It’s Sunday, the babies are asleep, and it’s a good time to freshen up the predictions list. So, with the announcement less than three weeks away, here is my official list of odds against winning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

As is the custom, the candidates are sorted below by discovery/invention rather than by scientist. The treatment of candidate scientists gets complicated. Some are listed more than once. In cases where someone not listed could easily share in the prize for the associated discovery, a “+” is listed. In cases where one of the scientists listed could easily not share in that prize, a “–” is listed. The odds are reported in “odds against” format. Remember, this list attempts to address who will win the prize this year, not who should win the prize.

The ChemBark Line of Odds Against Winning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Updated 27 September 2020

Notable Removals since 2015:

Lithium-Ion Batteries, Goodenough/Whittingham, 8-1 (won in 2019)
Protein Engineering, Arnold/+/–, 149-1 (won in 2018)
Molecular Machines, Stoddart/Tour/+/–, 499-1 (won in 2016)
Mechanical Bonds and Applications, Sauvage/Stoddart/+, 299-1 (basically won in 2016)
Kurt Mislow, noted for stereochemistry (died in 2017)
Alan Battersby, noted for pigments of life (died in 2018)
Noel Hush, noted for electron transfer (died in 2019)
Gilbert Stork, noted for organic synthesis (died in 2017)
Jack Roberts, noted for NMR in organic chemistry (died in 2016)
Harden McConnell, noted for NMR spectroscopy (died in 2014)
Ronald Breslow, noted for bioorganic chemistry (died in 2017)
Gérard Férey, noted for porous solids (died in 2017)
Aharon Razin, noted for DNA methylation in gene expression (died in 2019)
Alexander Rich, noted for nucleic acid structures (died in 2015)

Notable Additions since 2015:

Organometallic Chem/C-H Activation (Wolf Prizes in 2017 & 2019)
Bioorthogonal Chem & Carolyn Bertozzi to Click listing                                               
Expanded Genetic Code & Peter Schultz
Laser-Induced Fluorescence Spectroscopy & Zare
Makoto Fujita to MOFs listing by expanding to Porous Materials (Wolf Prize in 2018)
Jacqueline Barton to Electrochemistry listing
Steven Van Slyke to OLEDs listing
Alexey Ekimov to Quantum Dots listing
Virginijus Šikšnys to CRISPR-Cas9 listing
Dennis Dougherty & Kenneth Connors to Molecular Recognition listing
Julius Rebek to Self Assembly listing
Francisco Mojica to the CRISPR-Cas9 listing
Richard Robson to the MOFs & Porous Materials listing
Shinji Murai to the C-H Activation/Organometallic listing

Notes

1. This rundown is meant to approximate fair odds (without a built-in vig). In case you don’t know how this way of reporting odds works, the listed numbers (“m-n”) mean the associated entry has an expected probabilty to win of n/(m+n). Thus, 4-1 odds equates to a 20% expectation of winning. If your pick wins at 4-1 and you’ve bet $1, you get paid $5 ($4 + your $1 bet back) minus the house’s vig.

2. I’m not taking any wagers.

3. The (qualitative) criteria that went into assigning these odds were discussed in a previous post. Results from old predictions were also discussed in a previous post.

4. Please let me know if anyone on this list is dead. (It’s important, because awards are not made posthumously.)

5. Here’s the 2020 Nobel Committee and their areas of specialization. Do these specializations matter? Who knows?

6. The odds for CRISPR-Cas9 shortened significantly. It is the plurality opinion of #chemtwitter that CRISPER-Cas9 will win this year’s prize. While it’s obviously a tremendously important discovery and has a lot going for it, I doubt the Nobel Committee is going to wade into the hotly contested dispute for credit while litigation is pending. Also, this is a relatively new discovery (seminal papers in 2012). The Nobel Committee is notorious about letting things sit before recognition. Something to watch is that CRISPR-Cas9 could just as easily claim the prize in medicine as that in chemistry.

7. It is time that Marvin Caruthers and Lee Hood were recognized for their highly influential contributions of automated DNA synthesis and sequencing techniques. We’re not quite yet in Goodenough territory, but this is a prize that should be awarded and should be awarded soon.

