The Catalyst

Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania

Presenter: Sony Chemicals Corporation of America

RSVP No Later Than Friday, April 14^th, 2000 to

Mr. Ed Moretti, Vice Chair

emoretti@mbakercorp.com

Baker Environmental

TEL 412-269-6055

FAX 412-269-6097

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TOPIC

UV Curable Materials in Optical Storage Media

Sony Chemicals Corporation of America

From the introduction of compact discs (CD) in the early 1980’s to the more recent invention of DVD, optical storage has been a key technology for storing information. What started as a method of storing and packaging an hours worth of music, has now become a growing industry that includes, music, software, movies, and general data storage for long term keeping. The industry has grown from the original CD of 650 MB of information to 17 GB with the latest DVD packages.

The use of ultraviolet curable materials has been an important component that has allowed for optical storage formats to be manufactured. Ultraviolet curable materials are used today as protective overcoats in CD, as adhesives in DVD, and as inks for labels and logos. As the number of discs have increased some of the advantages of UV curable materials has become increasingly more important, specifically the speed of cure and the lack of solvents.

This presentation will review the growth of optical storage and the various formats available today. Also discussed will be an overview of UV curable materials and how they are used in the manufacturing process of CDs and DVDs.

About the Speaker

Jeffrey F. Taylor is a Senior Research Scientist at Sony Chemicals Corporation of America. He has worked in many research and development roles over the past 15 years. Most of his work has been in the area of polymer science, with a specific emphasis on ultraviolet curable materials and water-soluble polymers, particularly in the applications of coatings and adhesives. Jeff has been developing materials and technology for optical storage media for the past eight years. Jeff has earned a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts in Polymer Science and Engineering, an M.S. degree from the University of Florida, and a B.S. from the University of Utah, both in the area of Materials Science and Engineering.

Our March meeting was a huge success! We would like to thank our Host and Presenter Mr. Mark Golightly of FirstEnergy Corp. We appreciate your time and hospitality. Our gratitude also goes out to Shiaw Tseng of Dravo Technology – Carmeuse who was our informative guide and to the sponsor Manyam Babu, Dravo Technology – Carmeuse.

Our chapter would like to acknowledge and thank Nancy Hirko, Engineers’ Week Chair/Membership Chair, for all her hard work. Once again our table was a huge hit with the future engineers. Nancy has touched upon the highlights of the event in the Engineers’ Week column.

Please take a minute and review our "Volunteers Needed" column. We are always in need of energetic people who are interested in growing our Pittsburgh Chapter. This is an excellent way to receive the maximum benefits from your membership. Your help is very much appreciated!

I look forward to meeting you all at future AIChE meetings!

Peggy Panagopoulos

AIChE Newsletter Editor
ChemTech Consultants, Inc.
1370 Washington Pike, 4^th Floor
Bridgeville, PA 15017
TEL: 412-220-4612
FAX: 412-221-5685
EMAIL: pegpana@chemtech88.com

Tuesday, April 11^th, 2000

Please contact:

Peggy Panagopoulos

AIChE Newsletter Editor
ChemTech Consultants, Inc.
1370 Washington Pike, 4^th Floor
Bridgeville, PA 15017
TEL: 412-220-4612
FAX: 412-221-5685
EMAIL: pegpana@chemtech88.com

Membership

Database Development ~ Integrate Meeting Reservations/Attendance with Total Membership to develop contact lists of active members

Engineers Week Coordinator

Chemistry Week Coordinator

Science Fair Coordinator ~ Ed Moretti

 

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Column Writer ~ What’s New in the Section

Column Writer ~ Technical Articles

Column Writer ~ Government Regulations and Legislation

Column Writer ~ Internet Resources/Sites of the month

 

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Assistant ~ Take minutes and fill in on Absence of Secretary

Treasurer Assistant ~ Collect Payments and fill in on Absence of Treasurer

 

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Promotion ~ ESWP Technicalendar and ACS Newsletter Interface

Speaker Recognition Mementos

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Student Night ~ Paper Competition

Student Night ~ Table Sponsors

Student Night ~ Support

 

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Awards & Scholarship

Awards Committee Members ~ Solicitation of Nominations

Awards Committee Members ~ Evaluation/Selection of Awardees

Awards Committee Members ~ Solicitation of Nominations

 

