Interview — Derek Lowe
A medicinal chemist and renowned science blogger talks science, stars, and pies
Derek Lowe is a medicinal chemist working on drug discovery. He’s been writing a renowned science blog called “In the Pipeline” since 2002.
Lowe tackles a mix of scientific updates, political perspectives, and critiques of scientific publishing, all in an extremely down-to-earth and readable manner. He’s also the author of a 2016 book, The Chemistry Book: From Gunpowder to Graphene, 250 Milestones in the History of Chemistry.
In a recent post Lowe described himself as an “AI Realist,” while writing a great line about current LLMs:
They are extruding an optimized slurry of words into answer-shaped chunks. To my way of thinking, these are far more removed from actual human writing than a typical chicken nugget is from a chicken walking around a barnyard — but I have to admit that there are many situations where they’re good enough.
When it comes to AI, Lowe is a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist, but as the interview shows, sacrificing science at the altar of technology is not a way forward.
Discovery science, the effects of cuts on academia, and why drug discovery is and likely will remain difficult terrain are all topics we discuss.
A serious amateur astronomer and — like any good chemist — a cook, Derek’s renowned chocolate pecan pie recipe: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/holiday-organic-synthesis-chocolate-pecan-pie
It’s an entertaining and informative episode, with our “Discoveries of the Week” and our thanks for all the support you’ve given us and our nascent podcast efforts so far.
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Music provided by Provoke the Truth — https://provokethetruth.net/
