Process research and development scientist 3 (principal scientist)

CHUNMING CAI, Ph.D.

** ********* **

White Rock, NM 87547

505-***-**** (cell)

***********@*****.***, ****@****.***

SYNTHETIC ORGANIC/PROCESS/PHYSICAL ORGANIC CHEMIST

Ten plus years’ productive academic and industrial experience in heterogeneous catalysis, synthetic organic chemistry, physical chemistry and process R&D. Solid fundamental skills and broad working experience in a variety of synthetic targets. KEY to success: Work smart and think hard. US Citizen, and possessing an active Q clearance.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Process Research and Development Scientist – Los Alamos National Lab, Los Alamos, NM August 2021 to Present

This position is responsible for applying synthetic organic chemistry and process research and development knowledge and experience to enable a multi-disciplinary team to scale up synthesis of promising products successfully and safely. Routine work includes:

Perform bench scale synthesis to determine initial synthesis procedures

Use thermochemical methods to analyze the heat profile of reactions

Design synthesis procedures to address any concerns identified on bench scale

Scale-up materials

Transition processes to the pilot scale

Propose and lead new research efforts in process chemistry

Accomplishment: Redesigned a process which allowed:

40% of saving of two out of 3 raw materials;

40% of reduction of aqueous waste from the new semi-batch process;

60% of reduction of cycle time;

Greatly improved quality and safety during the process.

Spot Award for Process Improvement: For outstanding performance in process development and lasting contribution in support of the laboratory’s mission and values.

Comments from manager: “The improved process you gave us has allowed us to meet a really aggressive delivery schedule. Your task, that you undertook with grace and speed, has made our group, and LANL successful.”

Waste Sciences Manager—Los Alamos National Lab, Carlsbad, NM October 2018 to August 2021

This positon is responsible for assisting in the assessment of the strength of generator sites’ TRU waste management programs; assisting in the development of review plans and performance of technical reviews; providing input on technical reports; assisting in the performance of a detailed chemical analyses on TRU waste streams; assisting other LANL Carlsbad Operations teams when needed.

Senior Scientist, Process Research and Development—Evonik Industries, Lafayette October 2016 to October 2018

Leading the process research and development work on large-scale synthesis of advanced synthetic intermediates or active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) (GMP and ISO), developing safe and efficient synthetic processes that are suitable to scale up and reproducibly adhering to EHS and regulatory guidelines.

Responsibilities:

Creates laboratory models and generates robust and accurate process description to support production and business goals. Identify opportunities in current processes for improvement/optimization and implement viable solutions.

Assist with transitioning new processes to manufacturing and provides technical supports to manufacturing teams. Able to manage the technical and strategic needs of their projects, demonstrate efficient handling of all aspects of the project. Design and conduct research, troubleshoot and solve problems arising during synthetic route/process development.

Initiates and maintains laboratory programs geared toward supporting production and the resolution of production upsets. Creates documentation to support production and writes campaign summary reports.

Highlights:

Highly self-motivated, possessing strong experimental skills and excellent communication abilities, collaborating effectively within multidisciplinary teams, and demonstrating flexibility in adapting to changes in a fast-paced, dynamic research environment.

Implementing a process involving highly toxic raw material successfully transitioning to manufacturing in >1,000 kg production campaign.

Taking over a process that failed 4 out of 4 times in a previous campaign and developed a new but robust process by identifying new key factors and implementing key changes to build up solid control strategy in a short period of time. Managed a crazy schedule to support the on-scale productions for 4+ months. Here is the comment from customer after the success of the campaign: “Erleada will provide significant benefit for people with prostate cancer. I want to thank the Evonik team for all the hard work, and success in the process development and full scale manufacturing of the XXXX intermediate. We would not have been able to launch this Product without you….. 9 months early and at 5X volume!” Here are comments from former managers at Evonik: “Chunming’s work had a significant impact on a key customer’s perception of our site’s capabilities.” “Chunming did exceptionally well because he made products others could not.”

Senior Chemist, Process Development and Scale up—Evonik, Mapleton September 2014 to September 2016

Moved projects forward by routinely making samples for customers, resolving existing technical issues, improving old processes and providing alternative solutions for stagnant projects. Developed new process to make a commercial product being purchased and extensively used in Evonik productions to allow Evonik to make the material rather than purchasing it, and the process gave Evonik more capability to take over more volume and use the existing equipment more efficiently. A volume of 7,000+ tons results in savings of making versus buying is over 10%. Several other promising cost saving/process improvement projects are in different stages in or be ready for plant trials, which will possibly reduce raw material cost and/or improve safety in production.

Responsibilities include:

Plan, prepare, run, evaluate and report synthesis and scale-up experiments. Using given or develop new recipes/procedures; modify to optimize performance; develop new business line products.