Programs

Promotion ~ ESWP Technicalendar and ACS Newsletter Interface Award Banquet Chair and Support

 

Dr. Ted Andersen

ChemTech Consultants

TEL: 412-220-4555

FAX: 412-221-5685

EMAIL: TSAndersen@AOL.com

This year’s Engineer’s Week activities were again a hit with the attendees at the Carnegie Science Center. The event was held from 9:00 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. on Friday and Saturday, February 25^th and 26^th. I would like to thank the following volunteers from the Pittsburgh Section of AIChE for their time, effort and enthusiasm:

In two days, we helped attendees make over 500 super balls and many chemical compounds. We could have made more superballs if we had not run out of raw materials. We also handed out technical literature and periodic charts. My favorite question for the audience was "Who wants to be a chemical engineer?" and "Is that your final answer?" It did get a little hectic at times. Thanks again to all returning volunteers and I hope this event did not scare off the new volunteers.

I am also proud to say that the Saturday volunteers from our table were selected to give the KDKA HomeTown Hello. Thanks Cara, for leading our group. I also happened to see it aired on KDKA’s evening news on March 9^th. Great PR for us chemical engineers!

What really is involved in developing a new drug

The purpose of this article is to look at how drugs are developed today in the modern world and how the chemical engineer is instrumental in the development of new drugs. Let's first take a look at how the development of a new drug begins. It is interesting to also know that on average it takes twelve years for an experimental drug to travel from the lab to your medicine cabinet. Only five in 5,000 compounds that enter the pre-clinical testing phase actually make it to human testing. One of these five drugs tested in people is approved. As you can see it is a rigorous and costly process that must be followed to get a new drug to your medicine cabinet. It is estimated on average a company may spend $300 to $400 million dollars to get just one drug to your medicine cabinet. It is not hard to see why some new medicines on the market are so expensive. Let's take a look at the steps involved in developing a new drug.

Pre-clinical Testing

This is the initial phase of the testing that begins in the laboratory. A pharmaceutical company will conduct studies in the lab and on animals to show the biological activity of the compound against a targeted disease. The compound is then evaluated for safety. These tests take about 3½ to 4 years to complete. The chemical engineer would be heavily involved in this phase of drug development.

Investigational New Drug Application (IND)

After the above pre-clinical testing is completed the company then files an IND with the FDA to begin testing the drug in people. The IND will become effective if the FDA does not disprove it within 30 days. The IND will show results of previous experiments, how, where and by whom the new studies will be conducted. The IND also looks at the chemical structure of the compound, how it works in the body, and any toxic effects found in the animal studies. The IND will also look at how the compound is manufactured. The IND must be reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board where the study will be conducted, and progress reports on clinical trials must be submitted at least annually to the FDA.

Clinical Trials, Phase I, II, and III

After the IND has not been disapproved within 30 days, then the next phase of testing begins, which are the clinical trials.

Phase I: This phase of the testing takes about a year and involves about 20 to 80 normal, healthy volunteers. The tests study a drug’s safety profile, including the safe dosage range. The studies also determine how a drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized and excreted, and the duration of its action.

Phase II: In this phase, controlled studies of approximately 100 to 300 volunteer patients (people with the disease) assess the drug's effectiveness. This phase normally takes about two years.

Phase III: This phase involves 1,000 to 3,000 patients in clinics and hospitals. Physicians monitor patients closely to determine the efficacy and identify adverse reactions. This phase lasts about three years.

New Drug Application (NDA)

After all of the clinical trials mentioned above are completed, then the company analyzes the data and files an NDA with the FDA if the data successfully demonstrates safety and effectiveness. The NDA is usually about 100,000 pages or more and contains all of the scientific information that the company has gathered. By law, the FDA is allowed six months to review an NDA. In most cases the time from first submission of an NDA and final FDA approval usually exceeds six months. The average NDA review time for new molecular entities approved in 1992 was 29.9 months.

Approval

Once the FDA approves the NDA, the new medicine becomes available for physicians to prescribe. The company must continue to submit periodic reports to the FDA, including any cases of adverse reactions and appropriate quality control records. The FDA requires some medicines to have additional studies (Phase IV) to evaluate the long-term effects of the drugs.

