Reactions

Letters to the editor

Political candidates


While I agree with the letter writer in the Oct. 19, 2020, issue (page 5) that a magazine essentially representing the scientific accomplishments of its membership should not indulge in political campaigns by featuring a Democratic candidate for political office—namely, Nancy Goroff—it is refreshing that a scientist has entered the political field.

In colonial times and with essentially an agrarian and commercial economy, it was expected that the leaders of our nation, including both president and Congress, would come from backgrounds consistent with the needs of our population. To the contrary, at the present time, when the US has become technologically driven, we still have retained and voted into office many times individuals who have little or no scientific backgrounds to lead our scientifically oriented economy and who many times act as critics or opponents of our technology needs.

Certainly other nations have seen fit with excellent results to place scientifically trained individuals in prominent positions, as evidenced in Great Britain by Margaret Thatcher, who majored and worked in the chemical field, and in Germany by Angela Merkel, who trained as a physicist. It is time that we recognize that we have become a technically driven nation and choose individuals with that orientation. Surely the present administration is an example of failure to rely on our scientific community.

Nelson Marans
New York City

Covalent drugs


I read with interest the article “Covalent Drugs Go from Fringe Field to Fashionable Endeavor” on page 28 of the Nov. 9, 2020, edition of Chemical & Engineering News. The article was very detailed and informative.

That said, I was disappointed that the article did not reference the seminal monograph on this subject, Design of Active-Site-Directed Irreversible Enzyme Inhibitors: The Organic Chemistry of the Enzymic Active-Site, by B. R. Baker of the department of chemistry at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This classic text was the bible for me and many other medicinal chemistry graduate students during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although the book was first published 53 years ago, it is still a good read.

Russell Buchman
Mundelein, Illinois