes an outstanding 

educational environment for students, thus applicants 

should demonstrate a commitment to excellence in 

teaching graduate and undergraduate courses. Previous 

teaching at the university level and industrial experience 

are highly desirable. It is expected that the successful 

candidate will initiate and/or sustain an active 

externally sponsored collaborative research program. 

The desired start date is August 22, 2012. 

Opportunities exist to collaborate with Materials 

Engineering and Science, Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, 

and Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. programs 

on campus. The CBE faculty enjoy a close supporting 

relationship to the National Science Foundation Industry/University 

Cooperative Research Center for Bioenergy 

Research and Development (CBERD, http:// 

www.bioenergynow.org), the South Dakota 2010 

Center for Bioprocessing Research and Development 

(CBRD; http://www.bioprocessingcenter.org) and 

the Composites and Polymer Engineering Laboratory 

(CAPE, http://cape.sdsmt.edu). For information regarding 

the CBE Department visit http://cbe.sdsmt. 

edu and S.D. School of Mines and Technology visit 

http://www.sdsmt.edu. 

Individuals interested in this position must apply 

online at http://sdmines.sdsmt.edu/sdsmt/ 

employment. Human Resources can provide accommodation 

to the online application process and can 

be reached at (605) 394-1203. The School of Mines 

(SDSM&T) is committed to recruiting and retaining a 

diverse workforce. Review of applications began February 

24, 2012, and will continue until the position is 

filled. Employment is contingent upon completion of a 

satisfactory background investigation. SDSM&T is an 

EEO/AA/ADA employer and provider. 

QUALITY JOBS, QUALITY CHEMISTS 



TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY: The Dwight Look College 

of Engineering at Texas A&M University invites applications 

and nominations for the position of head of the 

Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering. 

Candidates must possess a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering 

or closely related field with distinguished 

research and academic records commensurate with 

the title of tenured full professor; strong communication 

and leadership skills; the ability to inspire and 

work with diverse groups; a commitment and interest 

in reaching out to former students and industries that 

would enable them to direct continued growth of the 

department in research excellence and graduate education; 

and to motivate continued excellence and innovation 

in undergraduate education. The department, 

which received a $10 million endowment in 2005, has 

25 tenured/tenure-track faculty members, more than 

100 graduate students, and roughly 700 undergraduate 

students. Its base of endowment support includes 

two chairs, 10 professorships, one faculty fellowship, 

nearly 200 undergraduate scholarships, and an active 

endowment campaign for excellence. 

Applications, including a current résumé, list of 

three references, and a vision statement should be 

sent via mail or e-mail to DR. GERARD COTÉ-CHAIR, 

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT HEAD 

SEARCH COMMITTEE, DEPARTMENT OF BIO- 

MEDICAL ENGINEERING, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY 

3120 TAMU, COLLEGE STATION, TX 77843-3120 

or CHENDHsearch@bme.tamu.edu. Call (979) 

845-5532 or visit www.che.tamu.edu for additional 

information. 

Texas A&M University provides Equal Opportunity 

to all persons regardless of race, color, religion, sex, 

national origin, disability, age, or veteran status and 

encourages applications from members of groups 

under-represented in engineering. 

FULL-TIME LECTURER IN CHEMISTRY 

A non-tenure-track lecturer position in the Department 

of Chemistry, University at Albany, SUNY, starting 

August 2012. This is a full-time, 10-month position. 

Duties include teaching three courses a semester and 

may include giving lectures and recitation sessions in 

organic and general chemistry in our ACS-certified department. 

The incumbent will also provide regular office 

hours for students and may be involved in student 

mentoring and related academic duties. This is a oneyear 

term appointment with the possibility of annual 

renewals based on satisfactory performance. 

The successful candidate will have a Ph.D. degree, 

preferably in organic chemistry, teaching experience, 

and a strong commitment to excellence in undergraduate 

education. Postdoctoral or equivalent experience 

is preferred. Qualified women and minority candidates 

are encouraged to apply. Applicants must address in 

their applications their ability to work with and instruct 

a culturally diverse population. 

An applicant should submit a CV, three reference letters, 

and a teaching statement. Review of applications 

will begin March 12, 2012, until the position is filled. 

Applicants must apply online at our website: http:// 

albany.interviewexchange.com/jobofferdetails. 

jsp?JOBID=30156. 

The University at Albany is an EO/AA Employer. 

SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING 

The School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, 

seeks outstanding individuals at Assistant, Associate, 

or Full Professor rank with a Ph.D. degree in 

Chemical Engineering or closely related field. A special 

emphasis for the search is process systems engineering. 

Successful candidates will have a distinguished 

academic record, exceptional potential to conduct 

world-class research, and a commitment to teach at 

both the undergraduate and graduate levels. For senior 

applicants, an excellent reputation in the field of 

specialty is required. 

