The People v. Professor Harran

[@Porschedoctor1]

During my time at UCLA Chemistry in the 1970's, we had two horrendous accidents in the same lab. One accident, the graduate student was so over confident that he could do no wrong that added 30% H2O2 to a reaction in THF at -78 deg C (a big NO-NO). Upon warming the reaction mixture to RT, it exploded and severed an artery in his arm. He ran around spraying blood everywhere; the lab looked liked a slaughterhouse. He survived, but was never the same afterwards. The second accident, a graduate student turned the wrong vacuum stopcock while working with diborane. The entire vacuum manifold exploded. He was standing less than 1-2 feet from the exploded vacuum manifold and did not wear any googles. Miraculously, he did not have a scratch on him, while the glass vacuum manifold disintegrated into small shards. Earlier, two postdocs working with a well known UCLA organic professor died while working with a neurotoxin. The second death occurred while the postdoc was repeating the work of his predecessor. No charges were ever filed against the professor, who died shortly after by drowning in his backyard pool.

[@NoOne3234]

If she had been a fourth year grad student, I would be sympathetic towards Harran. Things happen and it's not necessarily the PI's fault... When I read that Sangji was fresh from undergrad and was in her 2nd month of working for Harran, my sympathy for him completely evaporated. It was his responsibility to make sure that she was trained properly before she did something that dangerous.

[@hexadecimal5236]

If the professor is convicted the regents and the entire leadership of the university should be convicted as well, she was a Ph.D CHEMIST, why was the chemical outside of the fire-hood? THAT is against Lab procedure.

[@anlail2090]

"Sangji was a new hire who suffered third-degree burns to almost half of her body when working unsupervised with t-butyl lithium in the organic chemistry lab of Patrick Harran. She had been using a 60ml plastic syringe with a 1.5 inch needle on the end that was too short to reach to the bottom of the bottle containing the pyrophoric solution, and there was an open flask of hexanes nearby. The material caught fire when the plunger somehow came out of the barrel, and Sangji was not wearing a lab coat. Her family argued that she had received improper training, equipment, and supervision, and that she was carrying out Harran’s irresponsible orders." A new hire who apparently didn't look into the approved safety procedure while working with a highly volatile substances, which is against lab procedure. Why was she working with flammable substances without fire resistent clothing? that is against lab procedure. She shouldn't even be there without a fire resistent lab coat on while there are flammable chemicals present (which can be argued that it's the professors fault, on the other hand a fire resistent lab coat is around 30-40 euro's here in europe so why not buy one yourself...?). Besides there is also this discussion on ChemBark fora; "Another favorite chemistry blog, Chembark, reminds us Harran isn’t the only one at fault here. The state noted that UCLA had been lax in enforcing and promoting safety guidelines. And Sangji herself, even if poorly trained, could have taken better precautions in working with a dangerous compound." Especially when "She had been using a 60ml plastic syringe with a 1.5 inch needle on the end that was too short to reach to the bottom of the bottle" I'm sorry... Plastic for a highly flammable chemical that burns in presence of oxygen? using a syringe that you can pull apart, allowing air (read oxygen) to come in contact with a highly flammable substance that spontaneously and aggressively ignites in contact with oxygen? Not working in a confined space with ventilation or an approved fire hood? "and there was an open flask of hexanes nearby" An open flask with a flammable, quickly evaporating substance nearby?!!!! Why are there even open flasks nearby? once again, that is against lab procedure. And that's not even talking about flammable evaporating substances. In my opinion professor Harran shouldn't have been allowed to keep his job (I mean no fire resistent clothing while working with flammable substances!?? cmon that alone should have him fired). On the other hand, Sangji should not have been allowed acces to the lab without fire resistent clothing, something which she she should've have checked herself (and which also had to have been checked by other people then just the head of the lab itself). She also had the possibility to buy a fire resistant lab coat if she would've checked the coats present. She wasn't working in a ventilated space using the wrong equipment without checking proper procedure for the chemical in question. I'm sorry but even though this professor seems like a real asshole and should've been fired, this isn't just his fault. Those warning on the label aren't there for nothing and Sangji should've noted and investigated them. The UCLA and Harren should've done a better job, but you can't just simply point towards Harren and say it's all his fault.

[@ImmortalKat4ever]

If she had performed this experiment before, this chick clearly knew what she was doing, and the screw-up was just that, a screw-up. Not necessarily her fault, but not her professor's

[@gdu370]

scapegoats should be racial diverse