8. It’d be really interesting to group Edith Flanigen (of zeolites fame, 91 years old) with Omar Yaghi and Makoto Fujita (winners of the 2018 Wolf Prize in Chemistry) to recognize a broad spectrum of porous materials. One of the dings on MOFs winning a Nobel is their limited commercial impact so far. Perhaps grouping them with zeolites would lend some weight with respect to commercial impact.

9. There’s no doubt that organometallic chemistry and C-H activation (focus of the Wolf Prizes in 2019 and 2017) is a very active, popular, important, and influential topic in modern chemical research, but I don’t like its chances of winning a Nobel anytime soon. Some of the scientists who made seminal contributions in the area are dead, and there are more than three living chemists who’ve made important contributions. This prize is going to wait until someone makes a grand-slam discovery and distances themselves from the field. I think solar energy is in the same boat.

10. I am biased, but I’m still pulling for the pioneers of bioinorganic chemistry (Gray/Holm/Lippard) to win a Nobel. I think they deserve it and have a good shot. The main drag on their winning might be that this prize would be for a broad, important collection of work rather than any single breakthrough discovery. Of course, there is precedent for these types of awards (e.g., in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2007, 2013, 2016).

The 2020 Nobel is set to be announced on 7 October 2020. Good luck to all!

Our university purchased a license for Zoom, and it has a whiteboard feature that is pretty easy to use. I find it much easier to draw using a tablet, and fortunately, I have an iPad Pro and Zoom has a good app for iPads. This combo is going to be great for office hours and problem sessions.

For lecture, I’m not especially concerned about the inability to communicate in real time. I can prepare and record presentations at higher resolution and with a little more polish. I’m really enjoying the Explain Everything app (subscription = $6.99/month). This app has a whiteboard with more features than Zoom’s, and it will record narration as you write. Each soundbite and drawing is recorded as a snippet, and you can edit/overwrite errors in individual snippets before compiling a final video.

Here’s something I whipped up last night after fiddling with the app for ~30 minutes:

My gear: iPad Pro, the earbud/microphone combo that ships standard with the iPad, and a stylus with a 3 mm soft/spongy tip.

Software: Explain Everything app for iOS ($6.99/mo. subscription), YouTube app for iOS, and a YouTube account

I had a few little frustrating discoveries, but overall, everything was pretty intuitive. You can also import a slide deck (or PDF of a problem set) and annotate each page as a slide with narration. The only thing that annoyed me was that the final video would get messed up if you flipped backward in the deck during your presentation.

I’m interested in what everyone else has found useful. I really love the versatility of the Notability app’s whiteboard but wish it had the ability to compile video of the animations. I think students will find Notability helpful for taking exams, since you can save your markings in a PDF. More on that later.

I think I’ve shared this on the blog before, but almost my entire approach to teaching is based on the experiences I had in high school and college. As much as possible, I resolved to eliminate all of the crap that I detested as a student. I disliked attendance/participation points, which were most often instituted by professors whose classes were the least compelling to attend. I *hated* graded pop quizzes, which ate up time and put you on-edge to perform every single day you walked into class. I was dismayed by teachers that were boring and seemingly uninterested in their own material. And I was frustrated by unjust, poorly weighted evaluation schemes and thoughtless grading that was inconsistent from exam-to-exam and student-to-student.

The professors I admired were those that (i) treated students with respect, capable of processing information in different ways, (ii) were thoroughly competent in their subject and could provide straight answers to hard questions, (iii) were passionate about their field and capable of transmitting this excitement to students, (iv) could diagnose where a student was having trouble grasping a concept and could hold his/her cognitive hand to walk them through a sequence of thoughts, and (v) were fair and transparent in their grading.

My syllabus for organic chemistry is woven from these values, likes, and dislikes. It is not perfect, but it has undergone years of optimization based on past successes and failures. As I get older, my greatest fear in teaching is the possibility that I am drifting out of touch with students and losing my effectiveness as a teacher. Were my needs as a student different from those of current students? Will I fail to connect with them? Is the technology I use frustrating or antiquated?

To help stave off my complete ossification, I regularly ask students for feedback and ask other (younger) instructors how they run their classes. I love talking shop about course design, and I am happy to experiment, retire my innovations, and steal those of others. I have worked my way into epic, heated debates over ostensibly minor details of the mechanics of a course. I find these debates valuable and enjoyable.

