Hi Reddit, I have more than 40 years of experience in patent an intellectual property litigation, including several landmark cases of pioneering biotechnology breakthroughs, revolutionary medical devices, and blockbuster pharmaceuticals. But before becoming a leading biotech and pharmaceutical patent attorney, I was a professional chemist. I went on to be a patent examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and went on to serve as a scientific adviser on intellectual property issues at Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany, during the formation of the European Patent Convention. I have represented start-up biotech firms and major U.S. and European chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Feel free to ask me anything about the intersection of science and the law, biotech/pharmaceutical patents, or scientific intellectual property. Later today, I’ll be hosting an ACS “Program in a box” Webinar on establishing and protecting your intellectual property. Feel free to ask questions about that, or tune in later here: http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/acs-webinars/program-in-a-box/pib-on-demand/protect-ip.html I’ll be back at 1 pm ET (10 am PT, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything! EDIT: Hi folks, this is ACS’s Reddit team speaking. Robert Koch’s flight was delayed, but he just landed and is making his way to a reliable internet connection as we speak. He’ll be online at 2 PM ET now to answer all of your questions. Sorry for the delay – keep sending those questions. Thanks! Greetings and sorry for the delay due to flight problems. I will run until 3 pm eastern and hopefully be able to supplement tomorrow. Have to run now but I’ll check back tomorrow.

Greetings! I am Todd M. Przybycien, a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. I am the instructor for the short course “Chemical Engineering for Chemists” for the American Chemical Society. I’ve taught the course since 2007, delivering it 25+ times both as part of the ACS U.S. short course circuit and on-site at multiple companies across the country. I really enjoy teaching this course – it’s given me the opportunity to meet a large number of interesting people and I enjoy talking about chemical engineering. As background, I received undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering and in chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis and Masters and a PhD degree in chemical engineering with a minor in biology from Caltech. I started my professional career with Monsanto Agricultural Company in St. Louis in 1989. I then re-joined academia in 1991 as a faculty member in chemical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. In 1998, I moved to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA where I joined the chemical engineering faculty and later became the Founding Head of the Biomedical Engineering Department. I’ve taught a wide variety of courses at the university level including introductory courses in chemical engineering and biomedical engineering as well as advanced courses in thermodynamics, transport phenomena, kinetics and reactor design and biotechnology. I currently teach BioProcess Design and Biomedical Engineering Systems modeling and Analysis. My primary research interest is in the area of downstream process development for the production of bioparmaceuticals. Additional research interests include surfactant-enhanced pulmonary drug delivery and biosensor development for early detection of pressure ulcers (bedsores). Feel free to ask me about my short course, Chemical Engineering for Chemists, my teaching, my research, or the best runs off chair 23 at Mammoth Mountain or the front four at Stowe…. I’ll be back at 3 pm EST (12 pm PST, 8 pm UTC) to answer your questions! Wow - did an early check this morning (8 am PST) - lots of good questions and commentary already. I will pick my way down through these a bit before the live session and keep my ears on afterwards too. Ok, its a couple minutes ahead of 12 noon PST, I’ll have my ears on here live until 1 pm PST So, we’ve reached 1 pm PST and I’m going to return to my conference (we’re on lunch break). I will stop back to this site over the next coupla days to see if I can get a few more responses in. Thank you for participating in the AMA! If it’s of interest and as a thank you we’d like to extend a discount to you for any of my courses through ACS. Register between now and December 3, 2015 using the code ACSREDDIT20OFF to receive 20% off of your registration fee.

Welcome! I am M.G. Finn, Editor-in-Chief of ACS Combinatorial Science. My group does research in a variety of areas that seek to develop molecular function, but we define “molecular” in ways that go from small molecule drugs to large multiprotein assemblies to organisms. In particular, we develop and optimize reactions for bioconjugation and release, engineer virus-like nanoparticles for immunology, cell targeting, and enzyme encapsulation, and work on new ways to evolve aptamers and enzymes. Since moving to Georgia Tech in 2013, we are also doing a lot more materials science, trying to apply some of our click chemistry techniques and attitudes to the creation of new functional polymers and surfaces. An appreciation for molecular function is what motivated me to steer the journal into expanded waters, while retaining a core commitment to the publication of good synthetic chemistry. ACS Comb. Sci. now publishes papers in a wide variety of areas in which functional structures are made, identified, or enhanced by combinatorial means. We also like to highlight methods — synthetic, analytical, and theoretical — by which function can be created and measured. Combinatorial biology, materials development, and drug development are all combinatorial chemistry in my view, and so the field is most certainly very much alive. Thanks VERY much to everyone who posted questions and comments - I had a great time and you gave me some good things to think about. (Hopefully, that feeling is mutual.) I look forward to the next AMA.

