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We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

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Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#201

Post by nitrogen »

leetcrew wrote: post #196
nitrogen wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know Wikipedia has evolved considerably from its original intent, but isn't one of the quintessential goals of an encyclopedia to have an approachable summary of every topic?

Wikipedia isn't quite like a traditional encyclopedia in this regard. it covers many technical topics that would be too niche to include in the latter. random example: take a look at the Wikipedia article for "currying". [0] while quite accessible to someone with a math/cs background, this would be pretty much unintelligible to someone who wasn't familiar with the notion of a mathematical function. perhaps it could b…

The concept of partial specialization can be useful in many ways. I could see the concept of applying a process to one process and getting a new process for creating processes as somewhat applicable to business analysis, process engineering, analysis and design of government, etc.

I know Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a textbook, but I'd argue that having a more accessible first paragraph or summary section on every topic could help all uses:

- Specialists would more easily be able to refresh their memories of topics they use infrequently before diving into the details.

- People in neighboring specialties can more easily branch out.

- Informed laypeople (e.g. experts in other industries) could more easily find new ideas for cross-pollination into their own field.

As one random example I have recently found application for an algorithm mainly reserved for use in geophysics and cartography to audio signal processing, but learning and applying it took way more research than it really should have.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#202

Post by applecrazy »

qnt wrote: post #199
applecrazy wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the list of resources. Given the current situation, this will make interesting reading/study material. If you're comfortable, could you please share how you made the transition to quant from a programming/SWE background?

I'll give the paths that I saw available to someone with a usual CS background. Not hard rules, but the distinction between developer (support) & trader (revenue generation) will be harder to overcome the later on in a career that it happens. Trading/research roles are typically compensated as a direct function of the money you generate, which is where the real upside is. 1) Quant Developer: Trading infrastructure, w…

This was very helpful. Thanks for sharing.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#203

Post by Balgair »

cushychicken wrote: post #200
Balgair wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll echo this too. Instrumentation is field specific. I was in bioeng, but my work was photo-chem/physics and optics. Basically, building novel nanoscopes. Pro-Tip: Want a 'quick' nobel? Do optics for ~3/4 years. Then never touch it again. Making new kinds of microscopes is crazy useful and high impact, but you either get lucky or you waste 45 years in a lab. Try it out for a bit, throw a few on red, then walk away…

Optical sensors are a potential goldmine, I agree! The electronics are relatively straightforward to implement and the upside is potentially enormous. All you have to do then is find someone who needs your sensor tech! (Admittedly easier said than done. XD)

Thanks, but I think you may have misunderstood me. I meant actual optics.

I agree that better sensor tech is also very useful. It is the end of the line for the optical path, after all. Any way you can get photons picked up better is great!

But the actual optics, the mirrors, the lenses, the fibers, the filters, the E-O waves, etc. That's where all the jazz is. I'm not kidding when I say it's an easy nobel. STED was just putting the right filter in the right place. DIC was just using a 1/4 plate just off the focus. PALM/STORM is just using a specific dye and a fast lamp. Blue LEDS are just a bit of chem. Optogenetics is just the right slime out of just the right pool.

Now, all those things built up on a LOT of other work, but it's not terribly difficult stuff to do. The processes are very straightforward. I mean Hell built STED in his living room out of cardboard boxes, literally.

But, you can also toil away on these projects for decades, tweaking this, isolating that.

Optics is absurdly touchy.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#204

Post by m-p-3 »

koboll wrote: post #161
kccqzy wrote: post #22

Remdesivir is an analog of adenosine, one of the four building blocks of RNA. Just look at the main structure and you'll agree they look similar. It turns out the mechanism of action of this drug is that it's supposed to be confused with adenosine, so that the viral RNA replication process uses remdesivir instead of adenosine, which later breaks the RNA†. Our body, or really, all biological processes can synthesize i…

This is such a great description. Compare how Wikipedia describes the same process [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine#Research ]: > The adenosine analog NITD008 has been reported to directly inhibit the recombinant RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of the dengue virus by terminating its RNA chain synthesis. This interaction suppresses peak viremia and rise in cytokines and prevents lethality in infected animals, ra…

One article among many others that would benefit from being simplified on simple.wikipedia.org

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#205

Post by foobarian »

Vaslo wrote: post #34

In my former life I was a graduate organic chemist, but I “quit” with a Masters. I loved Synthetic Chemistry as an undergrad and thought I wanted a PhD in. There were three lousy things (for me) about the career that made me bail. 1). So many syntheses have horrible yields just like this one. You’d start with grams of material to end up with micrograms. I loved solving these problems as an undergrad in books, but rea…

Something that is not obvious from article or posts in this thread, but seems to be taken for granted: how exactly do you know how much of some target molecule you created? The article for example mentions 1g of remdesivir, but that seems like a complicated chemical so how do they tell it apart from something very similar but different? Some kind of GCM or electron microscope?

