Mark Levin
@levinchem
Professor of Chemistry University of Chicago Single-Atom Skeletal Editing (Interspersed with doomposting and AI skepticism) Husband, Dad, Crossword Addict
The Anthropic logo looks exactly like Kurt Vonnegut's drawing from Breakfast of Champions
This well-meaning article falls into a familiar trap - after detailing how AI is failing on scale in her role as CIO, the author credulously asserts thats it does work for drug discovery. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/o... Reminds me of this: inpreparation.substack.com/p/scientists...
lmao, just what we need - ten 100-page reviews written without human involvement, great idea folks
I am tickled by this ACS email as someone whose most common registration approach in previous ACS's was to forget to register until I try to pick up my badge and then register on-site. lol @ "gentle reminder" and "we understand" Guess most speakers "forgot"?
I am particularly proud of this classification scheme, which I hope will become a blueprint for the field as people continue to go after these important C-to-N replacement reactions!
Today on @chemrxiv.org, we disclose a C-to-N replacement that actually works complex natural products - a pipe-dream when we started. The secret is to lean in to the triplet nitrene. Congrats Dong Il, and thanks to the whole team, including collaborators from Sanofi! chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...
Just in time for the new year - we show that you can make either isomer of N-aryl pyrazole selectively from a single TDSO. We really believe in the power of these wacky heterocycles. chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr... Excellent work by superstar Alex Fanourakis, in collab with Osvaldo Gutierrez and J&J
Every morning while making coffee www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
A true pleasure to host Koji Kubota @uchichemistry.bsky.social for a stop on his Merck Banyu Lectureship Award Tour!
New @chemrxiv.org, a collaboration with @honggen-wang.bsky.social and group alum, now asst prof. Myojeong Kim: the first true catalytic interception of isodiazene-generated primary-amine-derived radicals. The key is an N-F reagent that enables productive chain carrying! doi.org/10.26434/che...
🚨FEE WAIVERS!🚨 Sign up for our info sessions on Nov. 4 and Nov. 11th - anyone who registers and attends will get an application fee waiver! chemistry.uchicago.edu/graduate-pro...
If you're at ACS this Wednesday, come by my talk at 2:05 PM in the East Salon A, part of the joint ORGN/AGRO symposium on accelerating discovery and development!
It still can't electron push - here are some of it's attempts at peracid epoxidation. The text description of the mechanism is not bad, but not perfect. Seems unable to connect that to images
Here is what happens with more prodding to use the (mostly correct) text description of the mechanism to "design it explicitly in chemical drawing software logic" Second image is after it asked me if I wanted it to "refine further"
Today in @science.org, @mikusp.bsky.social reports a method to replace the C2 of pyridines with N, affording pyridazines. The change from electronically consonant (pyridine) to dissonant (pyridazine) opens retrosyntheses not typically available to the latter. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Fans of Guenther Schlonk will enjoy the "cross-decoupling" easter egg: jabde.com/wp-content/u...
M. Gessen hits the nail on the head, yet again www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/o...
You'll soon be able to purchase the key aminating reagent - watch this space!
If you're interested in a break from the doom-and-gloom, may I recommend our article, online today @nature.com A solution to the pyrazole alkylation problem, leveraging S-to-NR atom replacement. Skeletal editing has strategic value, outside of late-stage! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
It's finally in the Federal Register! 2 months late is better than never!
This is supposed to be a visual proof of the Pythagorean theorem (you spin and it drains into the other squares), but @msichicago.bsky.social can't seem to get the fill level right - two photos, ~1 year apart