Hi Reddit! I am Lisa Balbes, a long-time Technical Writer/Editor and a volunteer Career Consultant with the American Chemical Society. I am here to discuss chemistry careers, nontraditional careers for scientists, and making career transitions. To give you a little background, I earned my Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and my undergraduate degrees in chemistry and psychology from Washington University in St Louis. I spent several years as a computational chemist at Research Triangle Institute. For the past 23+ years, I have been running my own business, providing technical writing and editing services for organizations including Washington University Medical School, Bausch and Lomb Surgical, SigmaAldrich, Stereotaxis, and the US FDA. I addtion to my professional experience, I have been an American Chemical Society volunteer career consultant since 1993, providing career management advice and information to literally thousands of scientists worldwide. I am the author of “Nontraditional Careers for Chemists: New Formulas in Chemistry”, published by Oxford University Press in 2007. In 2012, I received the E. Ann Nalley Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service for the ACS Midwest Region, and in 2015 I received the Howard and Sally Peters Award from the ACS Division of Chemistry and the Law. I also volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America on both the Greater St Louis area Boy Scout STEM Committee and the national STEM/Nova committee. In 2015, I was the staff advisor for a week-long STEM Trek for Venturers at the Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia, and have taught chemistry to thousands of youth in a tent on top of a mountain. I love sharing the world of science with youth, and opening their eyes to the possibilities. The ACS Career Consultant Program, an ACS member benefit, gives members access to a consultant to help guide you through job searching, career transitions, resume writing, and more. Take a look at this video I was featured in to learn more about the program. I have long felt that chemistry background prepares you for much more than just a laboratory career. The broad science education, analytical thinking, research methods, and other skills learned are of value to a wide variety of employers, and essential for a plethora of types of positions. By understanding both yourself and the employment market, you can make informed decisions about potential careers, and identify paths that match your needs. Possible career paths include chemical information, patent work, technical writing, education, human resources, sales, marketing, and much more. Knowing what you are good at, what you enjoy, and how to turn that into a career, is essential for success in today’s world. I’ll be back to answer questions at 1:00 PM ET (10 am PT, 5 pm UTC). Feel free to ask me anything about chemistry careers, nontraditional careers, and making career transitions. EDIT 1:00 PM: I’m here! Looks like I have lots to read, and I will start typing answers. Looking forward to some fun discussion! EDIT 2:06 PM: Wow, that went fast. Thanks for all the great questions! For more information about the ACS Career Consultants program, please visit http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/careers/career-services/ccp.html Best of luck in your career endeavors!

Hi Reddit – I am a professor of Chemistry and also a professor in several other departments/programs including Neuroscience and Physiology, all at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My research has two major themes: one is developing new analytical tools to characterize the chemistry occurring in small volume samples, and the second uses these tools to understand the chemistry occurring in the brain. More specifically, I study novel neurochemical pathways in a range of animal models. Perhaps more important to the suggested topic of the AMA, I am the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Analytical Chemistry, published by the American Chemical Society. This journal receives thousands of submissions each year. With the help of a talented team of seventeen active researchers (our expert associate editors), and the thousands of peer reviewers who donate their time and expertise, we publish about one third of the submitted manuscripts. Last week was Peer Review Week and I thought it would be fun to discuss how manuscripts are selected to be published. Thus, I am here to answer your questions and have discussions on the peer review process, or on anything else you have in mind. I’ll be back at 1 pm ET (10 am PT, 5 pm UTC), so AMA and I look forward to hearing your thoughts! I am online and ready to answer your questions. Thanks all for your participation. Thank you again for participating in this AMA. I hope it was a positive experience for you! Please let me know if you need anything else.

