Jaws up close

Posted on 18 Aug 2014 by Stuart Cantrill

Posted on behalf of Leonie Mueck, Associate Editor, Nature.

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In Jaws up close, I highlighted an article from a group of researchers led by Zhongchang Wang at Tohoku University on a new electron microscopy technique that achieved atomic resolution of the fluoroapatite structure in shark teeth without damaging the sample. A technical comment has now been published, which refutes the proposed bonding situation in fluoroapatite. On the basis of density functional theory calculations, Wang et al. had claimed that the Ca-F bond in fluoroapatite is covalent, which could be crucial in understanding why shark teeth are so healthy.

Based on further calculations and bonding analysis, Antti Karttunen from Aalto University, Finland, and Florian Kraus, from Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany, now show in their comment that this conclusion is unsubstantiated. Rather, the Ca-F bond should be seen as ionic which rules out its strengthening function in shark teeth.

Speaking Frankly: Sanger’s legacy

Posted on 21 Nov 2013 by Stuart Cantrill

Editor’s note: Frank Leibfarth is a postdoc who is trying to make his way through the academic maze. Find him contributing to the Sceptical Chymist or continue the conversation on Twitter @Frank_Leibfarth.

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Frederick Sanger, the British biochemist and two-time Nobel laureate, died this week at the age of 95. He holds the distinction of being the only individual to win two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and one of only four people to win two Nobel prizes in any field; an honour he shares with John Bardeen, Marie Curie, and Linus Pauling.

Sanger took a fundamentally chemical approach to solve complex problems in molecular biology and genetics. Early on he became interested in the structure and sequence of biopolymers, which led him to study and eventually fully sequence the protein insulin. This feat of ingenuity, chemistry, and spectroscopy led to his first Nobel Prize awarded in 1958. Soon after, he moved from the University of Cambridge to the British Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, where he studied with a slew of young, ambitious, and talented scientists including the likes of Max Perutz and Francis Crick.

Here, Sanger began his work on developing a method to sequence deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, the alphabet of heredity. His success in this field, culminating in the development of the ‘Sanger method’ for sequencing DNA, was one of the most important scientific feats of the last century. Originally employed for sequencing the complete genome of a virus and then human mitochondria, the Sanger method would eventually be the primary technology used to complete the sequencing of the entire human genome. Sanger shared his second Nobel Prize in 1980 for his work on sequencing DNA, only three years before his retirement from scientific research in 1983.

Sanger’s legacy will not be one of excess. Despite his groundbreaking contributions, he only published around 100 research articles. The quality of his work is undeniable; each of his publications has been cited an average of almost 1000 times. A commentary penned by Sanger in 2001 provides a rare glimpse into his research philosophies. He worked at the bench throughout his career, preferring to do experiments himself than plan them for others. Furthermore, he mentions the importance of interacting with scientists outside his discipline, “who were interested not only in what they were doing but also in other people’s work and keen to exchange ideas.”

Although Sanger won awards for his landmark discoveries, an underappreciated facet of his contributions was the technology he created to make these discoveries possible. He was primarily interested in developing simple, scalable, and reproducible chemical techniques to sequence these biopolymers. As a result, Sanger’s legacy extends far beyond the sequencing of the amino acids in insulin or the genetic code of mitochondria. His user-friendly methods have been adopted by scientists around the globe and are indirectly responsible for much of our advances in modern medicine.

Sanger’s scientific career ended more than three decades ago, but in many ways he is a model for the next generation of chemists. The day-to-day work in his lab consisted of fundamental chemical investigations of the structure of biopolymers; breaking them down, reconstructing them, and developing analytical methods to see how and where bonds broke and reformed. From a broader perspective, however, Sanger can be rightfully credited with being a founding member of the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a seemingly far cry from ‘traditional’ chemical disciplines. So while some would argue that chemistry is a mature discipline, I contend that well-trained chemists are only scratching the surface of their potential.

