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Virtual Meeting of the Princeton & Trenton ACS Sections
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EST
“Driving and Deriving Molecular Energetics across the Periodic Table
Angela K. Wilson
John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Michigan State University; 2022 President, 2023 Past-President of the ACS
Abstract:
Over the past sixty years, there have been incredible feats of science – putting a person on the moon, eradicating smallpox, unraveling the structure of DNA, decoding the human genome, and discovering elements of the periodic table up to 118, to name only several. During this time – and, even, before this time, computational chemistry has evolved from addressing atoms and small molecules to proteins, based on principals of quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics, and statistical mechanics. With the advent of artificial intelligence/machine learning and quantum computing, the future possibilities are endless. However, even with these newer dimensions of computational
chemistry, the Schrödinger equation – the fundamental equation of quantum mechanics, and so much of computational chemistry – has not been solved exactly (except for a species like H), yet is vital in areas such as developing new catalysts, designing more sustainable solar cells (spin trapping), addressing environmental contaminants (PFAS – “zombie” molecules), and discovering new drugs. The need for energy data spans the periodic table from small molecules to proteins. In the first part of this talk, the challenges in obtaining energetic (thermodynamic) properties of transition metal species and heavy element (lanthanide and actinide) species will be overviewed, including approaches developed by our group.
The second part of this talk will overview some of the activities of the American Chemical Society.
Biography:
Angela K. Wilson is the John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Michigan State University. She is also the Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives in the MSU College of Natural Sciences and the Director of the MSU Center for Quantum Computing, Science, and Engineering. From 2016-2018, she was the Director (head) of the Division of Chemistry at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). At NSF, she led the strategic direction and national funding priorities in chemistry for NSF, determining research projects at universities across the country that would be funded, responsible for nearly $1B in research investments. Prior to this, she served as Regents Professor and the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty and head of the Office of Faculty Success at the University of North Texas (UNT) with its `42,000 students and >2,400 faculty. She was the founder and director of the Texas Center for Advanced Scientific Computing and Modeling (CASCaM). Dr. Wilson earned her Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Minnesota and B.S. in chemistry from Eastern Washington University. She was postdoctoral fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Among Dr. Wilson’s honors are Fellow of the American Chemical Society, Fellow of the American Physical Society, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal, IUPAC Distinguished Woman in Chemistry, and the 2023 Iota Sigma Pi National Honorary Award. In 2018, she was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame. She is on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Physical Chemistry and Cell Reports Physical Chemistry, as well as on the editorial board of Scientific Reports. She has ~200 publications, has given over 400 invited lectures, and has edited six books including “Pioneers of Quantum Chemistry”. She has recently spun off a non-profit company, QuSTEAM, focusing on quantum computing training for the future workforce. She was recently named one of the five most influential women in chemistry in the world and one of the forty most influential women in science in the world over the past decade. Dr. Wilson has served as President of the Division of Physical and Biophysical Chemistry of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), Chair of the Chemistry Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and as the 2022 President and is presently serving as the Past-President of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society, with more than 171,000 members and ~2,000 staff. As a part of these ACS roles, she serves on the Board of Directors of ACS, with fiduciary responsibilities for an annual operating budget of ~$700M.
Dr. Wilson’s physical (computational and theoretical) chemistry research spans quantum mechanical and quantum dynamical method development, transition metal and heavy element chemistry, drug discovery, environmental chemistry, catalysis, thermodynamics, and sustainability. Her computational chemistry methodologies are utilized worldwide. She has mentored >150 students and postdoctoral fellows in her research group.
Reservations:
For more information on the virtual meeting and to register (required) ) register here
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Greetings from the 2023 PACS Chair
Noah Bissonnette, PACS 2023 Chair
Hi PACS Community,
It is a great honor to serve as chair for 2023! As I start to think about the general direction of our section, I have a few goals I would like to accomplish throughout my tenure as chair. First and foremost, I would like to try to return to an in-person format for some of our meetings. I have personally missed connecting with the greater chemistry community over the past few years and I know many of you share this sentiment. Additionally, I hope to further grow our active membership particularly within the student population through specific programming that fulfills the needs of our undergraduate and graduate students. Finally, I would like to continue to bring in fantastic, unique speakers to our section for a broad range of technical backgrounds.
My "virtual" door is always open if you have any suggestions about PACS. Feel free to drop me an email anytime at nbb@princeton.edu. I look forward to serving this section and hopefully getting to meet many of you in person over 2023!
