Derek Lowe, an Arkansan by birth, received his BA from Hendrix College and his PhD in organic chemistry from Duke University before spending time in Germany on a Humboldt Fellowship on his post-doc. He has worked for several major pharmaceutical companies since 1989 on drug discovery projects against schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, diabetes, osteoporosis, and other diseases. He is also the author of a popular pharma commentary weblog, In the Pipeline. 1. How did you become interested in pharmacology?