There are surely many grand challenges within the discipline, but chemists are broadly trained to be able to make molecules, understand their bonding properties, and connect their structure to function. If elucidating the primary structure of proteins and DNA revolutionized biochemistry in the 20th century, could understanding the structure, interactions, and dynamics of the cell membrane or extracellular matrix do the same in the 21st century? Problems of structure and bonding will always require the skills of a chemist to solve and Sanger recognized that in the 1940s. He has shown us the roadmap, now we only have to follow it.

Teaching the art of guessing

Posted on 30 Aug 2013 by Stuart Cantrill

This is a guest post from one of our regular Thesis columnists Michelle Francl, who recently penned a Thesis article ($) about back-of-the-envelope calculations (illustrated with one of Michelle’s own calculations done, of course, on the back of an envelope!).

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Guessing wisely got me my Ph.D., I joke with my general chemistry students. They are horrified, confusing ‘guessing’ with ‘making up a number’. When I explain that guessing in this context is the art of making meaningful estimates of chemical quantities with incomplete information under less than ideal circumstances — for example, in the middle of your doctoral defense or on a general chemistry midterm — and that I expect them to master this arcane art, they are generally even more horrified.

Estimation of chemical quantities is, in my opinion, one of the most important skills a chemist can have. It is also one that my students are simultaneously skeptical of — why not just use a search engine to find the ‘real’ value or crunch numbers to 8 decimal places in your calculator — and intimidated by (I probably don’t help by telling this story about Fermi).

Standing at the board, muttering under my breath and scratching seemingly unconnected numbers and symbols here and there is unlikely to relieve the impression that estimation is black magic, but it makes the point that there is an underlying process, and provides a visual map that can be annotated. Where did I get that value for a bond length, why do I use 3 for pi?

I emphasize the need to gather a tool kit of anchor points (key chemical values) and maps (relationships between quantities) and provide examples. Here is the handout (pdf) I just posted for the fall semester physical chemistry class (covering quantum chemistry), with a map of the electromagnetic spectrum, annotated with anchor points I find helpful. More anchors and constants (hacked off to just one significant figure) are on the back.

This is obviously not the only map and set of anchor points that chemists need. Eugene Douglass and Chad Miller, doctoral students at Yale, have begun a collection of maps at Practically Science. And of course there are Benson and Buss’ rules for estimating thermochemical values. (Chemical trivia — Jerry Buss was the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers).

It would be a fascinating exercise to create an atlas of the chemical world, a collection of maps and anchor points for various subdisciplines. What maps would you include?

Naming radon — and the lessons of protactinium

Posted on 22 Aug 2013 by Stuart Cantrill

Posted on behalf of Brett Thornton and Shawn Burdette, who have penned the In Your Element article about radon in our September issue – Stuart

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Late in 2012, we were preparing what became the Nature Chemistry Thesis article The Ends of Elements, looking at both the history and the future of the suffixes on element names¹. Chemists know (or implicitly know) that the -on in radon has a meaning: ‘noble gas’, just as the -ine in ‘astatine’ means ‘halogen’. While considering the details of the suffixes, we realized that there was rather a lot to say about how radon came to be named — it took decades for the element to be named radon.

The quirkiness of how radon was named became the radon In Your Element essay. In this blog post, we want to expand a bit on some things that did not fit in the short IYE piece. Like in the IYE article, we concentrate here on linguistics. Readers wishing to know more about the history of radon can find a number of excellent articles elsewhere^2-5.

As we dug into the history of radon’s name, one thing that immediately popped out was the name thoron. Thoron (the ²²⁰Rn isotope), is relatively frequently mentioned in journals today. That’s more than slightly curious, because named isotopes are an artifact of the early 1900s, when the radioactive decay series were leading to names like ‘radium c-double-prime’ instead of the svelte ‘²¹⁰Tl’ we’d use today. Today we’ve all but abandoned isotope names in favour of numbers. But thoron still exists in active use today — why?