Communicate directly with internal and external customers, understanding their problems, and identifying and offering support to help solve their problems.

Manage business line projects, plant continuous improvement projects and product transfers from/to other locations. Write appropriate reports to maintain good communication.

Evaluate, test, and qualify new raw materials for cost-saving and process improvements. Where appropriate, develop processes to produce intermediates which replace raw materials.

Maintain the laboratory in a safe and professional way. Make suggestions to improve the safety of the laboratory, plant and personnel.

Senior Scientist & Project Manager—BioZone Pharm., Princeton, NJ December 2011 to February 2013

Being the leader of a group of 4 PhD organic or analytical chemists, designed and synthesized a series of lipids of epoch-making significance in drug delivery technology involving 6-10 steps of reactions. Successfully moved the product to kilogram scale to support preclinical studies.

Responsibilities: multi-step synthesis, scale-up synthesis, quality control, quality assurance, formulation, cost-estimation, outsourcing, project management, literature search, cGMP documentation, trouble-shooting, etc.

Highlights:

Took the challenge working on a project which was not delivered in a 4-5 years of research work by 4-5 PhD level scientists.

Identified the causes for the failures quickly and resolved the issues by targeting on alternative molecules with foreseeable better stability and redesigning synthetic route that looked more practical for large scale synthesis.

Successfully delivered a new lipid product with exceptional performance in formulation of a drug. With this lipid, the commercial drug can be formulated easily into clear micro-emulsion when the commercial drug was milk-like emulsion.

Set up a kilo-lab and led a group of scientists in the process R&D work for scale-up synthesis and deliver multi-kilograms of the new lipid successfully within 4 months.

Designed and synthesized a variety of new lipids to broaden the scope of applications of the new lipids in drug delivery technology of potential use in other drugs such as anti-cancer drugs with difficulties of delivery.

Senior Scientist—SynChem, Inc., Elk Grove VLG, IL June 2006 to January 2011

Achieved exceptional customer satisfactions with my high work ethic, motivation and creativity.

Performance: Finished 60+ custom synthesis projects in 4 years. Worked on projects with a variety of molecules, reactions, scales and difficulties and delivered more projects than any other peers in the same span.

Endorsements: The customers were always happy with me on board. Here are some feedbacks from customers:

“We’ve been very impressed by your speed, quality and honesty. I’m sure we’ll be doing a lot of business in the near future.” Customer, Pharmaceutical Company

“Nice work modifying the synthesis.” Customer, Pharmaceutical Company

“Thanks very much for completing the synthesis of the seven compounds in record time.” Customer, Pharmaceutical Company

Accomplishments: I delivered routine projects faster and tough projects better than any peers.

Moved several processes directly from bench to commercial scales by optimizing the usage of reagents, workup, and purification procedures—capacities were expanded by 10-50 folds;

Redesigned several synthetic routes to accommodate the availability of raw materials, limited use of certain reagents and strict timelines—these projects were delivered well ahead of the due date;

Designed novel synthetic route that worked exceptionally well for a number of medicinal chemistry building blocks—the efficiency was improved by 500% and cost were decreased by 70%.

OTHER RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Senior Scientist—Ashwin-Ushas Inc., New Jersey February 2013 to September 2014

The responsibility as an organic chemistry includes evaluation of synthetic schemes, research on alternative process for kilogram production, cost-estimation and future setup of a lab with multi-kilogram capacity. The electrochemistry projects involve conducting polymers and sensor technology, and ultra-high and ultra-low discharging-rate, primary and rechargeable lithium and lithium-ion batteries.

Performance: I improved the synthesis of a thiophene derivative which was the monomer to a key conductive polymer in the sunglass application and led the efforts working on chemical sensor and lithium battery projects.

Research Technician—GIA, New York City, NY February 2011 to June 2011

The experience to work at GIA, the world’s foremost authority of gemology, was very exciting. I provided analytical data collection for advanced color origin and diamond typing purposes using FT-IR and UV-Vis.

Performance: I delivered excellent work at the fastest speed in the history of GIA after I optimized the procedures of the data collections. I characterized about 20,000 diamonds in 4 months, and also captured quite a few errors from the previous steps in the diamond-flow procedure.

EDUCATION

Ph.D.—Organic Chemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL August 2001 to May 2006

I challenged myself by switching to a different major where my previous experience would seem irrelevant. I managed to overcome all the hurdles in front and left my research group as a winner—as usual.

Expectation from Others: All time low unfortunately! I was questioned by experienced synthetic organic chemists around because I had to start from learning what most of them had been doing for many years.

Nature of Projects: It was already difficult to find a research topic to work with using benzotriazole methodology because it had been studied for nearly 20 years when I joined Professor Katritzky’s research group.

