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Hall 11.1 Booth C10 or email [email protected] ContentsVOLUME 95, NUMBER 40 October 9, 2017 Cover story Driving cancer beyond the brink Emboldened by real-world success and powered by CRISPR, a new wave of biotech firms is revisiting the concept of synthetic lethality in cancer Page 42 Quote of the week Features “We are effectively operating in a regime where we can’t directly see the stuff we are 24 Drug-resistant 34 Perspectives: roundworms prompt A new world for trying to remove.” search for new pharma contractors treatments Trade association chief Gil —James O’Neill, chief Hardy parasites have appeared in 32 As computer Roth describes his move from technology officer, Entegris livestock around the world chips shrink, cleaning the trenches of journalism to Page 32 needs grow the front line on regulatory and 28 Cambrex bucks Suppliers of electronic cleaning legislative issues the pharmaceutical chemicals seek to remove even service trend trace contaminants 36 Career Ladder: But the small-molecule stalwart Michael Malaska may surprise with its next Chemist turned a hobby into a investment job in space science Departments ACS News 4 Reactions 52 C&ENjobs 47 ACS Comment Illustration by C&EN/ 5 Concentrates 56 Newscripts 49 ACS News Shutterstock 51 Meetings CENEAR 95 (40) 1–56 • ISSN 0009-2347 1155—16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036 (202) 872-4600 or (800) 227-5558 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Bibiana Campos Seijo EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Amanda Yarnell PRODUCTION DIRECTOR: Rachel Sheremeta Pepling Reactions SENIOR ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER: Marvel A. Wills BUSINESS NEW YORK CITY: (212) 608-6306 ▸ Letters to the editor ▸ From the web Michael McCoy, Executive Editor Rick Mullin (Senior Editor), Marc S. Reisch (Senior Correspondent), Alexander H. Tullo (Senior Correspondent), Rachel Eskenazi (Administrative Assistant). Wind power BOSTON: Ryan Cross (Assistant Editor). Re: Chemistry poetry CHICAGO: (917) 710-0924 Lisa M. Jarvis (Senior Correspondent). The initial statement that wind power is HONG KONG: 852 9093 8445 Jean-François Tremblay (Senior Correspondent). LONDON: 44 1494 564 316 Alex Scott (Senior Editor). generating electricity in Europe in, what A reader contributed poems of his own af- WEST COAST: (315) 825-8566 Melody M. Bomgardner (Senior Editor) I assume, is the equivalent cost in U.S. ter reading about other chemistry-related POLICY dollars ($59 to $125 per MWh) sounds poems. Cheryl Hogue, Executive Editor Britt E. Erickson (Senior Editor), Andrea L. Widener (Senior Editor) enticing (C&EN, July 24, page 20). Appar- cenm.ag/chemistrypoets ently, that is competitive, according to SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY/EDUCATION WASHINGTON: Lauren K. Wolf, Executive Editor, Deputy Editorial Director the European Commission. Using both left brain and right Celia Henry Arnaud (Senior Editor), Stuart A. Borman (Senior Mary Soon Lee used all of her might Correspondent), Matt Davenport (Associate Editor, Multimedia), Emma Hiolski (Contributing Editor), Kerri Jansen (Assistant Editor, Writing scientific haiku Multimedia), Tien M. Nguyen (Assistant Editor), Stephen K. Ritter (Senior Correspondent). BERLIN: 49 30 2123 3740 Sarah Everts (Senior On elements old and new Editor). BOSTON: (973) 922-0175 Bethany Halford (Senior Editor). In verse that was both terse and tight CHICAGO: (847) 679-1156 Mitch Jacoby (Senior Correspondent). WEST COAST: (626) 765-6767 Michael Torrice (Deputy Executive Editor), (925) 226-8202 Jyllian Kemsley (Senior Editor) Stacy Daniels, an engineer at Dow JOURNAL NEWS & COMMUNITY Wrote a poem on the merger right now (510) 768-7657 Corinna Wu (Senior Editor) (651) 447-6226 Jessica H. Marshall (Associate Editor) Using Dw for Dowium And Dp for Dupontium ACS NEWS & SPECIAL FEATURES Linda Wang (Senior Editor) Made intermediate DwDp. Holy cow (Hc) Andrew Roxburgh McGhie EDITORIAL PROJECTS EDITOR: Jessica Morrison Wilmington, Del. AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT EDITOR: Dorea I. Reeser Covestro shows off a prototype EDITING & PRODUCTION polyurethane blade in front of its research Kimberly R. Bryson, Executive Editor Join the conversation. Sabrina J. Ashwell (Assistant Editor), Craig Bettenhausen (Associate Editor), center in Shanghai. Taylor C. Hood (Assistant Editor), Manny I. Fox Morone (Associate Editor), facebook.com/CENews Alexandra A. Taylor (Assistant Editor), Jason Trader (Production Specialist) In the U.S., that amount would not @cenmag C&EN MEDIA PRODUCTION LAB compete with anything. It is, in fact, two Robert Bryson, Creative Director, Head of Media Production Lab Tchad K. Blair, Head of UI/UX Design to five times the nominal cost of pow- Robin L. Braverman (Senior Art Director), Luis A. Carrillo (Web Production Manager), Ty A. Finocchiaro (Senior Web Associate), er from baseload units in the U.S. The Yang H. Ku (Art Director), William A. Ludwig (Art Director) competition in the electricity market is C&EN BRANDLAB driving costs to $20 per MWh and below. Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay, Executive Editor Current market pressures from natural How to reach us Jeff Lee (Senior Editor), Kirsten Dobson (Marketing Manager), Kay Youn (Art Director) gas generation are driving many other Chemical & Engineering News Letters to the Editor SALES & MARKETING fossil units as well as nuclear units into Stephanie Holland, Assistant Director, Advertising Sales & Marketing bankruptcy, or [they are] decommis- ▸ Our e-mail address is [email protected]. Natalia Bokhari (Advertising Operations Manager), sioning. It is surprising that the anxiety ▸ Our fax number is (202) 872-8727. Sondra Hadden (Senior Marketing Manager), Joyleen SanFeliz Parnell ▸ Comments can be left at cen.acs.org. (Advertising Operations Associate), Quyen Pham (Lead Generation over global warming gets pushed aside Associate), Ed Rather (Recruitment Advertising Product Manager), ▸ Or you can send your letter to: Shelly E. Savage (Recruitment Advertising Associate) in this instance in the light of lower cost C&EN Editor-in-Chief ADVISORY BOARD generation. 1155—16th St., N.W. Deborah Blum, Raychelle Burks, Jinwoo Cheon, Kendrew H. Colton, François- In the current U.S. market, neither so- Washington, DC 20036 Xavier Coudert, Cathleen Crudden, Gautam R. Desiraju, Paula T. Hammond, lar nor wind can be considered baseload. ▸ Letters should generally be 400 words or fewer and Matthew Hartings, Christopher Hill, Peter Nagler, Anubhav Saxena, Dan Shine, should include the writer’s full name, address, and home Michael Sofia, William Tolman, James C. Tung, Jill Venton, Helma Wennemers, Using bigger turbines, 80 meters versus Geofrey K. Wyatt, Deqing Zhang telephone; letters and online comments may be edited 60, can produce as much as 9.5 MW, stat- for purposes of clarity and space. Because of the heavy Published by the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY Thomas M. Connelly Jr., Executive Director & CEO ed later in the article. Based on this, the volume of mail received at C&EN, writers are limited to one Brian D. Crawford, President, Publications Division sheer number of wind generators needed letter in a six-month period. EDITORIAL BOARD: Nicole S. Sampson (Chair), to equal a single, larger fossil or nuclear Subscriptions ACS Board of Directors Chair Pat N. Confalone, unit is still huge, well over 100. Send all new and renewal subscriptions and requests for ACS President Allison A. Campbell, Cynthia J. Burrows, Jerzy Klosin, John Russell, Gary B. Schuster The concept that bigger blading makes subscription rates to ACS, Dept. L-0011, Columbus, OH for a better electrical supply situation is 43268-0011. Copyright 2017, American Chemical Society Changes of address, claims for missing issues, sub- Canadian GST Reg. No. R127571347 at best optimistic. It may work for Eu- ▸ Volume 95, Number 40 scription orders, status of records, and accounts should rope, but in the U.S., it simply would not be directed to Manager, Member & Subscriber Services, fly. Or generate competitively. ACS, P.O. Box 3337, Columbus, OH 43210; telephone Bruce A. Luthanen (800) 333-9511 or (614) 447-3776; or send an e-mail Perry, Ohio to [email protected]. COVESTRO CREDIT: 4 C&EN | CEN.ACS.ORG | OCTOBER 9, 2017 ▸ Highlights Circadian rhythm pioneers honored with Medicine Nobel 6 A simple test to tell Zika virus from dengue 7 Detection of gravitational waves wins Physics Nobel 8 Concentrates Organic material has long-lasting luminescence 10 Chemical makers step up dumping claims 17 Chinese carmaker backs lithium company 18 Chemistry news from the week Cancer drug start-up Navire launches 19 Journals push for copyright control 22 NOBEL PRIZE Cryo-EM earns chemistry Nobel Three scientists honored for developing technique that provides unprecedented views of biomolecules The 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has the technique to handle some structures been awarded to Jacques Dubochet of the that crystallography and NMR cannot.