We noticed something else odd about radon: phrases like ‘radon and thoron’ and ‘radon (²²²Rn) is a…’ are common — but aren’t these phrases a bit odd? To be clear: these phrases exist because radon has two meanings. Radon is both the element and the mass-222 isotope. So it is necessary to distinguish which you are talking about!

Double-definitions seem sloppy; why would chemists choose such a nomenclature? Actually, for many decades, the 86th element had another name: emanation, with the symbol ‘Em’. At that time, radon was only the mass-222 isotope: the isotope which came from radium. There was confusion early on: radon’s original (1899) name was emanation⁶, yet even in 1930, the name ‘emanation’ was described as ‘a general term for elements of atomic number 86’⁷. That’s our emphasis on the word ‘elements’. In modern parlance we’d say isotopes of atomic number 86.

By the late 1940s, when Walen reported the fourth natural isotope of radon⁸, many isotopes of many elements were known, and attempts to name them all had been abandoned.

If one counts the isotope names given the three early-discovered natural isotopes, element 86 has had many different names: ²²²Rn has been called radium emanation (RaEm), exradio, niton (Nt)⁹, radeon, radioneon, radon (Ro)¹⁰, radion, and radon (Rn)¹¹. ²²⁰Rn has been called thorium emanation (ThEm), exthorio, thoreon, thoron (To)¹⁰, and thoron (Tn)¹¹. ²¹⁹Rn has been called actinium emanation (AcEm), exactinio, actineon, akton (Ao)¹⁰, acton, and actinon (An)¹¹. Finally, the element has been called emanation (Em), emanon, and radon (Rn). That’s a lot of names for one element. By the mid-20th century, emanation was sometimes used for the element, though radon was more common, and most likely to appear on periodic tables.

But why didn’t IUPAC choose Rutherford’s emanation over radon? Were they following the herd of chemists and periodic-table designers, or was there something else to it?

It appears that the decision to back ‘radon’ parallels Kasimir Fajan’s disavowing of his own proposed name brevium in favour¹² of protactinium for element 91. Fajans and Oswald Göhring had discovered brevium in 1913¹³. Brevium (^234mPa) has a short half-life of 1.17 minutes. When Soddy and Cranston, and Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner independently discovered the 32,000 year half-life protactinium (²³¹Pa) five years later^14,15 , and brevium was shown to be the same element, Fajans pushed the idea that the longest-lived isotope should be the name of the element. Fajans lived to see a problem with this, six decades later: one of his last published works was a defense of his priority in the discovery of protactinium¹⁶. History had begun to forget that ‘brevium’ was actually protactinium, and discovery priority was sometimes being assigned to the later discoverers of the longer-lived isotope.

Precisely the same thing happened to Rutherford and Owen’s discovery of thoron³, when the later-discovered radon became the name of the element. Overlooking that Rutherford was first, albeit with a shorter-lived isotope, seems likely due to these linguistic twists.

William Ramsay’s role in this story emphasizes his unique place in the discovery and naming of elements — he named neon, argon, krypton and xenon. (Sometimes the names were suggested to him by others). His seemingly peculiar –io suffix suggestion for radon’s isotopes made perfect sense in 1904. The three radioactive ‘emanations’ were like no elements seem before. Fresh from the discoveries of the lighter noble gases, and his successful lobbying for -on names for them, Ramsay saw the opportunity to define a new group of elements. It is interesting that his later niton suggestion was only for radium emanation. Likely, this was due to radium emanation being much easier to work with than thorium emanation or actinium emanation. The appearance of Ramsay’s niton on tables of atomic weights¹⁷ before Soddy coined the term isotopes¹⁸ and before Moseley’s revealing of atomic numbers likely set in motion the sequence that eventually led to ‘radon’ being elevated from isotope to element.