Given that COVID-19 is forcing a major overhaul of an optimized syllabus, I’ve restarted the process from the top, asking the question:

What are students experiencing right now and can we predict how they will respond during the semester?

The recent cancellation of classes made me think back to my experience as a college student at NYU. During my senior year, classes were cancelled for a week following the 9-11 attacks, and life on campus was incredibly surreal. For a while, it was like living in a dystopian movie. I’ve written about my experience here, and the only relevant thing I have to add is that the semester was a complete haze. I can’t remember much of what went on in classes, but we got through them.

Relative to the present COVID crisis, these two situations share the malaise and emotional distress, but now we have the added frustration of not being able to meet in-person, for anything. Personal connection will be filtered through teleconference software. I can’t read my students facial expressions and body language. I can’t hear quiet murmurs and groans during class. I can’t peek at their papers. They can’t pull me aside after class to seek clarification or discuss a concern.

I have two one-hour teleconferences for research collaborations each week, one with BlueJeans and one with WebEx. No matter what the software and how experienced we are with it, these teleconferences can be frustrating experiences. People have trouble maintaining stable internet connections, not speaking over each other, and not muting their mics (echo echo echo). It is often easier to skip these meetings than meetings held in person. I accept that having “normal” classes is going to be impossible.

Given that we’re going to have to extensively modify the syllabus, I figured the best place to start was to just talk through some ideas—both with colleagues *and* with students. I want their concerns to be heard and their input considered. They know the most about their situation, how they learn, and how they can adapt to the task at hand.

So, this is the e-mail I sent out this week:

Hello 2440ers,

I wanted to send you an update about where we stand.

Today is our last day of what has been a thoroughly unrelaxing Spring Break. Next week, instruction is suspended. Instructors are supposed to be figuring out how to transition to an online-only format. The College has mandated that students are not expected to engage with any instructional material next week. Classes resume, online, on March 23^rd.

We were supposed to have an exam the day after we returned from Spring Break. Given the disruption of the past week, I think it would be nice to have a week to reset and prepare for our next exam. Thus, I propose holding Exam #2 on Tuesday, March 31^st. It will still cover chapters 19, 20, and 21.

We’ll spend the week that we get back reviewing for this exam, and we’ll have a quiz due.

As for the rest of the semester, I’ll redraft a new syllabus next week. I am going to cut back on some of the material that I’d normally present (e.g., on biomolecules). We simply need to focus on the most important stuff, and the biomolecular material at the end of the course you will see in your subsequent biochemistry classes anyway.

As for instruction, you can expect a variety of Panopto videos from me. I am going to look at using Zoom for office-hour and problem-session-type meetings.

Now, here’s what I need from you. At your convenience, please let me know the following by an e-mail titled “Orgo Survey”:

1. In your current situation, do you have sufficient access to the internet to permit the completion of WileyPLUS assignments and watching Panopto videos (through Blackboard)? You can test this by trying to play one of the recordings of our previous lectures. See if your connection is good enough to stream the video well.

2. Do you have the ability to fill out our standard exam/quiz answer sheets and submit them to me electronically? You could do this by printing out a hard copy, writing on that paper, and sending me a scan. Or you could directly edit a PDF using an app like Notability.

3. Do you have any concerns or recommendations going forward? I am all ears. Please feel free to note any personal concerns you are willing to share that will/may affect your performance in this class going forward.

The circumstances with which we are completing the semester are very strange, and I know some of you probably feel like you’re in a haze. At least, that is how I felt as a student when something not entirely dissimilar happened when I was in college. As a student at NYU, I was in New York City when the 9-11 attacks happened. The whole city was shutdown below 14^th street for a week, and some of my friends couldn’t even get back to their dorms because they were so close to Ground Zero. Classes were cancelled indefinitely, and then ultimately resumed as everyone was still trying to process what was going on. We made it though the semester, but it was a chore, as every day brought huge news stories that were major distractions.

So, I expect the next few months to be difficult in a number of respects. We are going to move slowly, trudging forward as best as possible. If there is anything I can do to make life easier, please let me know. Your physical and mental health should be priorities.