Nominations may be sent to G. V. Reklaitis, chair of 

the search, at reklaiti@purdue.edu. 

For consideration, please complete the online application 

form at https://engineering.purdue.edu/ 

Engr/AboutUs/Employment/Applications and include 

curriculum vitae, statement of teaching and research 

interests, and the names and addresses of four 

references. Review of applications will begin March 1, 

2012, and continue until the position is filled. A background 

check will be required for employment in this 

position. 

Purdue University is an Equal Opportunity/Equal 

Access/Affirmative Action Employer fully committed to 

achieving a diverse workforce. 

XEUS 


WHITTIER COLLEGE —ORGANIC CHEMIST 

Whittier College, a nationally ranked liberal arts college, 

invites applications for a one-year sabbatical 

replacement position starting in fall of 2012 in a fiveperson, 

ACS-approved department. Ph.D. in Organic 

Chemistry, potential as an excellent teacher, and 

commitment to the liberal arts are essential qualifications. 

Teaching responsibilities will include Organic 

Chemistry Lecture and Laboratories, and a Science 

and Society course that integrates a scientific topic(s) 

with relevant societal/global issues and is targeted for 

a mostly non-science student audience. Please submit 

an application letter with a curriculum vita, teaching 

philosophy, and arrange to have graduate and undergraduate 

transcripts and three letters of recommendation 

sent to Devin Iimoto, Department of Chemistry, 

Whittier College, Whittier, CA 90608. If you 

have questions, e-mail diimoto@whittier.edu. Review 

of applications begins March 19 and the position will 

remain open until filled. Whittier College seeks to attract 

and retain a highly qualified and diverse faculty. 

An AA/EO Employer. 

DICKINSON COLLEGE in Carlisle, PA, invites applications 

for a one-year sabbatical leave replacement 

for 2012/2013. We seek a candidate whose Ph.D. is in 

Physical, Inorganic, or Bioinorganic Chemistry. Primary 

teaching responsibilities may include both lecture 

and laboratory for introductory chemistry, the kinetics 

and thermodynamics portion of physical chemistry, 

inorganic chemistry, and a special topics course in 

the candidate’s area of expertise. Support for undergraduate 

research is available. Further information 

about the department is available from http://www. 

dickinson.edu/academics/ programs/chemistry/. 

For full consideration, applicants should submit an 

electronic cover letter, CV, undergraduate and graduate 

transcripts, and three letters of recommendation 

by April 1, 2012, through https://jobs.dickinson.edu. 

The College is committed to building a representative 

and diverse faculty, administrative staff, and student 

body. We encourage applications from all qualified 

persons. 

director of engineering 

XEUS is seeking a creative and accomplished chemical/bioprocessing engineer 

experienced in running and designing pilot and plant-scale bioprocessing 

facilities. The candidate will report to the CEO and will oversee members 

of the engineering team, directing all activities necessary to design, development 

and completion of engineering activities. The candidate will develop accurate 

cost estimations and will suggest alternate pathways for accomplishing 

tasks to deliver completed projects on time and on budget. Applicant will 

have 20+ years of relevant bioprocessing experience and will have at least a 

Master’s degree in chemical or bioprocessing engineering. 

senior control and intrumentation engineer 

XEUS is seeking a creative and accomplished control and instrumentation 

engineer having substantial experience in designing pilot and plant-scale control 

and instrumentation systems. The candidate will develop accurate cost 

estimations and will suggest alternate pathways for accomplishing tasks to 

deliver completed control and instrumentation systems on time and on budget. 

Applicant will have 10+ years of relevant experience and will have at least 

a Master’s degree in chemical or bioprocessing engineering. 

senior liquid-liquid extraction engineer 

XEUS is seeking a creative and accomplished liquid-liquid extraction engineer 

having substantial experience in running and designing pilot and plant-scale 

liquid-liquid extraction operations. The candidate will design and develop 

processing equipment for the removal of valuable organic products from 

aqueous process streams. The candidate will develop accurate cost estimations 

and will suggest alternate pathways for accomplishing tasks to deliver 

completed projects on time and on budget. Applicant will have 10+ years 

of relevant experience and will have at least a Master’s degree in chemical 

engineering. 

Candidates wishing to join our exceptional and rapidly growing company 

should be prepared to provide work product that will have an immediate 

positive impact on our organization. In return, applicant will be rewarded 

 

opportunities. 

Please respond to recruiting@xeus.info. 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR 

PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY 

The Department of Chemistry at Millersville 

University invites applications for a tenuretrack 

Assistant Professor position in Physical 

Chemistry beginning August 2012. The 11- 

member ACS-approved department is 

housed in a 1999 facility with modern 

teaching labs and individual faculty research 

labs. The successful candidate will be 

responsible for lectures, recitations and 

laboratories of Introductory Chemistry and 

Physical Chemistry and for the establishment 

of an active undergraduate research program 

in Physical Chemistry. Minimum 

requirements include a PhD in experimental 

Physical Chemistry by time of appointment, 

commitment to excellence in teaching and 

undergraduate research and evidence of 

commitment to equity and diversity. 