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that emanation (or emanon, to maintain a more noble-gas sound) was the better name. Emanation follows Paneth’s influential 1947 guidelines for naming elements, which called for discoverer-priority in naming¹⁹. These guidelines were largely adopted by IUPAC later. Why radon was preferred over emanation remains somewhat unclear, though Fajan’s opinion was well regarded, and seems to have solidified the idea that longest-lived isotope names become element names (this rule was rarely invoked — it appears that protactinium and radon are the only examples). But brevium was cast aside relatively quickly; ‘radon’ existed for decades as only an isotope name before assuming its present dual role. Despite IUPAC’s guidelines, the literature is clear that radon is still used today to mean both the element and the isotope. The change from emanation to radon did not happen overnight; many papers were published still using ‘emanation’ through the 1960s, with some prominent workers and journals abandoning ‘emanation’ quite late^20,21.

With and without IUPAC’s approval, there are now two elements on the periodic table with named isotopes in ‘active use’ in the scientific and common literature: hydrogen and radon. Interestingly, naming the hydrogen-2 isotope deuterium was the subject of another Nature Chemistry IYE essay²². One can’t expect the confusion about radon — element or isotope — to disappear, but it is interesting where the present situation originated from.

BRETT F. THORNTON¹ and SHAWN C. BURDETTE² are in ¹Department of Geological Sciences (IGV) and Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden; ²Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts 01609-2280, USA.
e-mail: brett.thornton@geo.su.se; scburdette@WPI.EDU

References

1. Thornton, B. F. & Burdette, S. C. Nature Chem. 5, 350–352 (2013). [LINK]
2. Kolar, Z. I. Czech. J. Phys. 49, 43–56 (1999). [LINK]
3. Marshall, J. L. & Marshall, V. R. Bull. Hist. Chem. 76–83 (2003). [PDF LINK]
4. Rayner-Canham, M. F. & Rayner-Canham, G. W. Bull. Hist. Chem. 89–90 (2004). [LINK to Bulletin website]
5. Giralt, F., Etude des flux de dioxyde de carbone et de radon dans l’Himalaya du Népal, Ph.D. thesis, Paris Diderot University (Paris VII), (2011).
6. Rutherford, E. & Owens, R. B. Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada 2, 9–12 (1899). [LINK to R. Soc. Can. page]
7. Curie, M. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 53, 2437–2450 (1931). [LINK]
8. Walen, R. C. R. Acad. Sci. 227, 1090–1092 (1948).
9. Ramsay, W. & Gray, R. W. C. R. Acad. Sci. 151, 126–128 (1910).
10. Schmidt, C. Z. Anorg. Allg. Chem. 103, 79–118 (1918). [LINK]
11. Adams, E. Q. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 42, 2205–2208 (1920). [LINK]
12. Fajans, K. Radioaktivität und die Neueste Entwiklung der Lehre von den Chemischen Elementen. (Vieweg, 1919).
13. Fajans, K. & Göhring, O. Naturwissenschaften 1, 339 (1913). [LINK]
14. Soddy, F. & Cranston, J. A. Proc. R. Soc. A 94, 384 (1918). [LINK]
15. Hahn, O. & Meitner, L. Physik. Z. 19, 208 (1918).
16. Fajans, K. & Morris, D. F. C. Nature 244, 137–138 (1973). [LINK]
17. Clarke, F., Thorpe, T., Ostwald, W. & Urbain, G. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 33, 1639–1642 (1911). [LINK]
18. Soddy, F. W. Nature 92, 399–400 (1913). [LINK]
19. Paneth, F. A. Nature 159, 8–10 (1947). [LINK]
20. Valli, K., Nurmia, M. J. & Hyde, E. K. Phys. Rev. 159, 1013–1021 (1967). [LINK]
21. Valli, K., Treytl, W. J. & Hyde, E. K. Phys. Rev. 167, 1094–1104 (1968). [LINK]
22. O’Leary, D. Nature Chem. 4, 236–236 (2012). [LINK]

The birthplace of free radicals

Posted on 23 Jul 2013 by Stuart Cantrill

Editor’s note: this is a guest blog post from Thomas Tidwell, who penned the Thesis article ($) that appears in the August 2013 issue of Nature Chemistry.

