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ELI STAVITSKI/UT STAVITSKI/UTRECHT UNIVERSITY MONITOR A new method can probe molecules, such as the cationic fluorinated styrene dimer depicted, as they form in the channels of a zeolite crystal. Biochemist Thomas R. Cech announced on April 1 that he will step down as president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in spring 2009. A nationwide search for his successor is expected. Cech has been president of HHMI since January 2000. During his tenure, HHMI has launched several new initiatives, including the HHMI Professors program, which provides grants to research professors for the purpose of transforming undergraduate education; the Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Va.; and the recently an- NEWS OF THE WEEK SPYING ON CATALYSTS SPECTROSCOPY: Infrared method probes reactions as they occur in zeolites FOR THE FIRST TIME, researchers have applied infrared microspectroscopy to monitor catalytic reactions as they occur within the pores of zeolite crystals (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., DOI: 10.1002/anie.200705562). The technique provides scientists with a new procedure for probing the detailed rela- tionship between a catalyst’s structure and its function. The method also ooffers a means for elucidating reaction re pathways mediatedbyin mediated by industrially rel- evant evant catalysts catalyst such as zeolites. Like law en enforcement agents who searchfo search for ways to spy on criminals so th they can catch the perpetrators perpetrato “in the act,” chemists try to t develop methods to monito monitor catalysts under typical condit conditions and catch the catalysts pr promoting chemical re reactions. Developing analytical methods that are compatible with elevated temperatures and pressures nounced competition for early-career scientists (C&EN, March 17, page 8). “A lot of the things I hoped to accomplish are well on their way, if not done,” Cech says. “The next big thing that the Howard Hughes Medical Institute engages in deserves to have somebody who’s going to see it through. Some of these projects are five to 10 years in length, and I had never planned to stay here that long. This seems like an appropriate time WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG 12 APRIL 14, 2008 and other standard catalysis reaction conditions is challenging. Yet a few in situ microscopy and spectroscopy methods that can scrutinize the internal surfaces of porous catalyst materials during the course of a reaction have already been developed. Now, researchers at Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, have added the molecular-structure-resolving power of vibrational spectroscopy to that small but growing collection of in situ analytical tools. Demonstrating the technique, chemistry professor Bert M. Weckhuysen, postdoc Eli Stavitski, and their coworkers exposed micrometer-sized crystals of an acidic zeolite, H-ZSM-5, to 4-fluorostyrene. They heated the samples and then probed the styrene oligomerization process in various ways with high-intensity synchrotron IR radiation. In one set of experiments, the group focused on a 5- × 5-μm region of a single crystal for a prolonged period to monitor the evolution of the oligomerization process over time in that spot. In other experiments, the researchers scrutinized larger areas by scanning individual crystals under the microscope’s field of view. Among other outcomes, the team observed the principal reaction intermediate, a bisphenyl-ylium cationic dimer. They identified that species by comparing calculated spectra to spectra measured experimentally. The group also deduced the dimeric cation’s molecular orientation within the zeolite’s channels and mapped its microscopic distribution across the catalyst both spatially and temporally. Matthew Neurock, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Virginia, notes that the new IR method, used either by itself or in conjunction with fluorescence and UV-Vis techniques, “will provide unprecedented resolution of the time and spatial mapping of reactant, intermediate, and product molecules in catalytically active microporous systems under actual catalytic working conditions.” He adds that the method “will greatly increase our understanding of molecular transformations that follow during the course of catalytic reactions.”—MITCH JACOBY CAREER CHANGE Chemist-president Cech steps down at HHMI to return to academia for me to return to being engaged directly with research and with teaching.” Cech plans to return to those activities at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he has been a chemistry professor since 1978. During his time at HHMI, he has maintained a small research group studying telomeres (the DNA sequences that cap chromosomes) and telomerase (the enzyme that synthesizes telomeres).—CELIA ARNAUD PAUL FETTERS FOR HHMI
