As a
postdoc with various experiences at the chemistry-biology interface in Europe
and in America, I have often witnessed the same opposition between hard core organic
chemists and “chemical biologists”.
Wait, what
is a chemical biologist ? I here define “chemical biologists” as every chemists
involved in probing biological systems with chemical agents either to discover
new drugs (medicinal chemists) or study a metabolic pathway.
Well, to make a long story short I met several organic chemists that used to say that “people who don’t do methodology or total synthesis are not real chemists“ or even worse “they do crappy chemistry”, “yuk a biologist !“
Well, to make a long story short I met several organic chemists that used to say that “people who don’t do methodology or total synthesis are not real chemists“ or even worse “they do crappy chemistry”, “yuk a biologist !“
The whole discussion chemistry vs biology is not legitimate
To me this is a nonsense ! Every topic has to be considered equally useful. This has been recently exacerbated since research grants have been severely cuts. This led to more competition, more cross-disciplinary and specialized fields of chemistry. And lastly you could have noticed that the Journal of the American Chemical Society that used to publish almost exclusively organic chemistry has changed is editorial choice and now publish mostly biologically related problems solved by chemical objects.
Maybe
really soon you’ll have to decide where to go for your Ph.D. and you are
interested in chemical biology. My advice is go for it !
Two things to
keep in mind:
1/ Talk to
the best experts in this field: (Schreiber, Schultz, Bertozzi,…)
2/ You will
have to excel in both chemistry and biology.
You then
will be part of a rare hard-to-find species.
Watch this: Biology vs chemistry for fun!!!!Interesting post: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/09/23/chemical_biology_the_future.php