After reading the above steps in the development of a new drug, it is not hard to see why drugs cost so much when they finally do get to our medicine cabinets. Many people in the pharmaceutical industry are looking for ways to expedite the development of drugs and to decrease some of the money put into this development. One resource that is being utilized in the development of new drugs is bioinformatics. The Bioinformatics industry is still in its infancy stages, but it has started to change the way drug development has emerged since 1998. Bioinformatics helps to take some of the fragmentation out of the development of new drugs. Most drug development has been more or less by trial and error. Bioinformatics uses information technology to be able to develop large databases and algorithms that help in the development of new drugs.

An example of this is the European Bioinformatics Industry (EBI). The EBI serves researchers in molecular biology, genetics, medicine and agriculture from academia. The EBI also serves the agricultural, biotechnology, chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

The EBI is able to serve these researchers and industries by building, maintaining and making available databases and information services that relate to molecular biology. The EBI also carries out research in bioinformatics and computational molecular biology. More information about EBI can be obtained from going to their website which is as follows: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/Information/index.html.

For those of you who are interested in learning more about the pharmaceutical pipeline (an industry term used for the research and development process of creating new drugs), Searle's Research and Development Department has a web site for you. This web site actually takes you step by step in the development of a new drug. The web site is as follows: http://www.searlehealthnet.com/pipeline.html. On this web site you can select from a few diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular related diseases, or arthritis as your primary target to be able to develop a new drug for.

If the virtual formulation of a new drug is not enough, then all of you are invited to visit the following site from John Hopkins University, in which you can actually be the participant in a research study. Most of these studies involve the development or refinement of drugs but some don't involve any drugs at all. There is also a monetary incentive involved with some studies. The web site is as follows: http://www.jhbmc.jhu.edu/studies/index.html. Due to geographic limitations, it may be difficult to be able to attend the clinic visits that are required. To be able to find out research studies in your local area, check with the nearest teaching/university based hospital and I am sure they would be more than happy to get you involved in a research study.

In summation, it is easy to see the vital role that chemical engineers play in the development of new drugs. It takes the knowledge and skill of many disciplines to formulate a new drug. When all of these disciplines work together, it helps to expedite the formation of new drugs to help alleviate the effects of diseases for people around the world.

Source: http://www.cheresources.com/drugdev.shtml

Company: Our client, a multi-national specialty chemical producer, is expanding its corporate engineering staff which is attached to a local (Pittsburgh, PA area) production facility. The Process Development Department consists of eight (8) degreed Chemical Engineers. The group services several plants world wide.

Location: South Suburban Pittsburgh, PA

Responsibilities: Duties consist of process/technology improvement; unit operations/process modeling /simulation (ASPEN): process control/safety: plant/project start-ups. Approximately twenty percent (20%) travel is required, some international.

This is an excellent long-term permanent position, offering a high degree of technical challenge, employment stability (no layoffs in this divisions 30 year history), and the potential for career development.

Due to international travel requirements, a valid U.S. passport is required.

Mail, fax, or email resume and salary history to:

Dick Corley, Vice President
THE POLEN GROUP
Professional Recruiters Since 1961
1445 Washington Road
Washington, PA 15301-9646
Tel 724-225-9500 ~ Fax 724-225-8907
Email: dcorley@polengroup.com

The Polen Group is an Equal Opportunity Recruiting/Search Firm

On behalf of the Minority Affairs Committee (MAC) of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), I am pleased to announce that nominations for the 2000 AIChE Minority Scholarship Awards for Incoming College Freshmen and College Students, and 2000 AIChE Outstanding Scholastic Achievement Award are being accepted. The deadline to submit nomination form is April 15th, 2000. The nominations forms are available as .pdf files at the following links:

http://www.aiche.org/pdflibrary/mag/minosa.pdf

http://www.aiche.org/pdflibrary/mag/minoritycompetitionform.pdf

http://www.aiche.org/pdflibrary/mag/mincs.pdf

Individual awards for the full academic year will be $1,000.00. Nominees must be members of a minority group that is under-represented in chemical engineering, i.e., African-American, Hispanic, Native American. Nominees for the incoming freshmen (high school seniors) scholarship awards are encouraged to choose a course of study leading to a degree in science/engineering.

