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Mark Levin

@levinchem.bsky.social
2.6K followers 980 following 258 posts

Professor of Chemistry University of Chicago Single-Atom Skeletal Editing Husband, Dad, Crossword Addict levingroup.uchicago.edu According to at least one colleague: "clinging to the past"

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Mark Levin
Dirk Trauner @dirktrauner.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I am thrilled about the Nobel Prize for Optogenetics! And I’m happy that the Nobel committee correctly portrayed the role Chemistry played in the development of this field: www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2026...
nobelprize.org
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Yes, computers do everything at our company but don't worry, there's always a human reviewer. Nothing goes out the door without one of our highly trained shruggers briefly glancing at it and clicking Approve
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Dustin A. Chacón @lingdustin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this:
Screenshot of a Tweet from Pope Leo XIV. It reads: 

"In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgen to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
theatlantic.com
I’m Calling for a Pause in the Development of the Universal Bone Dissolver
A recent incident has raised my concerns: Last month, the Bone Dissolver unexpectedly dissolved a number of bones.
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Reposted by Mark Levin
Chemjobber @chemjobber.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"And suffering is the peer review of character." Lol
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shenvi.bsky.social @shenvi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
A few folks have asked how I make molecular animations from ChemDraw. Sadly, the answer has been “the old-fashioned way,” frame by frame. This was too slow. So I worked with Claude Science to create a webpage that animates your ChemDraws. Give it a try: rshenvi.github.io/cdxmorph/
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Alexandra Petri @petridishes.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
oh no
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Wow, the butlerian jihad actually makes economic sense, who would have thought
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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 29/09/2026
Reuters got some of the IPO docs. Anthropic is a total dog of a company. Spent $12.6bn to make $4.6bn in revenue in 2025, $7.33bn of which was compute costs. Operating loss of $8bn. Losses getting worse year over year. Amazing stuff www.reuters.com/business/fin...
Summary
Companies
• Anthropic IPO could value the company at more than $2
trillion
• Anthropic lost $42 billion in 2025
• Al lab spent $7.33 billion on compute and infrastructure last year
• Operating loss widened to $8.06 billion in 2025 from $2.98 billion in 2024
• Execs, industry analysts have expressed concerns over harms of Al tech
Sept 28 (Reuters) - Anthropic is making a massive bet that Al will transform the global economy more profoundly than industrialization, electricity and the internet, according to its IPO prospectus seen by Reuters.
But the cost to get there will be staggering. Anthropic reported a net loss of $42 billion in 2025, and plans to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in coming year, according to the
prospectus.
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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
👀 Florida attorney general to OpenAI: (www.myfloridalegal.com/sites/defaul...)
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C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) @cenmag.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A new atom-swapping reaction gives chemists a versatile tool for replacing aromatic carbons with nitrogen in complex molecules. The atomic switcheroo will help drugmakers explore how pharmaceutical leads and natural products respond to tiny structural tweaks known as skeletal editing. #chemsky 🧪
cen.acs.org
Skeletal-editing ‘dream’ realized
Second-generation C-to-N swap turns the first generation’s failure into a feature
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Anyone willing to replace students with tokens doesn't understand what it is universities do and probably should never have been allowed to have students to begin with
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The humanities have been calling out genAI theft since the jump, while STEM has rallied around “discovery potential”. I am *ONCE AGAIN* reminding EVERYONE that science is not the sacred cow, STEM isn’t the exception. They are going to steal our IP, too. We aren’t special.
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Kevin A. Scott, PhD @sculpturatus.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
man it's been a wild year so far. lots of approvals including many first in class.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 27/09/2026
Ignore for a moment the question about whether Anthropic trains on user sessions. I am I right in reading this as saying that Anthropic's "never-before-discovered" reverse transcriptase was *patented* three years ago?
Dr. Mestre first encountered the enzymes in jumbo phages in 2022 while searching for new reverse transcriptases. He worked briefly as a consultant for ReNegade Therapeutics, which filed a patent in 2023 on a number of reverse transcriptases, including the ones Dr. Mestre found. He is listed as a co-inventor on the patent filing.
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Overheard at C&EN @censays.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"Why are people so fascinated with skeletal editing?" "Halloween is coming up"
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Matt Hartings @matthartings.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The New ACS/ACS Pubs website is driving me batty I don’t have enough hair to keep pulling out. chemchat chemsky
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Bri Barbu @bribarbu.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Can I use my work card to buy a skeleton outfit for the Phoebe Bridgers concert next week if I then use it to make a video about skeletal editing? (For legal reasons this is a joke! I use work funds responsibly!)
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I would be more sympathetic to this angle if it wasn't impossible to use the meeting agenda app
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
😢 But Scott, I am only speaking in award symposia - it's not like you have to worry about where to slot me in!
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Dave Palmer @davepalmerusask.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Or they should be genuinely abstract
static.klipy.com
Jackson Pollock Drip Painting
Alt: Jackson Pollock Drip Painting
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I am not doing them any favors
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Hot take: ACS talks in invited sessions should not have titles and abstracts
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Bethany Halford @bethanyhalford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This skeletal editing reaction from @levinchem.bsky.social looks simple on its surface, but the overall transformation is incredibly complex. My latest for @cenmag.bsky.social cen.acs.org/synthesis/sk...
cen.acs.org
Skeletal-editing ‘dream’ realized
Second-generation C-to-N swap turns the first generation’s failure into a feature
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Thanks @bethanyhalford.bsky.social for this wonderful write-up about our work! cen.acs.org/synthesis/sk...
cen.acs.org
Skeletal-editing ‘dream’ realized
Second-generation C-to-N swap turns the first generation’s failure into a feature
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Now online @science.org! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Embracing triplet nitrenes for C-to-N replacement of complex bicyclic (hetero)aryl azides
