I have Antony Williams to thank because for a long time I have been wanting to summarize my thoughts on how I use social networking to spread the word about the science that I am involved in. Seeing Tony’s slides pushed me to do this! This follows visiting many groups of students (most recently at …
Category Archive: science communication
Oct
27
Learning from pioneers in science from the 20th Century
Having just completed review of a manuscript that profiled a prominent scientist in my field from the 20th century, it got me thinking openly. Firstly, I rarely read profiles of long deceased scientists in my field, frankly who but perhaps the odd emeritus professor (with all due respect) would have time on their hands to …
Oct
19
Old drug, no news: deceased Chemist on front page of Wall Street Journal
Albert Hofmann passed away in 2008 but today he made it to the front page of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), surrounded by articles on Syria, Wal-Mart, the Canadian election and megadeals. I am still trying to figure out why the location of the old papers and notebooks of this chemist was newsworthy. Could it …
Oct
05
Nobel prize in medicine – going back to natural products for drugs
Every year there are potentially 1000’s of scientists that could have won the Nobel prize and did not. This year the prize recognizes 3 scientists for their work on parasitic diseases. William Campbell and Satoshi Omura won for their work on discovering Avermectin which lead to treatments for River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis. Youyou Tu …
Sep
22
A case for cheaper drug discovery and development
The news has been covering biotech/ pharma for the last few days and it is not a good thing, all because of Turing Pharmaceuticals decision to hike the price of their drug 5000%, which is an old antimalarial called pyrimethamine. Not surprising the decision was met with an outcry. But looking at the basis for …
Sep
11
C&EN’s Advances in Drug Discovery and Development
Next Thursday at 10am EST I will be giving a virtual seminar at this virtual symposium – you can find out more and see all the other speakers too. This is a first for me – So I hope for some interaction via Twitter #CENSYM15 Slides are done, now I just have to prepare what …
Jul
16
What’s needed for TB: A critical analysis of the drug discovery pipeline and efforts
After attending the Gordon conference on Tuberculosis (TB) drug discovery (without breaking the rules on describing what was presented) I think I can safely make a few general comments which were already in my mind before the meeting. This week what stood out for me was the lack of knowledge of all the efforts that …
May
28
Turning points and games with a purpose
Today I was talking to one of my old mentors from my postdoc days (in big pharma), for the first time in a few years. I realized that working with him and exposure to computational chemistry software was a real turning point in my career in 1996. Several more turning points later …and I am …
May
26
A triple life in science
Ever since embarking on my pretty unusual career path in leaving big pharma in 2001, I have been faced with several forks in the road, hard decisions on which way to go. To join a software company or not? work with university spin out? – some were good decisions others less so. Since 2008 I …
May
20
My experiences reviewing at PLOS
While I am a supporter and proponent of open accessing publishing, I have in the past been fairly critical of some of these journals, in particular PLOS. Even though I still publish in their journals I have held off from PLOS ONE in favor of F1000Research who I feel have a better publishing – reviewing …
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