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Thomas P. Blunt. Photo courtesy of Jeanette Jerome, the great granddaughter of Thomas P. Blunt

The town of Shrewsbury in Shopshire, England, has a rich scientific history. It was the birthplace of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), who was the son of the medical doctor Robert Darwin (1766-1848). A contemporary of the elder Darwin in Shrewsbury was the pharmacist Thomas Blunt, who corresponded with the Darwins, and assisted Robert in his work by supplying him with distilled water. Letters can be found online in the Darwin Correspondence Project (direct correspondence can be found here and here; other Darwin letters mentioning Blunt can be found here, here and here).

Blunt’s son, Thomas Porter Blunt, pursued a career in public health, and in the 1870s began a collaboration with another Shrewsbury resident, Arthur Downes, on the effects of sunlight on chemical substances, including chlorine and hydrogen peroxide. As recounted in the Nature Chemistry article, this led to a prescient proposal in 1879 that the absorption of light cleaved these molecules into pairs of radicals — an astonishing discovery that accurately anticipates the current understanding of these reactions. The significance of this discovery eluded contemporaries of Downes and Blunt, and did not elicit comment from leading scientists even though it was published in a leading journal. Jamieson in Australia did criticize some of the work on technical grounds, provoking a strong rebuttal from Downes and Blunt, but this did not prompt any further interest.

In 1903, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to the Dane Niels Finsen for the study of the medical benefits of light, and Downes and Blunt were cited in the Nobel address. Downes was later knighted and both he and Blunt had distinguished careers in public health, but their proposal for the formation of free radicals was almost completely forgotten.

One of the best-remembered discoveries in the history of organic chemistry is the preparation in 1900 by Moses Gomberg of the triphenylmethyl radical — and its reversible dimerization — which was widely commemorated on its centennial in 2000. Interestingly, an incorrect symmetrical structure became accepted for the dimer, and was only corrected many years later: H. Lankamp, W. Th. Nauta, C. MacLean Tetrahedron Lett. 9, 249–254 (1968) and J. M. McBride Tetrahedron 30, 2009–2022 (1974).

Photo courtesy of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge

The discovery made by Downes and Blunt preceded Gomberg’s work by two decades and the building which housed the Blunt pharmacy where some of the work was conducted still stands in Shrewsbury — as such, it should be recognized as the birthplace of the free radical chemistry. An 1889 photograph of the pharmacy (shown left), with the Blunt name displayed in the window, can be found here (scroll down) and today it is a listed building. The importance of free radical chemistry in human health is being increasingly recognized, and it is fitting that free radicals were first identified by public health workers.

Note: much more information about Thomas P. Blunt and his family can be found on this website.

Post updated on July 25th to include an additional photo; post updated August 5th to amend the caption to the photo of the Blunt pharmacy.

Letters from Lindau: Day 6, the finale!

Posted on 09 Jul 2013 by Stuart Cantrill

Editor’s note: Anthea Blackburn is a graduate student based in the US who is attending the 63rd Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates (this year dedicated to chemistry) in Germany. Anthea is writing daily blog posts from the meeting for the Sceptical Chymist. Posts from days 5 and 6 are being posted a little late, sorry for the delay.

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Well, the 63rd Lindau Meeting is officially over. And what a final day it was.

Photo courtesy of Anthea Blackburn

We spent the day on Mainau, an island owned by the Bernadotte Family (descendants of former princes of Sweden), who are also the instigators and organisers of the Lindau Meetings. It was fitting that we spent time on the island, considering the discussions on sustainable chemistry that we have had during the week, as it is maintained as a garden island and a model of excellent environmental practices.

We began the day (again, very early) on boat — dedicated to Countess Bernadotte — travelling from Lindau to Mainau Island. This ride gave us more chances to speak to the Laureates. One of the speakers earlier in the week likened the Laureates to dark matter in that you can’t actually see the Laureates themselves, just a halo of students around them, queuing for autographs and photos. As an observer from a higher deck of the boat, I can conclude that this analogy is definitely true!

