If we can agree for purposes of this discussion that 1) the non-academic stake holders value the training of BS/MS students in organic synthesis and 2) non-RO1 institutions are generally not in a position to internally support synthesis research, even if it is a component of the training of graduates, how can we create a system that serves everyone?
Industry folks often indicate in conversation that there are questions they would like someone to answer because they might provide some useful incites, but which are not necessarily patentable or of sufficient value to expend the money it would cost to pay someone in house to undertake the work.
Organic synthesis MS programs have students to train who get paid rather little and faculty who are hungry to do meaningful chemistry that supports training their students.
So, industry folks have got questions and academic folks are dedicated to using questions to train their students.
Offer you questions to us. Lets start a regional site where the faculty can go find the questions you would like addressed. Groups like the Philadelphia Organic Chemists Club or a regional university could provide the site. It could be somewhat like the innocentive challenges, only the faculty are proposing the seek a solution in exchange for support rather than finding the solution on their own dime and trying to sell it to you.
The faculty member would write a brief proposal offering to tackle the problem in exchange for support for the research. Support could be in the form of providing fellowships to BS/MS degree candidates and some reasonable costs for chemicals, consumables, etc. Depending on the challenge and faculty member it might be worthwhile to provide some money so the faculty member can buy out some classroom teaching in favor of working on the problem with the students. I think you will find it cheap compared to in house work on non-patentable studies.
But what, do the industry folks get? Their questions get answered and new organic synthesis BS/MS graduates enter the pipeline. This is a group of graduates who, if they don't move to graduate school, generally don't want to travel too far from home. So by working with the schools in your region you train your own workforce on your questions.
It's just an idea. It might even work for everyone in part of the country where there is a strong synthesis community. It could also be translatable to biotech or other fields where there is a need to train BS/MS researchers but few resources.
I got here through Lamentations and am really just saying "Hi from Canada". I went on my first sabbatical last year after 18 years at the chalkboard. When I came back they made me department head and all my "free time" is now devoted to meetings, not cleaning up the research I did. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteTo comment on your post: small chemistry departments produce one commodity ... trained students. I have been telling people up here in Canada that there needs to be a support system (equipment, supplies and stipends) for small universities that have graduates go to industry and grad school. You could almost call it a "bounty" paid for by industry and the larger institutions. They roll through here all the time with their slick presentations and free pizza lunches and they are all looking for the same thing ... students. Make them pay.
Nice to hear from you.
ReplyDeleteBecoming the chairperson is certainly a mixed blessing. I think I have an article in my files titled something like "Getting the Chair".
While I like your "bounty" idea, which in my opinion amounts to a fee for service provided. Unfortunately the idea of paying through taxation for what you or society in general gets is anathema around these parts. In my suggestion I was looking for something with a more concrete pay out to the payer.
Between the two may be an idea that could actually support what everyone can recognize as a public good.
Thinking from an industry point of view, and keep in mind I am way too low on the decision tree to actually make much difference, Pharma already does what you ask, to varying degrees of success: We farm out projects to specialty custom synthesis shops, some stateside, many in India or China. We do this for building blocks, and other key intermediates.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the stumbling block to making your proposal work is simply one of time. If you could deliver goods, in the timely fashion required by industrial research projects, and do it all at or below the cost of the specialty shops, then you'd have a deal in no time. You might be even able to get by with taking a little longer to produce, if the price was right.
Sadly, there are a great many hurdles here: your need of time to train your students; our need of building blocks in little to no time; the complex nature of the synthesis required, including purification.
Ever think of going more the custom scale up route instead? Often times the timelines are less rigid for mid-scale, 5-100 gram batches of intermediates.
Just a thought. Or four.
Lizzy
ReplyDeleteSorry I was not clear. I was not suggesting that universities compete with industry for fine chemical synthesis. Public institutions can get into trouble for such things.
I was thinking more of delivering knowledge on goods. Something like determining the range of ligands that will support Buchwald-Hartwig coupling of adenine to 4-chloroacetophenone. (I made that up of the top of my head, so readers should not correct the chemistry there.)
Custom scale up presents a problem in that it would be difficult to generate a thesis or publications, which limits the utility to the degree candidate or the faculty member.