COURTING JAPAN CPhI JAPAN: Foreign suppliers of pharmaceutical chemicals affirm commitment to country’s market LIKE PATIENT SUITORS, suppliers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and intermediates are undeterred in courting Japanese drug companies. Last week in Tokyo, exhibitors at the fine chemicals trade show CPhI Japan suggested that those pharma companies’ resistance to dealing with foreign suppliers is diminishing. Japanese pharma traditionally has been conservative in sourcing ingredients. Although not unknown, reliance on parties beyond a small circle of suppliers was rare. Changes in Japan’s regulations, however, raised outsiders’ hopes of breaking through the circle (C&EN, May 15, 2006, page 29). That hasn’t happened as quickly as outsiders had anticipated, but they are not discouraged. Takuya Yamamoto, of trading company Koa Shoji, said drug companies are still looking at the same suppliers, but he expects the pool to increase eventually. Similarly, Jagmohan M. Khanna, of Indian contract manufacturer Jubilant Organosys, predicted that “the Japanese market is going to open up gradually because of costs.” According to Yamamoto, Europeans have an edge among foreign suppliers. “They already know about quality and are easy to trust,” he said. They are also famil- JUNGLE SKY AIR CHEMISTRY: Forest air can do more oxidizing than previously thought LONG-HELD BELIEFS about the chemical makeup of the atmosphere above pristine rain forests are being called into question by new research that could inform air pollution modeling and regulation in areas that are more urban. All forms of foliage emit vast amounts of hydrocarbons into the sky, far more than cars do. In fact, trees and plants expel about 500 billion kg of isoprene per year—which is approximately the combined weight of every human in the world. But the atmospheric lifetime of these hydrocarbons is just a few hours, much shorter than that of anthropogenic hydrocarbons, says Jonathan Williams, an atmospheric scientist at Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. Near urban centers, isoprene reacts with polluting nitrogen oxides to form smog. Researchers have long thought that above pristine jungles and forests, isoprene is oxidized by hydroxyl radicals, thereby depleting the overall oxidative potential of jungle skies. NEWS OF THE WEEK iar with drug master files, the data that Japanese law now requires companies to submit for APIs. European firms themselves tout these qualities: regulatory experience, reliability, and a deep understanding of quality’s primacy. As Wilhelm Stahl, head of Saltigo’s pharma business, put it, “If you have quality issues, you have a big mess.” Still, Stahl admitted that breaking through in Japan will take time. “With Japan, one has to take a long-term view,” he said. Because of difficulties that can arise from cultural differences, Japanese will always prefer to work with Japanese, contended Ichiro Shinkai, of Beta-Chem, a chemical development arm of Mitsui & Co. Foreigners would do well to adapt Japanese business ways, he said. Almac, a Northern Irish pharma services firm, heeds the advice. Companies can fail in Japan for boorishness, according to David Moody, vice president of commercial operations. Almac has made inroads in the country partly through the respectful demeanor of the people it sends there, he claimed. The cultural sensitivity has reaped projects that are small but have growth potential, added Rosaleen McGuckin, vice president of business development.—MAUREEN ROUHI But when Williams, Jos Lelieveld, and their colleagues from Max Planck Institute for Chemistry sent a Lear jet packed full of equipment over South American jungles, they found that OH radicals are not depleted at all but exist at the same concentrations as over the oceans. The authors suggest that hydroxyl radicals are, in fact, being recycled, not used up, by jungle-emitted isoprene (Nature 2008, 452, 737). “Jungles rely on an oxidative atmosphere to create the concentration gradients required for chemical ecology to work”—so a pollinating insect can hone in on nectar in a flower, for example, Williams says. “It’s amazing that the jungle can maintain levels of HO∂” required for a healthy ecosystem. The new findings also call into question models that air pollution regulators have been using to estimate the levels of smog and ozone in forested areas downwind of urban nitric oxide emissions, comments Alex Guenther, a senior scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colo. “Hydroxyl radicals are critical compounds in the air, but they are also really hard to measure,” Guenther says. “When the concentration of HO∂ changes, the concentration of everything in numerical models changes.” Regulators should, therefore, pay close attention to these findings, he notes.—SARAH EVERTS WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG 13 APRIL 14, 2008 CPhI Japan attracted about 15,000 visitors, organizers say. ALEX GUENTHER/© 2008 NATURE The air above South American forests is more oxidative than previously thought. MAUREEN ROUHI/C&EN
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