We started off our final day of sessions with a panel discussion with José Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his work to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor, and Gunnar Stålsett, Member of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee and Bishop Emeritus of Oslo. This was a particularly impassioned discussion on the challenges to peace and justice in the 21st century, with some emphasis on the role of science in these challenges, both in positive and negative ways. It is the responsibility of scientists to help bring society closer to peace and justice when it comes to the environment and health issues, but in order to do this, we need to speak the same language — across educational, social and generational divides. Ramos-Horta commented that many of the issues the world is facing today stem from science. Without the discovery and development of weapons and equipment of torture, many of the wars, past and present, would not have reached the level that they have.

This was a particularly sobering thought that, somewhat embarrassingly, had never before crossed my mind, but one that we as scientists need to be mindful of. Of course, the large majority of the research that we embark on does not stem from a desire to introduce more evil into the world, and we should continue to carry out research amorally and not hinder progress, but when considering the applications of our work, we should most definitely begin to reflect on the moral implications of our successes. This discussion was much different to those of the rest of the week, but I, personally, believe that it may have been one of the most humbling. We heard from two societal figures that have seen firsthand the issues of our time, not only about how we as a society can help to fight for equality, but how scientists can begin to play a role in this endeavour.

The final session of the meeting was a second panel discussion on green chemistry, between Steven Chu, Mario Molina, and Michael Braungart, Founder of the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency, EPEA. This quickly became a somewhat heated debate, with much (I’m slightly ashamed to say, enjoyable) back and forth between the two Laureates and Braungart. Many good points were made between both sides of the discussion, albeit some a little strange — ‘effectiveness, instead of efficiency’? I’m not sure we should choose between the two, or if there is a difference. Regardless the overall theme was that there have often been unintended consequences from chemical advancements, which we need to look back at to see what went wrong and how we can fix them. Furthermore, there are a number of issues in the world that need to be addressed, and as time is of the essence, we need to address them simultaneously.

The meeting was concluded at the Mainau Palace, the place where the concept of the Lindau Meetings was turned into a reality. It was a somewhat somber ending to the occasion, but this is somewhat to be expected as the imminent end of such an incredible event came and went. Of course the extreme heat may have also had something to do with it…

So, the 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting has unfortunately come to an end. I think that this may have been, hands down, one of the most educational, incredible, exciting, fulfilling, inspiring, words-can-barely-describe, insert-adjective-here, weeks of my life thus far. Not only was I able to learn about Nobel Prize-worthy research and how it came about, I was able to hear it from the people who carried out the research. I was able to meet new people and friends who share the same enthusiasm for science as myself, and who have the same interests in spreading this enthusiasm with those around us. I was able to take part in intelligent discussions regarding the issues of our generation of young scientists, and how we can go about resolving them for not only ourselves, but for future generations. And I was able to see the Nobel Laureates as real people, and not only the superstars they are — they fall asleep in lectures too and even play on their phones occasionally, they are 100 % in support of each other’s successes, they dislike having their photos taken as much as anyone else, they get nervous when presenting on stage and they’re more than happy to joke about it.

I gained a lot of advice from those who have made science their livelihoods, which I have mentioned throughout my musings over the past week, but I summarise them for you here:

– Never leave bench work to ensure your research remains exciting and fun;
– Take every opportunity to share your research, both with those in science and those who are not;
– Stand by the PIs in group photos. That way if the work wins a Nobel Prize you will remain in the award photo shown in Stockholm;
– Make sure the fonts on your presentation slides are big enough. But not too big;
– Steal the techniques of presenters you like;
– Sometimes, rather big things in chemistry begin in small corners;
– If you know the results of your research are important, but others disagree, don’t give up. If it’s as important as you believe, everyone else will begin to agree;
– Don’t telegraph that you’re going to tell a joke in a presentation, humour is tricky;
– Have interests outside the lab. They will help you to not only expand your horizons, but will engage other parts of your brain often not accessed in the lab; and
– A Nobel Prize should not be a life goal, but an unexpected surprise.