I’ll be in touch as things progress.

Best,

Paul

The responses I got were collectively helpful. In general:

1. Students recognize that this is going to be difficult and will require all of us (students, teachers, administrators) to be flexible and accommodating. This recognition is essential for our collective emotional health. I think we mostly have an open mindset to tackling the problem at hand. I recognize that this might change if the situation worsens and organic chemistry seems relatively unimportant and not worth the investment of time better spent addressing the crisis.

2. Every student who responded reported the ability to access broadband internet. I was a bit surprised. Of course, I recognize the problem with using an e-mail to poll students about their access to the internet. I’ll be monitoring the first online homework submissions especially closely when we resume classes.

3. Students are worried about the university, Blackboard, and teleconferencing servers’ ability to handle the increased traffic. This is especially worrisome for timed exams. I share this skepticism.

4. Students are worried about maintaining the richness of engagement required to process difficult subject material (as you find in organic chemistry). Basically, the methods we have of maintaining a disciplined pace (physical presence in a class, office hours, problem sessions) are gone, so the onus shifts almost completely to self-discipline and motivation. I totally understand this challenge. I pay considerably less attention to scientific talks presented in teleconferences than those I attend in person. I don’t have an excuse for my lack of self-discipline—so, apologies to my collaborators—but that is just the way it is. Teleconferences are not the same. They suck, but they are better than exchanging e-mails or not communicating at all.

Our exchange of thoughts was helpful, and I’m still deciding how to proceed. As you saw in the e-mail, my initial thought is given the challenges of remote learning, we’re going to have to cut back on the normal volume of material to focus on understanding the most important material.

I know the bar (of expectations) is lowered for this semester, but I refuse to “just get through it”. These challenges deserve serious consideration, and these students deserve a thoughtful approach that strives to achieve the best quality and effectiveness of instruction that is possible.

That’s the intention, and the effort begins in earnest with a revised/redesigned syllabus.

So, my university has suspended in-person classes until March 23^rd, and the rumor mill is buzzing that we are probably likely to follow suit with other universities that have decided to transition to online coursework for the remainder of the semester. At the very least, we are supposed to spend next week preparing for that possibility.

I know many college instructors are in the same boat. A small subset of those are, like me, trying to figure out how best to serve our sophomore organic chemistry students. Every scenario and idea I’ve come up with has serious drawbacks. It appears that no outcome will be as good as a classic operation, but I am searching for the best alternate scenarios. I am sure many of you out there have better ideas than I do, and I would love to hear them and have a discussion.

Twitter is nice, but it can be a firehose of information, especially in times of crisis. Twitter is also not really a good venue for long-form, thoughtful discussion. So, I am resurrecting the blog for the sole purpose of figuring what to do about orgo.

I know a lot of us will be prepping online material and have limited experience doing so. I am hoping that if I share some of the things I’m doing—with the invitation to use the material if you want to—that some of you will share your stuff and we can collectively benefit.

If you’ve got some good links to share (e.g., YouTube channels, university online courses, good Twitter threads) to get us started, please post them in the comments. I’ll be writing posts on subjects like exams, lecture recordings, online HW, office hours, and the like.

I hope everyone is doing well. It’s been awhile.

Our department is looking to hire a non-tenure-track Assistant Professor to start in August. Before getting into the behind-the-scenes details, here’s the official ad:

Saint Louis University, a Catholic Jesuit institution dedicated to student learning, research, health care, and service seeks applicants for a non-tenure track Assistant Professor of Chemistry that is to start in the Fall of 2016. A Ph.D. is required.  While applicants from all areas of chemistry will be considered, the candidate is expected to teach undergraduate courses in a variety of areas including general chemistry, organic chemistry, and upper level courses such as biochemistry.  Review of applications begins immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Previous teaching experience in a large lecture setting is desired.  Applicants should send a CV, transcripts, statement of teaching interest/experience and 3 reference letters to the attention of Prof. Scott Martin at chemsearch@slu.edu. Saint Louis University is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer, and encourages nominations and applications of women and underrepresented minorities.

As I did before when we advertised and hired a tenure-track position last year, allow me to provide some context that cannot be communicated within the word limit of a typical job posting.

