What synthesis actually is?

I realized as we were labeling our final products, that since establishing my research group about 10 years ago, we have produced over 200 final compounds in total. 

200 compounds in 10 years may not sound a lot, only 20 per year, and 1.6 per month, but usually one compounds involves several synthetic steps and in most cases each step needs to be optimized, which means find the right temperature, solvents and other incredients, just like making a perfect cake. And then each intermediate needs to be purified that is isolated from the unreacted reagents and side products. So in that sense 1.6 per month is a pretty nice result.

Each intermediate and final compound needs also be characterized at least with NMR, but also with mass spectrometry, to make sure we really have the right compound in hands. That means a lot of information, and before we started to do everything electronically, I collected everything in these files (below)... 😂 Thanks for COVID-19, we got some sense with this issue! But anyway, I think we should have celebrated our 200, once we received it! Well, perhaps, later! Thank you chemists and non-chemists for your hard work!