A Proverbial Fork in the Road

I hate knocking on my boss’s door. I hate it even more when I have to beg for money so I can buy a reagent/reactant. Fortunately for him, I’ve been good though in my years as a graduate student (relative to other colleagues). Why buy the acid chloride when we have 3 L of SOCl₂ and a kilo of the carboxylic acid? Similarly, why pay $200/night for a hotel room on the Strip in Vegas when we can pay $75.95 on a side street? I call my actions “pennywise”; my wife calls them “cheap.”

The reality of research, especially for a fledgling group, is the almighty dollar. All of the countless columns, long hours and the associated b.s. yields more breakthroughs and, with them, more papers. With more papers comes more exposure; with more exposure comes more money (i.e. for the University, unless you know a damn good IP attorney...à la Robert Holton). So, we work long ours, run numerous columns, attempt to cure cancer, etc., and at the end of the road, what’s left? Typically, a meeting with your boss where he says the following gem: “The American Cancer Society ranked our proposal 6^th out of 47. So, I’m glad about that. But they’re only funding the top 5 projects.”

As chemists, we perpetually attempt to improve our standing by spending more hours in the lab, running more columns, washing more disposable test tubes, using other groups NMR time, etc. I’ll drag myself back to point by reiterating the old cliché, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” With respect to our research group, as the money tree becomes less fruitful, I’ve been forced to think outside the box and rely on other methods besides picking up a Sigma-Aldrich catalog. “I’m a synthetic chemist,” I tell myself, “I can make crystal meth in my bathtub if I feel so inclined.” The overall message is pretty clear: why buy it if you can make it?

Most synthesis geeks, are probably familiar with Rochester’s Not Voodoo website—a resource promising to demystify the magic that is organic synthesis. Out of all of the pages, I’m a huge fan of, “Buy it or Make it Yourself.” On this page, scientists are encouraged to vote over whether you’d make LDA or buy it, for example. While most of these reagents are no-brainers to a synthetic chemist with a few years under his or her belt, what about the borderline reagents? Sure, you can buy 9-BBN, or you can make it from borane and 1,5-cyclooctadiene (if your technique is good enough). Are you confident enough to handle as expensive as a task of making Wilkinson’s catalyst, or is it more advantageous to buy it? Would you really derivatize Hoveyda/Grubbs-II or contract Strem to make the water-soluble version?

Though chemists can argue over whether you should buy or make a reagent, I’m surprised at how many of my colleagues favor the catalog to the benchtop. It’s refreshing to open up a brand new bottle of 6-methoxytetralone. But, at what point do you suck it up, make the damn synthon, and save your group $200? My philosophy is simple. While I’m in grad school, learning new techniques anyhow, why not make a reactant if I can?

P.S. My previous readers love to play the game “which one doesn’t belong.” Good luck with this one:

Yamaguchi, Lester, Corey, Keck, Nicolaou, Buchholz

P.P.S. There’s actually 2 that don’t belong.

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