Fun, Foibles, and Follies In Collaborative Research

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Fun, Foibles, and Follies In Collaborative
Research

• Bruce A. Hathaway
• ACS Southern Illinois
• Local Section Meeting
• February 7, 2000

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Foible, According to Webster

• The part of a sword blade between the middle and
  the point.
• A minor flaw or shortcoming in personal character
  or behavior.
• An eccentric or whimsical liking or interest in
  something.

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Introduction
Collaborative research, to me, is where two or
more individuals work together on a project. Each
individual has defined responsibilities, and
shares the credit, glory, honor, and
(heaven-forbid) blame for the results. Ideally,
the collaborators should work as equals, and have
input on the planning, direction, and
dissemination of the results. In this
presentation, I will share some of the
collaborative projects I have been involved with,
including how the collaboration was initiated,
the nature of the collaboration, and the good and
bad points of the collaborations.
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2-Aminoindanes with Steve Overmann

• 1984-89
• Students got us together (Archie Thurston and
  Rick Tolan).
• 6 students involved Two went on and obtained
  Ph.D.s (Archie Thurston and Chip Wittenbrink).
• I supervised preparations, Steve supervised
  biological evaluation.
• Mike Rodgers did computer interfacing.

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Synthesis of 2-Aminoindanes
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55 Hot-Plate Latency,5 mg/kg
Sec.
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Mouse Spontaneous Motor Activity Meter
Computer
8 Photocells
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Mouse Spontaneous Motor Activity, 5 mg/kg
Counts Per 30 Min
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2-Aminoindane Conclusions

• No really good compounds were discovered.
• We couldnt obtain external funding.
• No publications
• Steve became more interested in other research
  projects.
• 6 presentations at MAS, other meetings.
• 2 GRFC grants.

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NASA-JOVE Preparation of Non-Linear Optical
(NLO) Materials

• 1993-8
• NASA invited Southeast to participate.
• I had to find a NASA colleague to work with.
• Spent one summer at Marshall Space Flight Center
  and the Univ. Alabama - Huntsville in Huntsville,
  AL.
• 6 students involved (Jennifer Mabery, Jamie
  Carrigan, Angela Scates, Pat Zimmermann, Brian
  Taylor, Jeremy Wittenborn).

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Preparations of Diacetylenes
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Preparation of DAMNA
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Polymerization of Diacetylenes
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NASA-JOVE Good News

• Money for summer salary, student workers, travel,
  operations.
• Summer JOVE meetings in Texas, Florida, and
  California.
• Three publications and several presentations by
  my students and I from the work we did.
• Led to further collaboration.

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NASA-JOVE Bad News

• My collaborator was only interested in his
  compound, DAMNA, and did little with 25 we
  made.
• He only contacted me when he wanted me to make
  more of his compound.
• He never made me a co-author on any of his
  publications, nor acknowledged the work I did.

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Rainer Glaser NLO Materials

• 1997 - present
• We met at Organic Chemistry Day at University of
  Missouri, when I presented a poster on NASA-JOVE
  research.
• I prepare NLO materials, and Glaser gets X-ray
  structures and does theoretical calculations.

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Preparations of Azines as NLO Materials
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Glaser Results

• Two publications and one presentation.
• I received an ACS-PRF grant for my part of the
  research.
• Four students have been involved (Gary Bohnert,
  Scott Kirkley, Rachel Phillips, Steve Updike),
  one who is in the Ph.D. program at Missouri (Gary
  Bohnert).

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Preparations of Ketenes with Jin Gong.

• Begun seriously in 1999 (some informal consulting
  earlier).
• I supervise preparation of ketenes, and Jins
  students react them with transition metal
  complexes.
• Jin pays for one student (Andy Gilbert) whom I
  supervise.

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Preparations of Ketenes
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Preparations of Ketenes
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Ketene Results

• Seven different ketenes have been prepared.
• Some ketene complexes have been prepared.
• At least one presentation will be made this year.

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Acknowledgements

• All of the undergraduate students who did most of
  the work.
• Funding by NASA, ACS-PRF, GRFC, and the Southeast
  Chemistry Department.
• Helpful conversations with Southeast faculty,
  especially Bjorn Olesen.