<\/p>\n
Introducing your new Chairman & Secretary of the UK QSAR & Chemoinformatics Group\u2026\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n 2012\u2026\u2026The year of the London Olympics, the Diamond Jubilee and \u2026..drum roll\u2026..the year the Group needed to appoint a new Chair & Secretary!\u00a0 For the last few years, Brad Sherborne and Andrew Leach have ably and enthusiastically embraced these roles, and we are all extremely grateful to them for their hard work, effort and commitment.\u00a0 But the rolling stone of time rumbles onwards, and the rules say we need new posteriors to fill these seats.\u00a0 The Committee elected Andrew Leach as Chair and John Delaney as Secretary.\u00a0 Both are of course very familiar to many members, with Andrew having previously served as Secretary and John having been on the Committee for some time, but how much do we really know about these new Servants of the Society?\u00a0 We thought we\u2019d conduct some searching interviews to get to know these guys a little better\u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Naturally, we congratulate both Andrew & John on their new roles, we thank them for volunteering for these positions and wish them every success.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Most recent occupation:\u00a0 Computational Chemist at AstraZeneca, Alderley Park<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Current occupation:\u00a0 Syngenta, Jealott\u2019s Hill<\/p>\n In addition to the above changes, there have been a few more modifications to the make-up of the Organising Committee in recent months.<\/p>\n After many years serving on the Committee, Peter Gedeck and Mark Cronin have decided to stand down.\u00a0 We thank them both for their considerable contributions, and in turn welcome Peter Hunt (Novartis) to the Committee.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Introducing your new Chairman & Secretary of the UK QSAR & Chemoinformatics Group\u2026\u2026. 2012\u2026\u2026The year of the London Olympics,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tThe New Chair: Andrew Leach<\/h1>\n
\n
\nI would describe my path to being a computational chemist as more of a random stagger than an inspired mission!<\/em><\/li>\n
\nI went off to Cambridge when I was 18 intending to be chemical engineer but for the first two years of that course you either study natural sciences or engineering.\u00a0 I chose the former and then never got round to changing so ended up in chemistry.\u00a0 I did a project with Jonathan Goodman in my final year and then stayed on to do a PhD with Steve Ley in synthetic chemistry.\u00a0 After that I went back to computation and did a post doc with Ken Houk at UCLA.\u00a0 On returning to the UK I joined AZ as a computational chemist and have been there ever since.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nBy doing its best to make sure that no experimental effort is wasted on things that we could have predicted would not be worth the effort.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nI have always felt that the key gap in our toolbox is modelling how molecules interact with their environment whether that is a protein, solvent, membranes, crystal lattice or anything else.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nI fear that I am not sure that it is currently fair on students to try and do this (see below).<\/em><\/li>\n
\nCertainly within the drug discovery context I fear the prospects are pretty bad and geographically extremely localized.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nAlthough the old BT motto is a rather trivial way of summarising it, I think its effective: Its good to talk. I think we have always been a great forum for connecting the various computational chemists employed in lots of sectors and I hope that we continue to do that as computational chemistry is deployed in the new organisations that I hope will crop up.\u00a0 We need to make sure that we keep our eyes open as the industrial science base of the UK evolves.\u00a0<\/em><\/li>\n
\nI\u2019m a brass band player.\u00a0 I currently play tenor horn with Sale Brass Band.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nFar from being cheesed off, Andrew has been a great person to be confused with although sadly the confusion happens less and less these days!<\/em><\/li>\n
\nRarely.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nNeither.\u00a0 Bleurgh.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nThe New Secretary: John Delaney<\/h1>\n
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\nBill Mackie (Leeds Uni) telling me how lysozyme works at my undergraduate interview (1982).<\/em><\/li>\n
\nBiophysics at Leeds, straight to a job at ICI Plant Protection Division at Jealott\u2019s Hill after graduating (1986). An illusion of career progression has been maintained by the company changing its name every 7-8 years.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nWe often find that relatively \u201csimple\u201d stuff like physical property prediction and statistical analysis of in-vivo data can have a huge impact on crop protection research. Just wrestling the data into a tractable form for QSAR etc. is very valuable.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nBetter physics and better stats (to cover the shortfalls in the physics!). I think there\u2019s a huge opportunity in better understanding time dependences in compound optimisation \u2013 is the order compounds are made important?<\/em><\/li>\n
\nBelieve that the science can make a difference and communicate that belief … by giving a talk at a UK QSAR meeting.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nTricky \u2013 big pharma is changing and it\u2019s not clear what that\u2019s going to do to the employment landscape. I\u2019d come back to the point above \u2013 if the science is truly useful, someone will pay you to do it.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nWell, between my other roles as head of the Irish FA,\u00a0 mayor of Jacksonville, prediction market entrepreneur, hurler and oceanographer I don\u2019t have time to worry about it.<\/em><\/li>\n
\nPlaying guitar (badly) and Gran Turismo 4 (brilliantly).<\/em><\/li>\n
\nTwo big bites \u2013 gone!<\/em><\/li>\n
\nPeanut butter.
\n<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/h2>\n
News \u2013 Committee Changes<\/h2>\n