An open letter to Phil S. Baran

(Spotify users, cue this before reading further)

Dear Phil,

On behalf of all mankind: Would you please slow down? We mortals have no chance to keep up with you. It is not funny anymore. We need a break.

You have more than 100 papers out in the juiciest journals, several patents, been a tenured professor since 2008 and worked with E.J. Corey and K.C. Nicolaou at some of the finest institutions in the world (New York University, Harvard and now Scripps).

What is your secret recipe? Hanging out with Nobel prize winners cannot be all; it appears as if you have more awards now than several of them already. Is it your first name? In poker, as a comparison, several of the best players are your namesakes: Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth and Phil Gordon. Are we non-Phil:s without a chance? You are clearly in the zone. Would you mind giving us a break?

I have written about you and provided links to your results several times before. But it was not until yesterday that I took a good look at your resume.

For fuck’s sake, Phil, you were born in 1977. How do you think that makes us feel?

And now with your latest one-step recipe for the simple and swift trifluromethylation of practically any compound?

Popular version

PNAS, Article ASAP (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1109059108).

Do you realize what you have done?! I bet thousands of medicinal chemists around the world, as I write this, are now working full time to stick -CF3 groups to existing substances in the giant compound libraries the big companies have.

What you need to do, Phil, is to take a sabbatical. A sabbatical decade. If not, you leave us with no options left to properly celebrate your progress.

Seriously, what are your plans exactly? “Before I turn 40, I hope to”-kind of stuff.

May I suggest you make a Heck? That is: Invent an awesome reaction, publish, disappear from the face of the Earth for some 20+ years, only to return to pick up the Nobel prize.

Think about it.

Best regards

Someone who is clearly lagging