Hello, everyone! We are Chemjobber and Gregory Eells, and we’re here to chat with you about graduate school stress. A little bit about us: My pseudonym is Chemjobber, as is the name of my blog. I am a Ph.D. chemist in industry. I mostly cover the chemistry job market, but I also like to talk a lot about life as a chemist, whether it’s how to find a job, how to relate to your coworkers and also just how to get through the journey/adventure/joy/living hell that can be getting a graduate degree in chemistry. And my name is Dr. Gregory Eells; I have a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and am a licensed psychologist in the State of New York. I have worked in higher education mental health for 20 years and have served as a director of a university counseling service for the past 17 years. I am currently the Director of Counseling and Psychological Services at Cornell University. Hi, Chemjobber again. One day in late 2012, a chemistry blogger (Vinylogous) and I decided to write a five-part series on different mental health aspects of graduate school. It was quite a journey, with lots of people jumping in, including prominent chemistry bloggers and also full professors talking about their difficulties with the vagaries of research. Everyone has a story to tell about this, and a lot of them came out. It’s Greg again. Graduate school stress is in fact a big problem. In the time I have worked in higher education mental health, I have seen hundreds of graduate students struggling with mental health and general life concerns. Graduate school can be an incredible time of discovery and professional development and can also be a time where work expectations are very high and students often do not have some of the same protections of undergraduates or faculty members. In my graduate training I was very fortunate to have very supportive faculty and at times I did find the transition from graduate student to new professional very challenging and difficult. Feel free to ask us anything that’s on your mind, we’re here to help. We’ll be online at 10:00am ET to begin answering your questions! For more on grad school stress, check out these articles in the Sept. 14 issue of C&EN: Opening Up About Stress In Graduate School: http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i36/Opening-Stress-Graduate-School.html Grad students share strategies for taking their minds off work: http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i36/Stress-Relief.html Also, check out Chemjobber and Vinylogous’ five-part series on grad school stress: http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2013/01/is-graduate-school-in-chemistry-bad-for.html CJ and I were just talking about graduate school stress and we thought it was worth discussing the role of alcohol in how many graduate students manage their stress and anxiety. Obviously, alcohol use is a part of social life and many social gatherings in the US and other countries. However, graduate students can turn to alcohol or other substances as a way to escape stress. There can often be a “work hard play hard” component to some graduate school cultures. The challenge is this use can become problematic and evolve into dependence. Alcohol use is not an effective long term strategy for stress management. This is Greg and I have to sign off for now. Great discussion everyone. UPDATE: CJ here, it’s 11:20 Eastern, I’ll be back in an hour or so.

I am Mike Lee, President of Milestone Development Services and founder of Mozaic Solutions. I am here to discuss personalized healthcare and the unique role of analytics - new technologies, methods, workflows, and regulations. Advances in analytical technology combined with our desire to live longer has generated significant excitement and opportunities in the sciences. Measurement - sensitive and fast - will be a hallmark of healthcare solutions providing early detection of disease and treatments that can be tailored to specific sub-groups (personalized healthcare). An intellectual perspective will likely focus on scientific merits of the analytical measurement and/or a specific disease. The reality is that advances in personalized healthcare will likely be led by our competitive nature via performance monitoring (i.e., athletics, competitive sport, daily testing, hourly testing) to identify a molecular signature of high performance. Once identified, such a high performing condition becomes an “asset.” Measurement then naturally focus on the protection of this so-called asset. Thus, a comprehensive series of measurements to will be required to ensure high performance via diagnostics markers to prevent injury and/or disease. The reality is that the fundamental analytics required for personalized healthcare are available today. These analytics will require significant integration and miniaturization along with informatics to assist with data process and visualization. Leadership via high performing athletes, for example, will likely provide education to the general public and generate an active interest and broad-based participation on an individual level - personalized healthcare. I’ll be back to answer questions at 12:00pm ET (9 am PT, 4 pm UTC). Feel free to ask me anything about emerging analytical technology, real-time analytics for personalized healthcare, and trends within the pharmaceutical industry. Edit 12:00 PM EST - I’m on line! Thanks to everyone for your questions! Thank you for participating in the AMA! As a thank you we’d like to extend a discount to you for my course Analysis and Interpretation of Mass Spectral Data offered through the American Chemical Society. Register between now and October 22, 2015 using the code ACSREDDIT20OFF to receive 20% off of your registration fee.

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A document by AmerChemSocietyAMA . Click on the document to view its contents.

Hi Reddit! I’m a Scientia Professor at UNSW in New South Wales, Australia. I co-founded and co-direct the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine (ACN), a group that brings together experts in engineering, medicine, and science to solve big problems in human health. My research focuses on surface modification, biosensors, functional nanomaterials, cell-based diagnostic devices, and electroanalysis. I’m helping develop things like portable diagnostic devices, 3D cell bioprinters, and other cool stuff. My research group at UNSW specializes in ways to modify sensor surfaces at the molecular level. We use self-assembled monolayers, biological molecules, and nanomaterials to make sensors do things like selectively detect analytes, influence biological processes, and communicate electrically with biological molecules. I’m also the editor-in-chief of ACS Sensors, a brand-new journal that will publish the latest and greatest work in sensor science. Look for our first issue online in January 2016. This is a really exciting time for sensors research. Many experts think the global sensors market will surpass $110 billion by 2019. Much of this money will come from the many applications of “personalized medicine.” For example, single-molecule sensors are about to explode. We could use them to find out immediately whether a patient will respond to a particular cancer treatment. We may also see sensors used in environmental and food monitoring. On the other hand, as a field we’re constrained by what sensors can currently do, and are having trouble making certain types of sensors commercially viable. So ask me anything about this diverse, interdisciplinary field: biosensors, chemical sensors, gas sensors, intracellular sensors, single-molecule sensors, cell chips, arrays, or microfluidic devices. I’m happy to answer your questions about how sensors affect our everyday lives, as well as about the future challenges and directions facing our field. I will be back at 3:00pm ET (5:00am my time in Australia, please wake me gently).