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Is it worth it to become a Medicinal chemist?

Anonymous Wed 28 Aug 20:35:22 2019 No.10925999 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>10926134 >>10927608

Will i be able to get a job?

Will it be worth it from an economic perspective?

What about the far future? Will I just be replaced by a robot after some years of working?

How is the job? Am I supposed to be producing new results for the people I am working for so they can publish them even if I know they are incorrect but I don't want to lose my job?

I've asked several people in my personal life but they seem incapable of answering the question hence why I am asking you, and please don't give me the "follow your heart and bla bla" that is not relevant, what is relevant is making a good choice. If medicinal chemistry is not a good choice what else is there if you would like to work with chemistry and biology?

If you do answer then thanks for taking some time out of your day to provide me with some much needed help

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Aug 2019 21:21:38 No.10926134 Report

Quoted By: >>10926836

>>10925999
I'm currently interning at a relatively small pharmaceutical company (UK) as a chemist. I therefore don't have a huge amount of experience to go on so take this with a pinch of salt, but here's my 2 cents anway.
Overall it's pretty good; the graduate/senior chemists all seem pretty happy with the pay and the work. It seems like a pretty solid field to go into if you're looking for work in organic chemistry anyway.
In terms of far future it's hard to say, maybe things will become more computer based with computer-aided design/ simulation software taking some of the work load, but they're probably always going to need chemists to perform the actual synthesis and find routes to the final compounds which work on small and larger scales.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Aug 2019 02:23:20 No.10926830 Report

Quoted By: >>10926832 >>10927608

Organic chem PhD student here

Medicinal chem is a huge meme. Specialize in either organic or inorganic if you want to do what you described

Better yet, refrain from getting your PhD in organic chem. It's more saturated than the brine I use to wash work ups

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Aug 2019 02:25:09 No.10926832 Report

Quoted By:

>>10926830
Oh forgot to mention, biochemistry is very good path you can take. Alternatively, the hot seldom mentioned meme is bio-inorganic chem. Look into that, mostly inorganic stuff you need to focus on

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Aug 2019 02:27:11 No.10926836 Report

Quoted By: >>10926877

>>10926134
Quantum supremacy by the end of the year means accurate, complex molecular simulations. Then, all that is needed is an A.I. to close the industry to human access.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Aug 2019 02:44:55 No.10926877 Report

Quoted By: >>10927112

>>10926836
>the magic quantum singularity will happen every day now it said so on the podcasts i listen to bro

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Aug 2019 04:16:45 No.10927112 Report

Quoted By:

>>10926877
Look up Neven's law

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Aug 2019 10:29:23 No.10927608 Report

Quoted By:

>>10925999
Generally speaking, medicinal chemistry PhD training is in either one of two tracks: biochemistry and cell biology (e.g. testing compounds in vitro or in vivo), or in synthetic chemistry (e.g. you've got a biological target, now crank out some analogues and have the lab tech fire up the old activity assay).

Those are two totally different paths. I don't think that being replaced by robots is going to happen any time soon. What has been happening, though, and what will continue to happen, is outsourcing of organic synthesis.

You'll hear people say big pharma doesn't do its own R&D like it used to. They'd rather have small- to mid-size biotechs do it, then buy them out. But, that's too expensive for biotech start-up, so they have CROs do their work, and on it goes so no one is doing "novel" R&D.

I think there has been a push to do more R&D, especially in chemical biology over the past few years (see: Bradner hire at Novartis). It's a hot field. How that effects you is, say, you do a PhD in medicinal chemistry with a focus on assay development, structural biology, biophysics, maybe some cell work. Then I'd think you'd be very employable. For reasons below.

>If medicinal chemistry is not a good choice what else is there if you would like to work with chemistry and biology?
Chemical biology. Industry would rather disclose the synthesis than the target. What that means is they'd rather keep the biological studies in house, and outsource the chemistry to India, China, etc.

This guy is right >>10926830. If you want to do synthetic medicinal chemistry in big pharma or biotech, the most common path has been a PhD in hardcore organic synthesis, then post-doc in perhaps med chem or going to industry and learning your biology and what not there.

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