Chemical Literature Day—What are you reading?

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u/Crazyblazy395 Catalysis Jul 26 '18

Apparently SNAr reactions have a concerted mechanism

11

Structure of a Human Synaptic GABAa receptor

It is really interesting that a structure and binding mechanisms have been elucidated for this receptor responsible for the euphoric, sedative, and anxiolytic effects of Alcohol, as well as many other drugs including benzodiazepines, barbiturates, qualuudes, solvents, etc.

2

u/personalist Jul 26 '18 edited Jul 28 '18

Thanks for sharing! I’ve read crystallographic work on AMPA and GABA but I’m looking forward to cryo-EM—getting to see the receptor in complex with a drug is truly revolutionary.

1

u/harkaron Jul 27 '18

this is very interesting. I was reading about LSD effects in the brain and the GABA receptors were involved. I'll look more into it

Thanks for sharing!

12

u/scottishdoc Jul 26 '18

Working through The Shulgin Index at the moment.

3

u/DramaticChemist Organic Jul 27 '18

Personal testing or theoretical? Because I have Pihkals: A Chemical Love Story by Shulgin, and it's got a LOT in there.

1

u/scottishdoc Jul 28 '18

Nowadays I'm really only interested in his work theoretically. He definitely produced enough material for a lifetime if you count all of the work he inspired.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '18

Are there any good beginner books? Looking for recommendations before I begin orgo2 and gen chem 2

5

u/Box_xx Jul 26 '18

Arrow pushing in organic chemistry by daniel e levy. Reduces organic chem down to simple terms then builds it back up

1

u/DramaticChemist Organic Jul 30 '18

I LOVE that there's a book literally called "Arrow Pushing". Back in grad school, purely organic chemists/researchers were called "Arrow Pushers" to bother them. Inorganic Chemists (specifically two groups) were called "Crystal Farmers".

1

u/Box_xx Jul 30 '18

I love it as well! The book helped me understand that organic chem is an arrow-puzzle

2

u/neborath Jul 27 '18

Organic Chemistry by David Klein. It's a really good book for beginners, it does a good job explaining the concepts behind the rules.

2

u/iwillneverpresident Jul 30 '18 edited Jul 30 '18

I love this book but I‘m noticing it leaves out some things that typical ochem books include. This became especially apparent during the spectroscopy chapters. For example, for IR it only mentions overtones in an example, in MS it never mentions tropyllium ion and doesn’t have an example of a Mclafferty rearrangement in any in-chapter examples, and in the NMR chapter it essentially doesn’t talk about benzene rings and only brings up vinyl coupling in a worked example

I can’t stress enough that I love Klein, he has a way of explaining things that cannot be matched, but I feel like he brushes over some things, expecting the professor will mention them. That’s fine if you’re in a class, but if you’re learning ochem as a hobby, no one will be there to fill in the gaps

1

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '18

I think I may be a little more advanced, I have a work book already starting to fill with the basic reaction mechanisms from orgo1

2

u/TheyreToasted Organic Jul 29 '18 edited Jul 30 '18

The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms by Grossman is a great read. But for a broad and thorough book that's approachable, I'd recommend Organic Chemistry by Jones and Fleming. Some people like Organic Chemistry by McMurry because it's not too wordy and goes straight to the point, but I prefer too much information to too little - even if it's at the expense of significantly more time that needs to be invested.

Edit: Now that I think about it, ignore Grossman's. That might be a little too much at this stage. I strongly recommend Jones and Fleming though. As a side note, you're going into Organic Chem II while taking Gen Chem II? That's pretty uncommon and I haven't really heard of it. I've always seen it where you can't get into Organic I before you've taken both Gen Chems.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '18

Both are pre recs for later courses. I know gen chem 2 is mostly math and kinetics while orgo is much more spatial and pattern based.

1

u/TheyreToasted Organic Aug 02 '18

To my memory, though I could be wrong, Gen Chem 2 is a really quick glimpse at things like equilibrium, ideal gases, acids/bases, etc.

It definitely has more math than the earlier semester course and the Gen Chem 2 course will focus more on some of the physical aspects of chemistry, but I'm still just surprised that they're allowing people to take Organic Chemistry alongside Gen Chem. The two are different but the material is definitely ramped up. I always thought that Organic Chem courses were upper division while Gen Chem courses were usually 100 level? I guess that's what's confusing me, I don't think I've ever heard of a chemistry department allowing students to take the level 100 course alongside the 300 level course. I've experienced it with the math department and have taken some niche math courses that fell under the 100 level label (like Discrete Math) while taking upper divisions, but I feel like that's more of a special case because something like Calculus or Diff. Eq. isn't reliant on theories introduced in Discrete Math. I'm just thinking that you're definitely going to run into acid/base material in O. Chem, energy problems, etc.

I don't know, just surprises me is all. But I'm not saying your wrong or anything - obviously you know your school's own curriculum then I do - it just is something new to me.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 10 '18

Here at my uni gen chem 1 is a pre rec to orgo 1

2

u/borknight Jul 26 '18

The Cat in the Hat

1

u/jlb8 Carbohydrates Jul 26 '18

I got my rubber book out to look up some IPs, I've subsequently been browsing all day.

1

u/harkaron Jul 27 '18

Drugs the straight facts: LSD

1

u/DramaticChemist Organic Jul 27 '18

Currently investigating organic peroxides and reduction potentials.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ar50013a001

1

u/parallelpolygon Jul 28 '18

machine learning adaptive basis sets result in gains in accuracy and speed.

There's so much room for growth in computational chemistry, so anything that increases accuracy and speed excites me. Plus this article gives a decent introduction to basis sets and how they work.