To see the full list of responsibilities and 

qualifications and to apply, go to 

https://jobs.millersville.edu and create a 

faculty application. Full consideration given 

to applications received by March 24, 2012. 

An EO/AA institution. www.millersville.edu 



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INSTRUCTOR POSITION IN CHEMISTRY 0121397: 

The Virginia Tech Department of Chemistry is seeking 

an Instructor for Analytical Labs, Physical Chemistry 

Labs, and Physical Chemistry for Life Sciences 

Lecture. Applicants should have experience teaching 

Chemistry in large classrooms. A Ph.D. in chemistry 

is required. Applications will be received electronically 

at www.jobs.vt.edu. Posting Number: 0121397. Applicants 

should provide a cover letter, curriculum vitae, 

two letters of recommendations sent directly to Ms. 

EMillie Shephard, Department of Chemistry (0212), 

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 or eloope@ 

vt.edu), and a brief statement of teaching philosophy. 

Virginia Tech is an Equal Opportunity Employer, 

and applications from women and underrepresented 

groups in chemistry, are encouraged to apply. Review 

of applications began February 13, 2012. 

VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY invites applicants for a 

tenure-track assistant professor position in Analytical 

Chemistry to teach in the B.S.- (ACS-Approved) 

and M.S.-granting Department of Chemistry. The area 

of research interest is broadly defined as Analytical 

Chemistry; teaching undergraduate and graduate 

courses in analytical chemistry is expected. A Ph.D. in 

Chemistry or a closely related area is required; postdoctoral 

experience is preferred. The hiring package 

includes competitive research startup funds, comprehensive 

benefits, and a pre-tenure sabbatical. 

Only online applications will be considered (https:// 

jobs.villanova.edu). Villanova University is a Roman 

Catholic University sponsored by the Augustinian Order. 

An AA/EEO Employer, Villanova seeks a diverse 

faculty that can contribute to the University’s mission 

and values. 

A MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY 

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Contact your local advertising representative 

(for a listing go to www.cen-online.org/sales), 

e-mail classifieds@acs.org, or call 202-872-4593. 


INSTRUCTOR POSITION IN CHEMISTRY: The Virginia 

Tech Department of Chemistry is seeking an 

Instructor for its General Chemistry Program. This is 

a one-year appointment with intent for renewal. Applicants 

should have experience teaching Chemistry 

in large classrooms. A Ph.D. in chemistry is required. 

Applications will be received electronically at www. 

jobs.vt.edu. Posting Number: 0111340. Applicants 

should provide a cover letter, curriculum vitae, two 

letters of recommendations sent directly to EMillie 

Shephard, Department of Chemistry (0212), Virginia 

Tech, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, and a brief statement of 

teaching philosophy. Virginia Tech is an Equal Opportunity 

Employer, and applications from women and underrepresented 

groups in chemistry are encouraged to 

apply. Review of applications began February 13, 2012. 

COLORADO COLLEGE SABBATICAL REPLACEMENT 

to start fall 2012, teaching biochemistry and general 

chemistry. Biochemistry PhD Required. Send letter of 

interest, CV, teaching philosophy, transcripts, and reference 

letters (3) to ChemSearch@ColoradoCollege.edu 

by March 12, 2012. The college is an EOE and does not 

discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, religion, 

sex, sexual orientation, national origin, or disability in 

its educational programs, activities, or employment 

practices. We are committed to increasing the diversity 

of our community and encourage applicants who 

support this goal. http://www.coloradocollege.edu/ 

dept/CH/. 

VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN PHYSICAL 

CHEMISTRY, Middlebury College − The Department 

of Chemistry and Biochemistry invites applications 

for a one-year term position to begin September 2012. 

Applicants should have a Ph.D. in physical chemistry 

or a related field. For details see http://apptrkr. 

com/233088. Application deadline (via Interfolio) is 

March 5, 2012, but review of applications will begin immediately. 

Middlebury College is an Equal Opportunity 

Employer committed to recruiting a diverse faculty to 

complement the increasing diversity of our student 

body. 


PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: The Department of Chemistry 

invites applications for postdoctoral and more senior 

research positions in biological, inorganic, materials, 

organic, physical, theoretical, and computational 

chemistry. Ph.D. in appropriate field required. Applicants 

should apply online at http://jobs.princeton. 

edu (Requisition #1200059) and submit a cover letter, 

CV, and contact information for three references. 

Princeton University is an Equal Opportunity Employer 

and complies with applicable EEO and Affirmative 

Action Regulations. 

