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Oct. 16th, 2001 01:33 pmWe have a seminar speaker who came to visit the lab today, a nice fellow from Cambridge U in England who works on dynamic combinatorial chemistry and multiporphyrin arrays. I got drafted to go to lunch with him along with two other students... and the Big Man himself. @_@
Of course, the speaker asks about what I'm doing...
and I had to keep it nice and vague because bullshitting my way through right in front of the Big Man is a big old no-no. Yes, I know what I'm doing, but sometimes it's hard to roll off a pithy blurb about what the research is.
To my relief the Big Man took over and started telling the speaker about the portion of my project that I find really interesting, namely the therapeutic porphyrins that can be used as treatments for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
It felt really good to hear him go on about the beneficial effects of the so-called "FP-15," because it's not too often that the Big Man shows all that much interest in my end of things. This compound is a huge investment on the part of our collaborators up in Boston, who are trying to make a go of FP-15 as a drug, and it is a dear wish to me that someone will be helped by something I did.
I guess that's a defining principle of what interests me, at least scientifically; it has to be useful. There are people who study something to the last little detail because it's of academic interest. These people are important because they lay the groundwork for fundamental workable theories, and someone has to do it. Me, I'd rather use said theory to produce something that will be of more concrete use.
At any rate... I have to go look up how to synthesize gallium porphyrins. Don't get too excited, everyone. :/
Of course, the speaker asks about what I'm doing...
and I had to keep it nice and vague because bullshitting my way through right in front of the Big Man is a big old no-no. Yes, I know what I'm doing, but sometimes it's hard to roll off a pithy blurb about what the research is.
To my relief the Big Man took over and started telling the speaker about the portion of my project that I find really interesting, namely the therapeutic porphyrins that can be used as treatments for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
It felt really good to hear him go on about the beneficial effects of the so-called "FP-15," because it's not too often that the Big Man shows all that much interest in my end of things. This compound is a huge investment on the part of our collaborators up in Boston, who are trying to make a go of FP-15 as a drug, and it is a dear wish to me that someone will be helped by something I did.
I guess that's a defining principle of what interests me, at least scientifically; it has to be useful. There are people who study something to the last little detail because it's of academic interest. These people are important because they lay the groundwork for fundamental workable theories, and someone has to do it. Me, I'd rather use said theory to produce something that will be of more concrete use.
At any rate... I have to go look up how to synthesize gallium porphyrins. Don't get too excited, everyone. :/