Performance: My quick learning ability and hard work enabled quick adaption to the new environment. My productivity and creativity led to the discovery and optimization of preparation methods for N-acylbenzotriazoles and N-imidoylbenzotriazoles. I had 7 publications during this 5-year period and my work led to many more publications in my research group.

M.S.—Physical Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing, P. R. China September 1996 to July 1999

It was my great honor to pursue my MS degree in one of the best universities in China. I had an important invention in my MS research which moved the priority of the research topic to the highest level ever.

Personal Expectation: Very high! I won the opportunity for further education through very competitive entrance examinations and was really ambitious to achieve something unusual in the following years.

Nature of Project: The previous graduate students (PhD or master) failed to discover good hydrodesulfurization (HDS) heterogeneous catalyst. For a MS student, the main objective was to obtain fundamental trainings—any breakthrough made by a MS candidate was not considered realistic for this particular project.

Performance: I initiated a new concept in preparing catalysts which generated a series of catalysts with unmatchable activities in laboratory level—that’s the ultimate goal of the project in laboratory! The invention was very special to me and the enormous confidence I gained has encouraged me ever since.

B.S.—Applied Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, P. R. China September 1992 to July 1996

MOLECULES SYNTHESIZED

Heterocyclic compounds (containing nitrogen, oxygen, and/or sulfur), amino acids and peptides, carbohydrates, polyethylene glycols (PEGs), aromatics, boronic acids, multicyclic compounds, conducting polymers including monomers, oleochemicals, etc.

SCALES OF SYNTHESIS

Lab work and pilot plant batches range from several milligrams to multi-kilograms (multi-steps); mL to 100 gallons. Technically supported production batches using 500-5,000 gallons in reactor size and 100-20,000 kgs per batch.

INSTRUMENTS USED

NMR, HPLC, LC-MS, GC-MS, FT-IR, UV-Vis, TGA, TPR, TPS, XRD, XPS, Potentialstat, Glove-box, Battery analyzer, etc.

OTHER INFORMATION

US citizenship (Active Q clearance)

Hobbies: sports in general including go, soccer, basketball, and fishing.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Matched- dual- polymer electrochromic lenses, using new cathodically coloring conducting polymers, with exceptional performance and incorporated into automated sunglasses. Chandrasekhar, Prasanna; Zay, Brian J.; Cai, Chunming; Chai, Yanjie; Lawrence, David. Journal of Applied Polymer Science 2014, 131, 41043/1-41043/21.

Efficient Synthesis of 1,5-Disubstituted Tetrazoles. Alan R. Katritzky, Chunming Cai, et al. Synthesis 2007, 1204.

Alan R. Katritzky, Chunming Cai, Sanjay K. Singh, Sergey Bobrov. Synthesis of Heterocyclic Systems (1,3-Benzodioxin-4-ones, Naphtho[2,1-d][1,3]dioxin-1 ones, 1,3-Benzoxazin-4-ones, Benzoxazines, and 2-Aryl-l,3-benzoxazin-4-ones) from ortho HydroxyAcylbenzotriazoles. ARKIVOC (Gainesville, FL, United States) 2007, 6, 6-13.

The Incorporation of Microwave Synthesis into the Undergraduate Organic Laboratory, Alan R. Katritzky, E. Keller Barnhardt, Chunming Cai, Meghan D. Collins, and Sandeep K. Singh. Journal of Chemical Education 2006, 83, 634-636.

Efficient Microwave Access to Polysubstituted Amidines from Imidoylbenzotriazoles. Alan R. Katritzky, Chunming Cai, et al. Journal of Organic Chemistry 2006, 71, 3375.

Direct synthesis of esters and amides from unprotected hydroxyaromatic and -aliphatic carboxylic acids. Alan R. Katritzky, Sanjay K. Singh, Chunming Cai, et al. Journal of Organic Chemistry 2006, 71, 3364.

Preparation of N-Acylbenzotriazole Derivatives of Dicarboxylic Acids. Alan R. Katritzky, Nabin K. Meher, Chunming Cai, Sandeep K. Singh. Revista de la Sociedad Quimica de Mexico 2004, 48, 275-278.

Facile Syntheses of Oxazolines and Thiazolines with N-Acylbenzotriazoles under Microwave Irradiation. Alan R. Katritzky, Chunming Cai, et al. Journal of Organic Chemistry 2004, 69, 811.

Preparation of N-Acylbenzotriazole Derivatives of Dicarboxylic Acids. Xiyao Yang; Chunming Cai, Jun Ma. Preparation and Active Index of High-Efficiency Co-Mo Series HDS Catalyst. Xinshiji De Cuihau Kexue Yu Jishu, Quanguo Cuihuaxue Jihuiyi Lunwenji, 10th, Zhangjiajie, China, Oct. 15-19, 2000, 29-30.

References Available Upon Request

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