The Incoming College Freshmen Scholarship Award, first awarded in 1994, is based on the nominee's academic record, participation in school and work activities, reason for choosing science/engineering, and financial needs. While the College Students Scholarship Award, also first awarded in 1994, is based on the nominee's academic record, participation in AIChE student chapter and professional activities, career objectives, and financial need. And the Outstanding Scholastic Achievement award first awarded in 1996 is based on the nominees’ academic and scholarly achievements, and exemplary outreach activities.

Please feel free to forward this e-mail to those that may benefit from the scholarships. Thank you.

Emmanuel A. Dada, Ph.D.

Chairman, AIChE MAC Student Awards

We have begun an initiative to use broadcast email for special section announcements.

If you have received duplicates of initial transmittals or have been burdened by excessively long cc: lists as we progress through the learning curve, please accept our apology.

If you have not received email invitations to the December meeting or for the PE Exam Refresher course, your email address is either invalid or missing in the regional membership database we received from AIChE HQ.

Corrections, additions, and deletions to our database are being handled manually for now. Please send short and simple messages to TSAndersen@AOL.com such as; Subscribe, Remove, or Change: ____@___.____.

We are in search of hosts for our future AIChE monthly meetings. The Chapter is looking for companies that can provide AIChE members with an interesting, informative, and beneficial agenda. If your company is interested in hosting a meeting next spring or fall, please contact the Pittsburgh Chapter Program Chair:

Mr. Ed Moretti, Vice Chair
Baker Environmental
Tel 412-269-6055
Fax 412-269-6097
Email: emoretti@mbakercorp.com

Interested in placing an ad in future newsletters?

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To place an ad, please contact:

Peggy Panagopoulos

ChemTech Consultants, Inc.

1370 Washington Pike, 4^th Floor

Bridgeville, PA 15017

TEL 412-220-4612 ~ FAX 412-221-5685 ~ Email pegpana@chemtech88.com

Dear Member:

In 1999 we made our first Pittsburgh Section Undergraduate Scholarship Award to a candidate from CMU. The Award is made on merit to a student in the Chemical Engineering Department of one of the accredited colleges within our Section geographic area (namely, YSU, Pitt, CMU and WVU), or to a son or daughter of a Section Member attending an accredited college. The winner received $500 and the prestige of the award and our publicity. The quality of applicants was outstanding and we look forward to recognizing another equally qualified applicant this spring with another $500 award.

The Executive Committee has thus far limited the number and amount of scholarship awards in order to build up a self-sustaining endowment fund. Expansion of the award pool will enable us to accelerate our support to future engineers. Your suggestions on the emphasis of additional awards are solicited below.

We can expand our scholarship pool now if you support the Scholarship Award Endowment Fund directly, beyond the $2.00/year check-off from dues. Contributions are tax deductible (under the aegis of the national AIChE organization) and may qualify for matching funds from your company. Your response to the questions below will also help guide our scholarship committee as they build our awards program.

We urge you to return your questionnaire. May we, as Section Officers and the Undergraduate Scholarship Award Committee Members, thank you now for your generosity and cooperation.

Samuel W. Vance, P.E.
Chair Undergraduate Scholarship Award Selection Committee

Dr. Ted Andersen, P.E.
Pittsburgh Section AIChE Chair

Ignacio E. Grossmann, Rudolph R. & Florence Dean Professor of Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University was recently one of eleven new members elected to The National Academy of Engineering. The criteria for the elected members are to be chemists, chemical engineers, or work in a chemically related field. Congratulations!

MEMBERSHIP UPDATE, Nancy Hirko

I would like to take this opportunity to remind you of the value that the local section provides and to encourage you to pay your dues on time. All membership updates should be sent to National with a copy to me, Nancy Hirko. If you are not currently a local section member, please consider joining using the coupon below. A portion of your dues is deposited into our scholarship fund. Please help our local section and scholarship fund continue to grow!

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TEL: Business TEL Residence

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Annual Dues are $14.00. Make check payable to "AIChE Pittsburgh Section" and send to our treasurer, John Hauser:

 

When boiling corn on the cob, add a pinch of sugar to help bring out the corn's natural sweetness.