WESTMINSTER COLLEGE invites applications 

for a full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor of 

Chemistry to begin August 2012. Ph.D. in Analytical 

Chemistry required. For details, see http://www. 

westminster-mo.edu/explore/offices/business/ 

hr/jobs/Pages/FacultyPositions.aspx. Send cover 

letter, CV, unofficial transcripts, and three letters of 

recommendation to Dr. Glen Frerichs, Westminster 

College, 501 Westminster Ave., Fulton, MO 65251. 

Application review begins immediately. EOE. 

SITUATIONS WANTED 

CONSULTANTS 

M&K CONSULTING LLC 

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newscripts 

10 YEAR OLD DISCOVERS EXPLOSIVE, CHEMISTRY COMIC BOOKS 

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A 

first scholarly publication 

is a moment of great 

pride for any young scientist. 

Clara Lazen of Kansas City, 

Mo., will have that one in the bag 

before she learns algebra. 

Last year, Lazen was experimenting 

with a molecular modeling 

kit in Kenneth Boehr’s fifthgrade 

classroom at Border Star 

Montessori when she came up 

with a BRAND-NEW MOLECULE. 

The atoms fit together and satisfied 

the bonding rules from her 

lessons. “All the holes” in the model 

atoms “have to be filled in for it to 

be stable,” she explained in a TV 

interview. When asked whether the 

compound was real, Boehr wasn’t 

sure, so he sent a picture of it to his friend 

from college, computational chemist Robert 

W. Zoellner of Humboldt State University. 

Zoellner’s search of the literature showed 

Lazen’s molecule, tetrakis(nitratoxycarbon) 

methane, to be a novel compound featuring 

a novel moiety: an NO 3 group bound to a 

carbon through its three oxygen atoms. That 

high-energy configuration has not been 

observed in organic systems and would be 

synthetically challenging, Zoellner says. 

However, after performing energy calculations 

on the molecule with density functional 

and Hartree-Fock theoretical methods, Zoellner 

concluded that “this bonding mode for a 

nitrate group appears to be computationally 

supportable, even if thermodynamically disfavored.” 

He reported the findings in a recent 

paper coauthored with Lazen and 

Boehr ( Comp. Theor. Chem., DOI: 

10.1016/j.comptc.2011.10.011 ). 

Lazen’s compound might one 

day be used for energy storage 

or as an explosive, according 

to the team. Despite her youth, 

Lazen has grown-up ideas about funding. 

“I can sell this to the military,” she says, “for 

money.” 

When Lazen hits high school 

chemistry class, she might have 

more tools at her disposal than 

modeling kits, if a project at the University 

of California, San Diego, succeeds. 

“Chemorphesis” is a COMIC-BOOK 

SERIES aimed at teaching key chemistry 

concepts through the adventures of anthropomorphized 

chemical species. The project 

began out of conversations between Rebecca 

Ou, an undergraduate chemistry major 

Model student: 

Lazen and her 

molecule. 

KENNETH BOEHR 

Treasure: 

Getting 

from 

reactants to 

products can be 

quite a journey. 

and writing minor, and Haim Weizman, 

a professor of chemical education. 

Ou wanted to write stories explaining 

chemistry concepts, and Weizman 

suggested using a comic-book 

format to help them find an audience. 

They recruited undergrads 

Annie Jia and Angeline Yu to produce 

the Japanese-style artwork 

and build a website. 

In the first comic, “Musical 

Chairs,” nucleophilic substitution 

is explored through the tribulations 

of a rock band called S N 1. The 

band’s prima donna vocalist walks 

out, leaving the band in an unstable 

state. Later, after a bass guitar 

(hydride) shift, a new nucleophilic 

vocalist joins the group and S N 1 is 

ready to perform. 

“Catalysis” re imagines the familiar reaction 

coordinate diagram as a treasure map. 

Four adventurers find the map, which they 

follow over a dangerous mountain. The way 

is blocked by a fearsome dragon atop an 

imposing peak, and the group lacks the energy 

to overcome such a barrier. Just as the 

treasure seekers are ready to turn back, a 

mysterious stranger appears and catalyzes 

their passage along a convoluted, secret 

route through the mountain. 

Whimsical as it might seem, 

the project is not just for fun. “Like 

everything, we think about it as an 

experiment,” Weizman says. The 

students have earned college credit for their 

work, and Weizman plans to research the efficacy 

of the comics as textbook supplements. 

“Chemorphesis” is gaining popularity 

fast; an excess of visitors crashed its 

website right as the Newscripts gang was 

getting to the good part. The project has 

since secured more stable hosting; it’s now 

at chemorphesis.ucsd.edu, and Ou and the 

group are actively working on new stories. 

CRAIG BETTENHAUSEN wrote this week’s 

column. Please send comments and suggestions 

to newscripts@acs.org. 

CHEMORPHESIS 


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