First off, this is not a “visiting professor” position. As part of an ongoing evaluation of how resources are deployed within our College, teaching workloads are being adjusted and our department, in particular, is looking to hire more teaching faculty. While these positions at SLU are non-tenure-track and contracts are renewed on a yearly basis, the intention is for this position is to be renewed (subject to satisfactory performance).

Next, we take teaching here seriously—it is not viewed as a chore or distraction from research or other priorities. Our graduate program is of modest size, so our undergraduate program gets relatively more attention than at most bigger schools I’ve seen. Our faculty prides itself on the rigor and quality of teaching and mentoring offered to students in our programs.

Candidates with a background in organic or bioorganic chemistry—and experience teaching these subjects—are probably in the best position as far as this position goes. We are looking for someone with the ability to teach our organic offerings and the flexibility to step in for general chemistry or biochem lab, when needed. The organic course offerings at the undergraduate level in our department include: Organic Chemistry I/II for non-majors (250-300 students/year), Organic Chemistry I/II for majors (~35 students/year), Organic Chemistry for nursing/health students (150 students/year), and Organic Spectroscopy. At the graduate level, the organic faculty is primarily responsible for teaching courses in physical-organic/advanced mechanisms, organic synthesis, and bioorganic chemistry.

Whether you have lots of experience or lots of energy, we’d love for you to apply. Please tell your friends and colleagues, and tell them to act fast—we are reviewing packages as they come in.

And I’m not sure if this will be viewed as an advantage or disadvantage, but the successful candidate and I will probably be co-teaching the big organic class (300 students) in Fall 2016. What could be more exciting than the ability to serve as co-quizmaster for Orgo Bingo with its proud inventor?

4:48 am – They’re here!

4:49 am – This always gets my blood pumping.

4:50 am – Wow…DNA repair, but not the 2015 Lasker Award winners for DNA repair.

4:52 am – The winning scientists: Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar

4:58 am – I’d love to know how the committee arrived at these three scientists out of the many possibilities. This one is sure to be controversial.

5:04 am – Doesn’t appear that any of the laureates won a ‘pre-Nobel’ like the Lasker. Their Wikipedia pages are also sparse, though I’m sure that will change within the next few hours.

5:06 am – Looking for the seminal papers now…

5:16 am – Looks like the seminar Modrich paper is 1983 PNAS cited 286 times.

5:24 am – In addition to this year’s Lasker winners (Elledge and Witkin), you might also argue that Richard Wood could have a claim?

5:28 am – I’m not at all saying they don’t deserve it, but I’m having a hard time understanding how the Nobel committee picked these three scientists for DNA-damage repair. The technical document released by the committee isn’t really making it clear, either. I’d love to hear someone in this field weigh in.

5:30 am – And while people are already crying that biology stole yet another chemistry Nobel, this is a pretty molecular field. This is certainly in chemistry’s strike zone.

As is the custom, the candidates are sorted below by discovery/invention rather than by scientist. The treatment of candidate scientists can get complicated. Some are listed more than once. In cases where someone not listed could easily share in the prize for the associated discovery, a “+” is listed. In cases where one of the scientists listed could easily not share in that prize, a “–” is listed.  The odds are reported in “odds against” format. Remember, this list attempts to address who will win the prize this year, not who should win the prize.