And my advice for you all? If you are given the opportunity to attend the Lindau Meetings, seize it and do all you can to get there, it will be one of the most inspiring, fulfilling and fun weeks you will have the honour of being a part of!

Letters from Lindau: Day 5

Posted on 08 Jul 2013 by Stuart Cantrill

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Five days down, only one to go. It’s hard to believe that the 63rd Lindau Meeting is almost over.

Photo courtesy of Anthea Blackburn

My day began (very early) with a science breakfast hosted by BASF and attended by a number of the BASF staff, as well as Laureates Mario Molina and Richard Schrock. This breakfast was designed to create dialogue between the students and those who are more advanced in the field. The session used a world café style to answer the question “What do we need to do to improve the state of the world for our grandchildren?” A number of topics were raised throughout the morning, ranging from various scientific approaches with which we can achieve this aim (most stemming from the use of the sun), to how and who we need to educate to begin to help the general public realize the problems we have ahead of us as a society. The thing I found most surprising, however, was that when speaking with a senior member of BASF, he was completely blown away when we suggested the concept of education. Hopefully this isn’t something all chemical industries are unaware of…

The formal talks began with Werner Arber, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978, the ‘oldest’ of the Nobel Prizes present at Lindau this week. Arber took us through a history of development (using his original slides!) in the study of genetic information, and the impact of these scientific advancements on civilization, particularly genetic engineering. This process of inserting or removing parts of a genome from a cell has the potential to create a species that could be beneficial to humankind but, in the short term, we obviously need to consider the pathogenicity and toxicity of the new species that we are creating, both to humans and to the environment. In the long-term, the influence of these species on bio-evolution becomes important, specifically the process of natural selection, which can be affected by the introduction of non-natural species. We, as scientists, need to ensure that when helping to improve civilization, we aren’t forcing evolution too far against the grain of Darwin’s theory.

We continued on a similar theme of conserving the environment with Mario Molina, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995, this time in terms of climate change. Molina built on what was presented in the last few days to further support the fact that society is changing the climate, and talked about the effects that this change is having on the world around us. He stressed that we need to find a way to convince the public that science is a series of observations and facts, not a belief system, and (more importantly) we need to convince politicians to make policies that may help us begin to reverse or halt our relentless damaging of the environment. To make a start on this convincing, we need to ask the right questions — instead of asking whether an environmental event is caused by climate change, we should ask whether the quantity of environmental events have increased with climate change. Furthermore we need to ensure that we, as scientists, as well as those making decisions, look at all the data, and not just that which supports the conclusion we want to present. Science doesn’t tell us what to do, it tells us the facts. We need to rely on our ethical values to help us in deciding what needs to be done. And we can be certain that something needs to be done.

This impassioned presentation was followed by one packed with advice, this time on our future careers in science, from Avram Hershko, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004. Hershko likened his work on the study of protein degradation to that of pulling apart a watch — if you can pull a watch apart, study its components and put it back together such that it works in exactly the same way, you truly understand its function. In this way, it is now known that it is the process of covalent ligation of ubiquitin to proteins that tags the molecule for degradation by enzymes. And the advice provided? Readers take note: have good mentors in important subjects that are not yet interesting to others, otherwise the big guys will beat you to it. Use whatever scientific approaches are required for your objective, regardless of whether they are state-of-the-art. Science should be a curiosity-driven adventure, so never leave benchwork and you will continue to experience fun and adventure. Finally, accidental observations may be the most important ones, so don’t ignore anomalies in your results.

Theodor Hänsch, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005, spoke of lasers next. I have never been too excited about physics; I appreciate its importance in all aspects of my life, but that was about it. Until now. Hänsch showed us the power of animations and a well-thought-out presentation to inspire interest in an audience in a topic that I had never even encountered until now — laser frequency combs. In a nutshell, these are laser setups that combine a set number of laser pulses at specific (and different) frequencies that resonate between two mirrors. As you can imagine, interference occurs, with the resultant wave of light being one with a very controlled periodic wave, which can be used for extremely precise measurements. This sensitive technique has the potential to generate and improve a number of techniques, some of which are even chemistry-related, such as Fourier transform spectroscopy, and may also help us to figure out whether fundamental constants are actually constant. And how did I become so interested in this phenomenon? The animations! There is no better way to understand a new concept than through watching a pretty movie on the screen. Hopefully that doesn’t make me sound too shallow!

