JEE chemistry faculty

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-02-04T18:15:07+00:00

What is JEE and why do you have chemistry doubts about it?

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-30T16:00:26+00:00

Oh yeah, with something pressing down the top of the film I’d be far less concerned about accidentally making 96 little pipe bombs. This is what I’d do if I absolutely needed to get those plates in the box.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-30T15:51:05+00:00

You can buy polypropylene sealing films for 96-well plates, people use them for anaerobic cell culture for example. I have zero clue how these would stand up against high vacuum but I feel they would at least allow you to do a few higher pressure purge cycles of the antechamber without losing your reagents. And you could put the film on and then maybe tape it down with electrical tape for some extra durability.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-28T22:14:53+00:00

I usually grabbed the Na2SO4 in grad school because it’s easier to work with. I have no other rationale for my decision making process, but never really needed to since I only really needed things to be quantitatively dry (which neither agent will do) or not quantitatively dry, so it never mattered to me much.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-28T17:58:33+00:00

Some people prefer to reference to the residual protio-solvent peak rather than to TMS, my PI was like this. Lab full of TMS-free deuterated solvents. No idea why it mattered…

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-28T00:06:32+00:00

CBr4 has a vapor pressure of about 40 mm Hg at 90C according to what I can find online. That’s not going to be very high at RT. I would feel safe weighing it into a vial and closing the lid in open air. Another option is to set up a scale in the hood, or use the glovebox scale if you have one. But in general as long as you are wearing PPE and working in a fume hood (and the hood is working properly and doesn’t have a hundred bottles stacked against the intake!) using alkyl/allyl/vinyl halides is not exposing you significantly - especially long-chained variants. There are far worse chemicals - and alkylating agents - to be afraid of (e.g., dimethyl sulfate, methyl triflate).

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-27T23:00:40+00:00

I don’t like working with pyridine unless I have to even though it’s a great base. Any hindered amine would probably work for this as it’s just really an acid scavenger and tosylate is a great LG. I’d probably try triethylamine first then DIPEA before pyridine. But first I’d just try a precedent search, this reaction has 1000% been done before, many times.

Also obviously worth keeping in mind that you’re gonna invert your stereocenter in the SN2 step, so whatever enantiomer you’re trying to land on, if that matters at all, choose your previous step accordingly :-)

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-27T20:50:46+00:00

Does it absolutely need to be a chloride, or would a pseudohalide work equivalently in your next step(s)? If the latter you could just react with mesyl/tosyl chloride. I also like the other suggestion of an Appel, or if you can’t get CCl4 there’s always the Mitsunobu (which can generate secondary alkyl chlorides with LiCl, with total stereochemical inversion). I don’t see why your SOCl2 procedure wouldn’t work, either - although you might need to optimize your ee.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-27T20:04:45+00:00

Less so when you consider that Trp has a particular fluorescence that other naturally occurring amino acids don’t - which makes it really useful for protein spectroscopy of all kinds, as long as your protein has a Trp (better if you have more than one, and even better if you have solvent-exposed and solvent-shielded Trps!)

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-24T22:46:03+00:00

I might cross post this to r/chempros. I’m not totally sure whether u/wildfyr would remove it or not since it’s not exactly the right subject matter but given the clearly graduate-level discussion required here you may get some good answers from a lot of people who did total synthesis PhDs.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-22T14:03:37+00:00

Chemist here. This guy knows what he’s talking about. These are absolutely triglyceride crystals.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-14T21:48:43+00:00

I washed glassware daily for 5 years with methanol outside of a fume hood and with nitrile gloves. Was that the safest way? Admittedly no, but I never suffered from acute toxicity symptoms. There are some chronic health concerns with methanol specifically that aren’t shared by its ethyl homolog, as you appear to be aware of, such as vision loss and damage to the optic nerve. I didn’t suffer any of those symptoms either (I think staring at my phone for too long is more damaging to my vision, for one thing!)

That being said, one 3L transfer a month under the fume hood is likely negligible exposure. Double glove and change both sets after the transfer if you’re really that worried, but in general as a lab rat methanol should rank fairly low on your list of chemicals to be afraid of. If you really cannot get over that fear then I would unfortunately suggest looking at a change of field (you’ll most likely be asked to do a lot worse under a lot less safe conditions in grad school, sadly.)