Despite recent proof-of-concept advances, aromatic carbon-to-nitrogen replacement reactions remain substrate specific and exhibit an overreliance on harsh oxidation methods that preclude their deploym...
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Yeah - I am hoping they magically show up tomorrow or something
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
🥳🥳🥳🥳 Does that mean they're back on the RSS too? 👀
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Applications to the UChicago PhD program are open! chemistry.uchicago.edu/graduate-pro... Please check out the information sessions too - anyone who *registers* *and* *attends* an info session will get a fee waiver code sent to them after the session!
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Brendan @chemscrapes.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This one was worth doing up. The rejection scene from JACS and the beanstalk. @jacs.acspublications.org @pubs.acs.org @acs.org #chemchat
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Mary Lewis @profmarylewis.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Excellent oped in @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social by my @harvard.edu colleague Jill Lepore. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
But of course, the machine conversation is not free. It comes at the cost of our common life together as teachers, learners, and researchers, colleagues, mentors, and friends. Not to mention, supervising student researchers is our job.
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Benjamin Tausig @burrata.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Hi! I'm a university president, seeking advice about AI. On one hand, AI actively guts education and might kill everyone. But on the other hand, taking money from AI companies means becoming dependent on an industry that could crash at any moment. So should we go all in?
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I don't want to over-apply econ 101, but I can think of one policy for managing industries with negative externalities: 👏🏻To👏🏻ken 👏🏻Tax👏🏻es (👏🏻And 👏🏻Li👏🏻a👏🏻bil👏🏻i👏🏻ty)
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Breaking: Judge Saylor postpones the DHS rule terminating duration of status (i.e. restricting international students to 4 years) a day before it would have taken effect. He denies the request to vacate the rule itself at this time, though. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, plaintiffs’ motion for APA § 705 relief, a preliminary
injunction, or, in the alternative, summary judgment, is GRANTED to the extent that it seeks to
postpone the effective date of the Final Rule pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, 5
U.S.C. § 705. To the extent that plaintiffs seek vacatur of the Final Rule, summary judgment, or
other relief, the motion is DENIED without prejudice to its renewal.
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 12/09/2026
The US President's new proposal to tax international students has been approved by the White House for release this week. It's an unprecedented $100,000 tax on int'l grads who stay to work after graduation on Optional Practical Training (most grads do), a crucial bridge to remaining by any channel.
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Quantian @quantian.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Dancing very very VERY close to saying “OpenAI stole our almost-complete proof of Navier-Stokes from internal access to our ChatGPT sessions because they were desperate to scoop Anthropic” which is absolutely 100% a believable thing OpenAI would do right now cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/st...
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I think something along the lines of how I was introduced to Scifinder in undergrad is appropriate for LLMs - as part of a unit in an advanced lab course, once fundamentals are built. But to be clear - I think mainlining tools that discourage thinking into all classes is a huge mistake.
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
This is a little silly - not every class and curriculum changes in response to the way that industries work. Our students should have some familiarity with the technology, sure, but not at the expense of the intellectual integrity of the course.
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
My department is searching at the assistant level across all areas of chemistry - come be my colleague! academicjobs.uchicago.edu/positions/19...
academicjobs.uchicago.edu
Academic Jobs | The University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private, nondenominational, culturally rich and ethnically diverse coeducational research university located in Hyde Park, Chicago.
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I don't think it's impossible to learn using an LLM, but I do think for students that the hazard of using them instead of thinking generally outweighs the likelihood they might serve a genuine explanatory function
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I have actually found some small uses in research, but they all require the expertise I am bringing to the task, which can't be developed if you skip the hard work of learning. I think we have to have a firm line for LLMs between the two realms of the university
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Ack I see that now, I totally missed it!
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
In addition to student expectations, I have a separate statement in my syllabus where I outline that *I* don't use LLMs to create any of the content for the class. Not sure if it matters but I figure it shows some degree of respect for their intellectual engagement if I do the same.
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
More broadly, as a student, every technology-forward, supposedly innovative educational experience I endured was either deeply patronizing, useless, or both. (I am glad clickers are mostly dead.) Screens are bad, actually!
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I have yet to see a version of the "test both" argument that actually explains what the "with-AI" part is testing or teaching people. These technologies are easy to use, and the key skills required to use them properly are atrophied by their use.
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I’m a Dartmouth professor. Pres. Beilock implies in this piece that she speaks for us as a college. She does not. I don’t permit AI in my classroom. Not because it stole my work; because as I wrote in @chronicle.com, most of my students hate it—and feel betrayed by the college—even more than I do.
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Matt ”read the syllabus” L @matt18l.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I remember when the first web browsers came out (yes, I'm that old). They early ones were not that useful but the potential of the world wide web was easy to grasp. It was fun to use them and see where the possibilities were for HTML. I get no sense of the same possibilities from AI.
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Jonathan Rosenblum @jsrosenblum.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
lots of good book ideas around imatinib. 1. Discovery of the drug& Philadelphia chromosome --> deadly disease now chronic condition 🎉 2. How the amazing efficacy of the first clinically useful kinase inhibitor led to vast sums of time/money developing mostly barely useful kinase inhibitors 😰
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
That doesn't work either - if the marginal 1 GW data center only gives an hour of value then it's a bad investment, considering how much they cost
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Mark Levin @levinchem.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Sorry, but this part doesn't pass the sniff test - if this were true, they wouldn't be building the data centers!
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