Odds Against Winning the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Bioinorganic Chemistry, Gray/Lippard/Holm/–, 7-1
Lithium-Ion Batteries, Goodenough/Whittingham, 8-1
Nuclear Hormone Signaling, Chambon/Evans/O’Malley/–, 11-1
Polymer Science, Matyjaszewski/Rizzardo/+/– 15-1
Techniques in DNA Synthesis, Caruthers/Hood/+, 15-1
The Field (everything not listed), 16-1
Electrochemistry/Electron Transfer, Bard/Hush/Gray/–, 24-1
DNA-Damage Repair, Elledge/Witkin, 24-1
Protein Folding, Hartl/Horwich/+, 24-1
CRISPR/Cas9, Doudna/Charpentier/Zhang/–, 24-1
Unfolded Protein Response, Mori/Walter, 29-1
Organic Electronics, Tang/+, 34-1
Instrumentation/Techniques in Genomics, Venter/+, 49-1
Molecular Studies of Gene Recognition, Ptashne, 49-1
Transmission Electron Aberration-Corrected Microscopy, Haider/Rose/Urban, 74-1
Chemically-Amplified Photoresists, Frechet/Willson, 74-1
Drug Delivery/Tissue Engineering, Langer/+, 99-1
Mechanistic Enzymology, Walsh/Stubbe/+/–, 99-1
Solar Cells, Grätzel/+, 99-1
Nanotechnology, Lieber/Whitesides/Alivisatos/Mirkin/Seeman/+/–, 99-1
Applications of NMR Spectroscopy, Pines/Roberts/McConnell/+/–, 99-1
Synthetic Biology, Elowitz/Leibler/Collins/+/–, 99-1
Protein Engineering, Arnold/+/–, 149-1
Development of Chemical Biology, Schultz/Schreiber/+, 149-1
Click Chemistry, Sharpless/+, 149-1
Quantum Dots, Brus/+, 149-1
Self-Assembly, Whitesides/Nuzzo/Stang/–, 149-1
Pigments of Life, Battersby/+, 149-1
DNA Methylation, Cedar/Razin/+, 149-1
Small Regulatory RNA, Ambros/Baulcombe/Ruvkun, 149-1
Eukaryotic RNA Polymerases, Roeder, 149-1
Contributions to Theoretical Physical Chemistry, Rice/+, 149-1
Metal-Organic Frameworks, Yaghi/Ferey/Kitagawa/+/–, 149-1
Bio- & Organo-catalysis, List/Lerner/+/–, 149-1
Alternative Nucleic Acid Motifs, Rich/+, 149-1
Hydrogen Maser, Kleppner/+, 149-1
Assorted Protein Work, Levitzki/Hunter/+, 149-1
Novel Cancer Therapeutics, Ullrich/+, 149-1
Combinatorial Chemistry/DOS, Schreiber/+, 199-1
Leptin, Friedman/Leong, 199-1
Zeolites, Flanigan/+, 199-1
Fluorocarbons, DuPont/Curran/–, 199-1
Dendrimers, Frechet/Tomalia/+, 199-1
Organic Synthesis, Evans/Danishefsky/Nicolaou/Ley/Trost/Stork/Wender/Kishi/+/–, 249-1
Mechanical Bonds and Applications, Sauvage/Stoddart/+, 299-1
Contributions to Bioorganic Chemistry, Breslow/Eschenmoser/+, 299-1
DNA Electrochemistry, Barton, 299-1
Understanding of Organic Stereochemistry, Mislow, 399-1
Molecular Machines, Stoddart/Tour/+/–, 499-1
Molecular Recognition, Dervan/+, 999-1
Astrochemistry, Oka, 999-1

Notes

1. This rundown is meant to approximate fair odds (without a built-in vig). In case you don’t know how this way of reporting odds works, the listed numbers (“m-n”) mean the associated entry has an expected probabilty to win of n/(m+n). Thus, 4-1 odds equates to a 20% expectation of winning. If your pick wins at 4-1 and you’ve bet $1, you get paid $5 ($4 + your $1 bet back) minus the house’s vig.

2. I’m not taking any wagers.

3. The (qualitative) criteria that went into assigning these odds were discussed in a previous post. Results from old predictions were also discussed in a previous post.

4. Let me know if anyone on this list is dead. (It’s important, because awards are not made posthumously.)

5. Last year’s prize went to Moerner, Betzig, and Hell for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy. I had the discovery listed as the favorite at 7-1, another big win for the ChemBark machine. Booyah.

6. Pre-Nobels awarded in the last year. There was no Wolf Prize in chemistry this year and the physics prize was not very chemical, so nothing new to add on that end. Stephen Elledge and Evelyn Witkin won the 2015 Lasker Award in Basic Medical Research for their work on biological responses to DNA damage. That work is definitely molecular in nature, and I’ve added it to the list with decent odds.

7. Everyone is shouting that CRISPR/Cas9 is going to win a Nobel, and I think that looks increasingly likely too. The main players seems to be Jennifer Doudna, Emmanuelle Charpentier, and Feng Zhang, but there is significant controversy over the patent rights. That controversy, coupled with the fact that the technique is relatively new (2012), probably hurts their Nobel chances for this year. The Nobel Committee is notorious about letting things sit before recognition.

