William Doub, Ph.D.

William Doub studied analytical chemistry, electrochemistry, and bioinorganic chemistry in graduate school. Now he uses these skills at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to continue doing just what he loves most—research! He develops methods for in vitro characterization of inhalation drug products.

“There are multiple purposes for in vitro characterization: 1) to provide evidence that all batches of a particular product meet appropriate specifications; 2) to enable correlation between in vitro and in vivo (i.e., clinical) results; 3) to offer rapid explanation (and possible remedies) for product failures,” Doub says. “The impetus for doing in vitro testing is that it is more precise and much less expensive than is in vivo testing.”

Doub credits ACS most for the networking opportunities that membership provides.

Typical day on the job:

• General email: 5%
• Mission-specific email: 2-3%, although some "general" email would qualify as mission specific, because part of my mission is to evaluate new technology that might be applied to the analysis of drug products (specifically, but not limited to, inhalation products).
• Literature review: 25%
• Planning research studies: 25%
• Writing reports, manuscripts, posters: 10%
• Directing research studies: 20%
• Meetings/Training: 10%

Every day is unique. I have other duties, such as assisting other chemists to write requisitions for new instrumentation that, at times, can take 50-70% of my day.

Work environment:

I have my own office with a laptop PC and tablet PC (for instrumentation network), two monitors (one switchable between the two PCs), a document scanner, a VOIP phone, and the lab equipment listed above.

Work schedule:

Including work at home, I work 50-60 hours per week. The environment is fairly relaxed.

Tools you can’t live without:

• Software: Word, Excel, Acrobat, JMP, PowerPoint.
• Instrumentation: Various instruments for particle size determination (LLS, PDA, PCS, impaction); specialized instrumentation for characterization of aerosol plumes; HPLC, HPLC-MS

Best productivity trick:

Focus!

Skills or talents that make you a good fit for your job:

I am very organized.

Essential habit you wish you’d started earlier:

I wish I had studied more statistical data treatment so as to better understand the significance of differing results for altered samples and results obtained from different methods.

Favorite ACS resource:

ACS journals.