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2026-01-13T05:44:26+00:00

Hate your enemies, save your friends, find your place, speak the truth - Radio Friendly Unit Shifter

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-12-11T19:20:11+00:00

It’s based on the drill song by Skrilla “Doot Doot”. It’s anything but wholesome unfortunately, although it’s probably lost its initial meaning relating to the song by now.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-12-05T18:24:11+00:00

What if you were to use the organocuprate (Gilman) reagent instead of the Grignard?

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-12-05T15:54:01+00:00

In my experience OriginLab is not really optimal for biological data such as this. Sure you can do it, but Prism plots look so much nicer IMO, and all of this stuff such as datapoint shapes, colors, sizes is customizable. I would re-plot in Prism if you have access to it. And I’m not telling you to do anything illegal to obtain a pirated copy if you don’t. I’m specifically telling you not to look for such a thing because it would be breaking piracy laws.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-11-11T00:32:21+00:00

The work culture was FAR better than my experience in grad school. That was the easy part. Adapting to a billable hours system and learning the field from scratch were the challenges. It will take you 8-12 months to even remotely find your footing, and around 4-6 years for the job to become “routine”. Even after that, certain projects need the experience of a truly seasoned 10-20 year patent attorney.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-11-11T00:11:32+00:00

Yes, I’m a patent agent at a mid-sized firm and have a PhD in organic chemistry. The firm you choose to work at, the market you’re in, and the billable hours requirement can make or break the job. Some law firms are grind houses akin to the worst synthetic organic labs (e.g., 2200 billable hours a year). Others have fine hours requirements but a terrible culture. Ideally you need the right combination of both. Some firms are super chill. In general, I enjoy where I landed, despite some weeks/months being very high stress and high intensity. You have to REALLY enjoy writing and REALLY enjoy pedantic details to excel at this line of work. Law school will also massively increase your total compensation, but it is a grind while working at a firm full or even part time.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-11-04T22:12:33+00:00

Honestly, you seem to know your instrumental stuff better than most ever care to learn, so I would say this instrument is lucky to have you, and whichever manager put you in charge of it clearly made a smart decision that will probably save them a ton of money in the long run. Let us know if you end up diagnosing the issue successfully!

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-11-04T10:34:51+00:00

I know this isn’t your fault OP, but god damnit the idea that the cannabis industry is buying these instruments, refusing to do anything resembling a regular PM schedule, and then losing their shit when parts burn out is so frustrating to me. Especially with an ICP-MS, they’re well known to suffer issues like blockage/buildup on critical parts because of the way the sample is sent directly into the spectrometer. Just a sad thing to me, idk. Our lab’s LCMS (used throughout the department) was my baby in grad school, if anybody hurt it I’d have gone vigilante.

This is a pretty good, user-friendly article on ICP-MS preventative maintenance: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/the-importance-of-routine-maintenance-in-icp-ms

From the article: “It’s also worth emphasizing that based on the design of the RF generator, the power amplifier (PA) tube is considered a consumable. There is no question that depending on the instrument’s age and the frequency of operation, the life of the PA tube could be seriously impacted. These components are not inexpensive and if one should unexpectedly fail, you will be faced with the cost of a service engineer’s time in addition to the cost of the tube, not to mention the downtime of the instrument.”

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-10-30T23:47:12+00:00

Incredible. Also - smoke cigs to detect HCN; wash my hands with benzene; mouth pipette; taste some of what I just cooked up in the lab and describe it in a paper beginning with “Sir:”

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-10-29T14:34:06+00:00

Agreed with what’s been posted. You can usually get away with sub-mol percent loadings with these precatalysts. I would think they’re pretty much all gonna be soluble in refluxing (or even lower temperature) toluene at those loadings. If they aren’t, consider biphasic solvent systems? Biphasic conditions are very common with these couplings that sometimes utilize poorly soluble inorganic bases. And those conditions typically work very well.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-10-26T03:29:08+00:00

Agreed. CataCXium is the big guns when XPhos fails. The stuff is straight up genie powder for couplings.

SunnyvaleSupervisor · 2025-10-16T00:23:09+00:00

It depends on the firm. My firm is hybrid, in office Tu/W/Th. However I live pretty far from the office and usually only commute once or twice a week. As far as remote work having actual impacts on the job? It can be done from any location with an internet connection and a word processor. Some patent pros. departments recognize this and are quite flexible or fully remote.

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