8. I am significantly bumping up lithium-ion batteries this year and am lobbying hard that this is the discovery that should win. The technology is chemical in nature and incredibly important for the world we live in. It deserves a prize, and Goodenough is 93 years old. It is time for the Nobel Committee to get this done. Now.

9. The last five prizes have gone physical (super-resolved fluorescence microscopy), theoretical/computational (Karplus), biological (GPCRs), physical/materials (quasicrystals), and organic (organopalladium chemistry). It has still been a long time since something distinctly inorganic won, so perhaps it is due?

10. A quick look at the 2015 Nobel Committee reveals somewhat of a physical slant, but that discipline has won two years in a row.

11. And it’s the bioinorganic pioneers who I’m officially picking. We shall see within the hour!

I’ve seen a variety of approaches that professors take to the first day of class. Some just review the syllabus and call it a day. Some play icebreaking games and have students introduce themselves, while others dive right into the first chapter of the text. For me, I spend most of the first lecture addressing the question:

Why should I care about organic chemistry?

In broad strokes, we go over what we will learn in the class and why this information is important for scientists and health professionals. Here’s the opening slide from the deck:

If you can’t make a strong case why your class is important to students, why should they waste time studying it?

For me, the argument extends beyond why organic chemistry is important in and of itself. While I hope that some of my love of the subject rubs off, I am under no delusions that everyone will enjoy the class. Many students take it simply to fulfill a requirement for their degree or pre-health program. In these cases, I equate the class to Brussels sprouts. While the dish might be hard to stomach, eating it is good for you and necessary for mom to bring dessert. If you want to be a doctor, you’re going to have to do well in organic. So do it. If your career goal is what motivates you, let it motivate you to do well in orgo.

My view on “who cares?” or “why should I care?” extends to attendance. I don’t take attendance, because it’s irrelevant. My job as an instructor is to: (i) teach course material and (ii) judge student mastery of the material. If students see fit to invest their time in something other than my class, that’s just as likely a statement about the ineffectiveness of my lectures than a statement about their lack of motivation. The student is in the best position to judge my value to them as a teacher. If a student believes their time is better spent elsewhere, that’s fine. When grading, I’ll be calling balls and strikes the same way I would for all of the other students. Once again, attendance is irrelevant—except for mine.

Providing a compelling answer to “who cares?” is just as important outside of the classroom. When giving a talk, you need to invest a few minutes at the beginning to help your audience understand why your research is important. If you don’t, what’s going to stop people from checking their phones and tuning you out? If you find yourself having trouble explaining to your audience why your research is interesting or important, perhaps you should work on something else.

And when writing a paper, one of the first things you should address is why anyone should care about your work. If your reader doesn’t think your research is interesting or important, why should she read it? Why do so many papers in chemistry journals open with sentences like “Dullicin B is a toxin produced by the Ithacan slug, Limax cornellicus“?

Who cares?

Is your paper about the isolation of the compound? No. Do chemists care about mollusks? Not especially. So why would you waste prime real estate in your opening paragraph talking about these pieces of trivia? By all means, share these details, but do it later in the paper after you’ve already hooked the reader.

Journalists are taught this approach as the inverted pyramid, and they use it because readers are prone to move to the next story at any moment. Perhaps scientists would use a similar approach if anyone bothered to teach us about writing.

Good shirt or greatest shirt? Proud to be wearing #ChemBark Asset #0000003. @chembarkblog #roundbottomflask #chemlife

A photo posted by Tania (@prunesmith) on Sep 3, 2015 at 11:12am PDT

That is the most suggestive chemistry T-shirt that I’ve ever had the pleasure of owning. It was gifted to me in grad school by an awesome postdoc. Since it is much too risque for an assistant professor to wear, I felt the time was right to pass it on to the next generation of chemists. I know it is in good hands, as Tania has a collection going:

A quick survey of Google reveals some other dirty alternatives, but I think the round-bottom one is special because it’s from a legit glassware vendor (and one we still use to get our NMR tubes and caps).

Not how you spell that word.

It’s not polite to judge.

This could lead to confusion about the Burgi-Dunitz angle