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We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

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Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#51

Post by Reelin »

eyegor wrote: post #20

This article really reinforces my choice to drop ochem in college. It's funny how deciphering assembly code seems downright mundane compared to this jargon. Like, I get how given the process you could recreate things, or you could devise possible reactions based on electron shells and bonding tendencies, but how do researchers even figure out how to make these reactions happen? Especially when they require -100C, or…

> but how do researchers even figure out how to make these reactions happen?

Disclaimer: I'm terrible at organic chemistry.

As with software engineering, you develop a general sense (I didn't) of what might work and what probably won't. You aren't coming at it blind and reinventing the wheel every time. You learn to recognize patterns in chemical structures and reason about how they will interact under various conditions based on that. You do electron pushing in your head without giving it much thought, similar to a programmer reasoning about object lifetimes or dataflow in an application.

As to -100 C or +5 atm, that's the easy part. You alter environmental conditions when what you're working with is too reactive, or not reactive enough, or you have some other general problem. It's roughly analogous to determining the minimum amount of RAM the machine hosting your production database requires.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#52

Post by Reelin »

applecrazy wrote: post #24
eyegor wrote: post #20

This article really reinforces my choice to drop ochem in college. It's funny how deciphering assembly code seems downright mundane compared to this jargon. Like, I get how given the process you could recreate things, or you could devise possible reactions based on electron shells and bonding tendencies, but how do researchers even figure out how to make these reactions happen? Especially when they require -100C, or…

Isn’t there analytical chemistry software?

Yes, but good luck interpreting the output if you aren't an accomplished synthetic organic chemist.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#53

Post by girvo »

applecrazy wrote: post #24
eyegor wrote: post #20

This article really reinforces my choice to drop ochem in college. It's funny how deciphering assembly code seems downright mundane compared to this jargon. Like, I get how given the process you could recreate things, or you could devise possible reactions based on electron shells and bonding tendencies, but how do researchers even figure out how to make these reactions happen? Especially when they require -100C, or…

Isn’t there analytical chemistry software?

There is. Some of it is quite powerful, too, but it has some (quite serious) limits: process chemists definitely aren't in danger of losing their jobs just yet!

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#54

Post by Reelin »

ngngngng wrote: post #36

I've never learned a bit of Chemistry. I assume there are formulas to determine how substrates and reagents will react with each other? And the process chemists understand these formulas better than most? Apologies for the assumptions in these question, but are there many reactions in organic chemistry that are completely unknown? This actually seems pretty fun. I'd love to have a reason to study it and a means to do…

> I assume there are formulas to determine how substrates and reagents will react with each other?

Well there are things we've experimentally tested, and things we haven't. Most reactions fall into the latter, and we can only make educated guesses about them.

If we could analytically solve the Schrödinger equation (we can't), we could accurately predict outcomes under perfect reaction conditions.

> are there many reactions in organic chemistry that are completely unknown?

Yes, the vast majority. But bear in mind that we can make educated guesses based on patterns, so we're not completely clueless.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#55

Post by quickthrower2 »

ebg13 wrote: post #3

The writing is so good, I had to double check that it wasn't written by Derek Lowe.

It was great, I enjoyed reading so much I forgot how much skill and patience it takes to write that way with such empathy for the reader. Even calling the chemicals names like 15 and 16 is a wonderful abstraction because the point of the article is how difficult the job is, not to teach chemistry and bamboozle people. I hope someone in the Haskell space can do this!

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#56

Post by eru »

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…

Thanks for the insights! Sounds very much like the replication crisis in the social sciences.

I got similar stories about how to (not..) grow mammalian cells in vats.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#57

Post by qnt »

applecrazy wrote: post #29
mjthrowaway1 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That community has been pretty dead for years. Used to love it.

Is there a successor to this forum? I’m a CS undergrad and kind of want to explore this field.

No, there isn’t really. There is a treasure of info on that site though. I also have a CS background before I moved to the quant area.

Things that might help pique your interest:

- For both academic and practical problems: http://quant.stackexchange.com/

- For keeping tabs on new ideas in the blogosphere (generally average, occasionally something useful): https://quantocracy.com/

- Useful information on getting started in the field: http://quantstart.com/articles

Outside of the academic literature, it is quite an insular field, so you have to work to find interesting ideas. If you can make money, you probably won’t be sharing much with anyone. A notable exception might be Rob Carver’s blog (https://qoppac.blogspot.com/).

From a CS background, a simple path to see if you might enjoy “quant investing” is to read some old papers from e.g. AQR about factor investing (Momentum, Value) and try to implement it with Interactive Brokers or similar. You should be able to roll something together with very little capital.

On the “quant trading” side of things, try the Avellaneda paper for statistical arbitrage, do some digging about RenTech, read the LTCM book, etc etc. Not something you can do without a lot of infrastructure behind you, but there’s enough information around to work out if it’s interesting.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#59

Post by fouc »

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…

Sharing failures seems like the best way to make progress. I mean we're talking about SCIENCE here. If we don't have a comprehensive list of what does not work, that's just going to make progress so much slower.

Re: We Made One Gram Of Remdesivir

#60

Post by Aloha »

numpad0 wrote: post #38
nbabitskiy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> look at the main structure and you'll agree I don't know much about RNA, but this sentence is pure bs. How would I know where to look in RNA sequences?

Let’s call it the Ocean’s Eleven Phenomenon, the moment when two or more experts be like “See that? There.” “Yeah, Christ, that’s totally that ” “yeah... 5 years old would notice” and you just stand in between dumbfounded

I've been stuck in this uncanny valley before, and caused the phenomenon to happen to others too.
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