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#207

Post by pnathan »

koboll wrote: post #161
kccqzy wrote: post #22

Remdesivir is an analog of adenosine, one of the four building blocks of RNA. Just look at the main structure and you'll agree they look similar. It turns out the mechanism of action of this drug is that it's supposed to be confused with adenosine, so that the viral RNA replication process uses remdesivir instead of adenosine, which later breaks the RNA†. Our body, or really, all biological processes can synthesize i…

This is such a great description. Compare how Wikipedia describes the same process [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine#Research ]: > The adenosine analog NITD008 has been reported to directly inhibit the recombinant RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of the dengue virus by terminating its RNA chain synthesis. This interaction suppresses peak viremia and rise in cytokines and prevents lethality in infected animals, ra…

I have almost no knowledge of biology past a weak high school education and that sentence gives me an approximate understanding. It's not gibberish if you look at what it says and carefully read it.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#208

Post by Vaslo »

wenc wrote: post #135
Vaslo wrote: post #34

In my former life I was a graduate organic chemist, but I “quit” with a Masters. I loved Synthetic Chemistry as an undergrad and thought I wanted a PhD in. There were three lousy things (for me) about the career that made me bail. 1). So many syntheses have horrible yields just like this one. You’d start with grams of material to end up with micrograms. I loved solving these problems as an undergrad in books, but rea…

> They need a journal of failed chemistry because only the working stuff gets published. I think there's theoretical value in this, and many have tried, but the incentives/disincentives for doing so isn't favorable. Here's some reasons why I think it's difficult to motivate people to publish negative results: 1) Negative results, while important in advancing science, don't get you grants. 2) Negative results need to…

Many really good points here I hadn’t thought much about.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#209

Post by acqq »

nitrogen wrote: post #201
leetcrew wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia isn't quite like a traditional encyclopedia in this regard. it covers many technical topics that would be too niche to include in the latter. random example: take a look at the Wikipedia article for "currying". [0] while quite accessible to someone with a math/cs background, this would be pretty much unintelligible to someone who wasn't familiar with the notion of a mathematical function. perhaps it could b…

The concept of partial specialization can be useful in many ways. I could see the concept of applying a process to one process and getting a new process for creating processes as somewhat applicable to business analysis, process engineering, analysis and design of government, etc. I know Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a textbook, but I'd argue that having a more accessible first paragraph or summary section on every…

> I know Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a textbook, but I'd argue that having a more accessible first paragraph or summary section on every topic could help all uses

I'm curious how you would rewrite that first paragraph then:

"In mathematics and computer science, currying is the technique of translating the evaluation of a function that takes multiple arguments into evaluating a sequence of functions, each with a single argument. For example, a function that takes two arguments, one from X and one from Y, and produces outputs in Z, by currying is translated into a function that takes a single argument from X and produces as outputs functions from Y to Z. Currying is related to, but not the same as, partial application."

BTW I don't like that paragraph, it looks to me that it completely "misses the point" because as far as I understand currying is not about the sets but about the arguments. If it would be about the sets it would be just "a rewrite to a function that accepts the subset of the previous input set" and it's not about that.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#210

Post by leetcrew »

acqq wrote: post #209
nitrogen wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of partial specialization can be useful in many ways. I could see the concept of applying a process to one process and getting a new process for creating processes as somewhat applicable to business analysis, process engineering, analysis and design of government, etc. I know Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a textbook, but I'd argue that having a more accessible first paragraph or summary section on every…

> I know Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a textbook, but I'd argue that having a more accessible first paragraph or summary section on every topic could help all uses I'm curious how you would rewrite that first paragraph then: "In mathematics and computer science, currying is the technique of translating the evaluation of a function that takes multiple arguments into evaluating a sequence of functions, each with a si…

from a certain perspective, it's hard to talk about currying without talking about sets. "function" itself is defined as a special type of relation between sets. imo, the first paragraph does a good job introducing both the formal and practical meaning of currying to people who have enough background to find the topic useful.

simple wikipedia does take your approach though:

> Currying is a technique used in mathematics and computer science that consists of changing a function that takes several arguments into a number of functions that each take one argument. Mathematicians Moses Schönfinkel and Gottlob Frege laid the groundwork for this technique, which is named after Haskell Brooks Curry. Currying is used in Lambda calculus. Some programming languages, such as ML and Haskell say that functions can only have one argument. [0]

that's actually the entire article. not sure how useful it is, but at least they tried.

[0] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currying

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