profile 1: dr. phil baran

Okay, here is the inaugural post for my sexy profiles page, hooray! Like I mentioned, this blog was inspired by dylanand so I will be profiling sexy scientists.

Our first profile is Prof. Phil Baran at TSRI. Dr. Baran is an up and coming organic chemist at TSRI synthesizing natural products focusing on the total synthesis of products such as stephacidin A, avrainvillamide, stehpacidin B, welwitindolinone A, haouamine A, and a variety of other natural products. A quick biography would be to say that he's REALLY good, one of the professors I was looking at before I entered graduate school not only cause of his interesting work but because he's really good looking. (HAHA!)

His research statement can be seen below:
"Our research is focused on solving interesting challenges in the total synthesis of natural products and in bridging gaps in synthetic capabilities by the invention of new reactions. The invention, discovery and design of new methods that inevitably occurs en route to a natural product fuels our passion. Through judicious target selection and creative retrosynthetic analyses, the endeavor of total synthesis becomes an engine for discovery that drives the field of organic chemistry to new levels of sophistication and practicality. Synthetic organic chemistry rigorously demands and cultivates tremendous ingenuity, artistic taste, experimental acumen, persistence, and character from its students. Although our lab is focused entirely on fundamental chemistry, many collaborations are in place with expert biologists to explore the medicinal potential of newly synthesized natural products and analogs thereof." - Baran Group Website at TSRI

Apparently he is a prodigy in chemistry being one of their younger professors as he quickly went through their rigorous training program at TSRI, went to a Harvard Postdoc with Prof. Corey (yes, the Nobel Prize Winner), and returned to TSRI as an assistant professor. He's very young and having attended his talks at both my university (undergrad and grad) and at meetings, he's a really nice guy and is pretty laid back (not to mention he seems to workout a good bit too..yum!).

Now we have to put up the best part of the profile. We know his research is hot (natural products chemistry is a very hot field and there are TONS of chemists trying to synthesize products possibly useful for cancer treatments, etc). Now..here's a few pictures of him that we shall evaluate to give our total hotness rating (yes we are using a pepper system..so yeah..)



Here we have a young Dr. Baran with what believe to be his PhD advisor. For a chemist, he's pretty damn good looking (at least from what I've seen..if I were a grad student during those days I'd try to date him..haha!)


Here is a more recent picture and I beileve this is around when he started being a professor at TSRI. For a professor he seems to have a nice body (look at the curves in those guns..wow I'm being really superficial), and yes..he was the main reason I applied to TSRI as an undergrad. But now I've grown up and realized that I cant have a PhD advisor that I would well want to..nevermind :). Perhaps when I graduate and I'm looking around for postdoctoral positions?


This is one that I put up because it reminds me of a Myspace photo. It seems like he's trying to go for the sexy look (at least in my opinion and I cant help but chuckle slightly at this), but we cant exactly fault him for it. I said these are HOT scientists, meaning that they might not exactly be supermodel quality, but he's still pretty goodlooking.


So there we go, an analysis of Dr. Phil Baran.

So now the final results!
Phil Baran is...a HABANERO on the hotness scale! Smokin!