Sincerely,
Noah Bissonnette, PACS 2023 Chair
Biography:
Noah Bissonnette completed his BS in Chemistry at Northeastern University in Spring of 2020. While at Northeastern he performed research under Prof. Rein Kirss and completed 3 internships (Vertex, Cegene, Merck). During his internships he developed an interest in photoredox catalysis and was naturally drawn to the work of Prof. David MacMillan. In Fall 2020, Noah excitedly moved to Princeton and started his PhD under Prof. MacMillan. Thus far, his PhD work has focused on the development of photocatalytic methods for the construction of C(sp3) heteroatom bonds. Outside of chemistry, Noah enjoys racing in Spartan Races, playing piano and watching Netflix with a cold beer.
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Record Attendance for the
2023 Synthesis on Scale Symposium!
The 4th annual PACS Synthesis on Scale: Process Chemistry in the Pharmaceutical Industry symposium was held virtually on Friday, January 13th, 2023. A total of 274 people joined the Zoom audience. The speakers and topics were
Duc N. Tran, Janssen Pharmaceutical, “Process Development of Odalasvir”, introduced by Sebastien Lemaire, J&J
Catherine Alder, GSK, “Green Chemistry at GSK”, introduced by Nicole Goodwin, GSK
Branko Mitasev, Eisai, “Crystallization-based syntheses of novel bicyclic azetidine antimalarials”, introduced by Frank Fang, Eisai
Matthew Goldfogel, BMS, “Transitioning from Palladium to Sustainable Nickel Catalysis for C-B and C-C Coupling Reactions”, Introduced by Hester Dang, BMS
It was apparent from the questions and comments of the audience that the presentations were excellent and well received. Both the morning and afternoon sessions concluded with lively discussions that covered a range of details both in the scientific presentations and in the personal histories of the speakers. For example:
- Which reactions should we be doing better on scale? (“Mitsunobu”; “amidation”; “photochemical”).
- When did you first become deeply interested in chemistry? (“high school”; “college”; “summer program”)
- What’s the best part of your job? (“it’s not boring”; “my coworkers”)
- What about the role of AI in process chemistry? (“growing”)
- Best advice you have received? (“don’t give up!”).
The importance of process chemistry to the pharmaceutical industry and the challenges involved in this field were also emphasized during the symposium.
Work will begin soon on planning of SOSS 2024. Will this 5th Synthesis of Scale symposium be in person or by Zoom?? Please stay tuned!
(Link to the SOSS 2023 posting on the PACS website:)
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PACS Chemistry Outreach to the Community
Volunteers Needed
Are you excited about Chemistry? Do you like to teach others about chemistry and its many contributions? PACS is active in chemistry outreach to students and the general community and we need your help to continue and expand our programs. If you are interested in learning more, or helping in any way, please contact Louise Lawter, PACS Councilor at louise.lawter@gmail.com.
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Other Local Events of Interest
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Chemical Consultants Network Meeting
FEBRUARY 08, 2023
Regulatory Trends In The Pharmaceutical Industry
Michael Casner, Ph.D.
(Interdisciplinary Scientist, Food & Drug Administration)
DATE & TIME: Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 6:00 PM
Anthony's Ristorante, Springfield, PA
Cash Bar Networking, then Talk and Business Session
Location: Anthony's Ristorante, 865 W Springfield Road | Springfield, PA 19064.
Biography: Michael Casner is an Interdisciplinary Scientist – Investigator at the Food and Drug Administration. He earned his B.Sc. in Pharmacy at the University of Kansas and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Arizona. Before his nearly 10-year career at the FDA, Mike worked as a Senior Chemist at Merck, a manager at Mallinckrodt, a Senior Research Chemist at Covidien, and a Principal Scientist Process Chemist at Johnson Matthey. In addition, his career has intertwined with academia, including Assistant Professorships at Duquesne, the University of Pittsburgh, and Rowan. He has won numerous professional accolades in various chemical and pharmaceutical fields.
Abstract: The pharmaceutical industry has faced many challenges during the Covid and post-Covid world, including manufacturing and supply chain bottlenecks, growing demand for faster delivery of drugs, and new legal and regulatory schemes. Among the regulatory trends are the use of patient-reported outcomes in the drug-approval process, evolution in the medical device regulations, changes in the biopharma approval process, harmonization, high volumes of unstructured data, natural language processing, AI, cloud computing, and data integrity. Mike will discuss his experiences in China, India, and other countries that supply ingredients to pharma clients in the US
Click here to register to attend the event – (https://chemconsultants.org/Sys/Login?ReturnUrl=%2fevent-5058117
(Virtual access is available for distance members)
Attendee - $40 including dinner and non-alcoholic beverages.
Cancellation deadline: Friday, Feb. 3rd, 2023.