To determine whether an egg is fresh, immerse it in a pan of cool, salted water. If it sinks, it is fresh-if it rises to the surface, throw it away.

Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.

Don't throw out all that leftover wine: Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.

If you have a problem opening jars: Try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a non-slip grip that makes opening jars easy.

Potatoes will take food stains off your fingers. Just slice and rub raw potato on the stains and rinse with water.

To get rid of itch from mosquito bite: try applying soap on the area, instant relief.

Ants, ants, ants everywhere ... Well, they are said to never cross a chalk line. So get your chalk out and draw a line on the floor or wherever ants tend to march-see for yourself.

Use air-freshener to clean mirrors: It does a good job and better still, leaves a lovely smell to the shine.

When you get a splinter, reach for the scotch tape before resorting to tweezers or a needle. Simply put the scotch tape over the splinter, then pull it off. Scotch tape removes most splinters painlessly and easily.

Now look what you can do with Alka-Seltzer:

Clean a toilet-drop in two Alka-Seltzer tablets, wait twenty minutes, brush, and flush.

The citric acid and effervescent action clean vitreous china.

Clean a vase-to remove a stain from the bottom of a glass vase or cruet, fill with water and drop in two Alka-Seltzer tablets.

Polish jewelry-drop two Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water and immerse the jewelry for two minutes.

Clean a thermos bottle-fill the bottle with water, drop in four Alka-Seltzer tablets, and let soak for an hour (or longer, if necessary).

Unclog a drain-clear the sink drain by dropping three Alka-Seltzer tablets down the drain followed by a cup of Heinz White Vinegar. Wait a few minutes, then run the hot water.

PERIODIC ELEMENTS

Valuable Scientific Data

Two proposed new additions to the periodic table of elements (from chemistry class):

Element Name: WOMAN

Symbol: WO

Atomic Weight: (don't even go there)

Physical Properties: Generally round in form. Boils at nothing and may freeze at any time. Melts whenever treated properly. Very bitter if mishandled.

Chemical Properties: Very active. Highly unstable. Possesses strong affinity with gold, silver, platinum, and precious stones. Volatile when left alone. Able to absorb great amounts of exotic food. Turns slightly green when placed next to a shinier specimen.

Usage: Highly ornamental. An extremely good catalyst for dispersion of wealth. Probably the most powerful income reducing agent known.

Caution: Highly explosive in inexperienced hands.

Element Name: MAN

Symbol: XY

Atomic Weight: (180 +/- 50)

Physical Properties: Solid at room temperature, but gets bent out of shape easily. Fairly dense and sometimes flaky. Difficult to find a pure sample. Due to rust, aging samples are unable to conduct electricity as easily as young samples.

Chemical Properties: Attempts to bond with WO any chance it can get. Also tends to form strong bonds with itself. Becomes explosive when mixed with KD (Element: Child) for prolonged period of time. Neutralize by saturating with alcohol.

Usage: None known. Possibly good methane source. Good specimens are able to produce large quantities on command.

Ted Andersen
ChemTech Consultants
TSAndersen@AOL.com
412-220-4555

Ed Moretti
Baker Environmental
emoretti@mbakercorp.com
412-269-6055

Bill Hargest
PPG Industries, Inc.
hargest@ppg.com
TEL: 724-274-3364
FAX: 724-274-3420

John Hauser
PROSAF, Inc.
prosaf@sgi.net
724-942-3717

Mike Friedrich
Kvaerner Metals
Mike.Friedrich@Kvaerner.com
412-918-3109

 

Del Button
Button Engineering
dbutton@compuserve.com
412-366-8324

Louisa Nara
Bayer Corporation
louisa.nara.b@bayer.com
412-777-7603

Nancy Hirko
U.S. Steel
nmhirko@uss.com
412-433-5914

Peggy Panagopoulos
ChemTech Consultants
pegpana@hotmail.com
412-220-4612

Mike Flaherty
Calgon Corporation
mflaherty@ecc.com
412-494-8374

Gerald LaRosa
Kvaerner Metals
Gerald.LaRose@Kvaerner.com
412-918-3654

Richard R. Dupree
Dupree & Associates
rrd@telerama.com
724-775-5122