Nobel Advice

Are you a Nobel aspirant, young researcher, or want to be part of good science? Here is an advice from Prof. Avram Hershko ( Winner of 2004 Nobel Prize -for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation)

Here is a lesson from his life in science that he presented at the Lindau Nobel Meeting 2013."

• It is very important to have good mentors- you cant learn how to do good science just from reading the literature.
• Find an important subject that is not yet interesting to others the big guys will get there before you! Do not go with the mainstream. 
• Accidental observations may be the most important ones. Grab your Luck. 
• Use whatever experimental approach is needed for your objective. It may not necessarily be the most fashionable (“state-of-the-art”) technology. Of course, biochemistry will always be needed. 
• Science should be a curious driven adventure. You should have a lot of excitement and fun. 
• Never leave bench work, and shall continue to get a lot of excitement and fun.

The Negative Side of Boran

According to researchers Makoto Yamashita and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo, Japan, a molecule that hosts a negatively-charged boron atom could prove to be an exciting addition to the chemist's toolbox. Recently they have isolated the anion as its lithium salt.  

Lithium can partner with many boron's neighbors in the periodic table, such as nitrogen in lithium amide and carbon in methyllithium. However, there have been no direct observations of the equivalent boryllithium compounds containing a negative boron atom.

 

This type of boron anion shares the same number of valence electrons as its popular carbon cousin, the N-heterocyclic carbene. The Tokyo team demonstrated boryllithium's nucleophilic prowess in reactions with n-butyl chloride and benzaldehyde.

This work opens the door to new pathways in boron chemistry that will substantially impact organic synthesis in general.

Ref: Makoto Yamashita and colleagues at the University of Tokyo, Japan. Science 2006, 314, 113.