The next talk was from Alex Müller, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1987, for the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials; research that is now carried out by a large number of groups around the world. We were fortunate enough to be presented with unpublished research on a new technique to synthesize these ceramic materials in which samples are irradiated with halogen light (which heats the sample very quickly) for a very short period of time. Furthermore, if a combination of halogen and UV light is used, the level of superconductivity can be maximized. This photo-stimulated solid-state reaction offers a much simpler method of synthesizing these interesting materials than traditional furnace-based approaches, and they have potential uses in magnets, solid-state fuel cells, solar cells and catalysts.

Next up was Robert Huber, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1988, for obtaining the solid-state structure of the reaction center of Photosystem II, a crystal structure that I have shown in a number of research presentations. The advent of biological crystallography, and the advances in technology since have garnered a large number of Nobel Prizes over the past few decades, which for some traditional chemists has been a bit of a sore point. So why is this research so important? The key is the future research that might be possible in medicine and biotechnology when we understand what occurs in cells at the molecular level. The proteasomes that Huber discussed are no exception. If we can begin to mimic the structure and function of these molecular machines, either synthetically or through modification of natural systems, then advances in medicine await.

The last talk of the day from Harry Kroto, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996, finished the presentations from the Laureates on a high. Many of you will have seen or heard of Kroto’s presentations, and this one didn’t disappoint. The enthusiasm with which he presents is contagious and thought-provoking, and inspired conversations well into the afternoon. Science is evolving, as are the contributions of chemistry to society and it is this that we need to remind others about — without science there would not be anaesthesia, penicillin or DNA fingerprinting. Without science and chemistry we will not be able to solve the problems facing the world today. In order to achieve this, we need to begin to differentiate between common sense (what we know to be true), uncommon sense (what we have accepted without evidence), and nonsense. For example, we have all known since childhood that the earth orbits the sun and spins on its axis, but what evidence are we taught that we know that this is true? In order to use science as a tool in convincing the general public that science will help, we need to present them with the facts and data, ask questions, and allow them to draw their own conclusions. Our survival is a ‘Global Citizenship Project’ and only in including the general public will we be able to survive. Of course, a Kroto talk would not be complete without a number of jokes, and this presentation was no exception. We were also treated to something I imagine doesn’t happen quite so often — a (very PG-13) strip show, in which shirts were removed and we were shown the t-shirt Kroto has designed and marketed with an image depicting Darwin’s theory of evolution. What a way to finish!

We were again able to learn from Kroto, as well as from Brian Kolbilka, and Ada Yonath, along with Beatrice Lugger (Deputy Science Director, National Institute for Science Communication) and Simon Engelke (Maastricht University), in a panel discussion entitled “Why Communicate?” This discussion covered the whats, whys and hows of communication in both bidirectional (scientist to scientist) and unidirectional (scientist to non-scientist) manners, especially in the very technological world in which we now live. The take-home message from the session was that we must develop a voice in online media to start a dialogue with people of all backgrounds, scientific or otherwise. In this way we can share our passion, and perhaps gain new, beneficial knowledge from other scientists, as well as inspire interest in what we are doing with the general public. The majority of scientific research is indirectly funded by the general public, so we have an obligation to them to not only carry out research that can help them, but also to share with them the importance of what we are doing.

The evening finished as the week started, with a party (of course!), this time dedicated to the Bavarian culture (Lindau is situated in the state of Bavaria). We heard from various Bavarian politicians, as well as a presentation from a local Bavarian music ensemble and dance group, who showed us some of their cultural dances. This was followed by Bavarian food and beer, which was from Weihenstephan Brewery, one of the oldest breweries in the world! A nice… and historical way to end the Lindau portion of our week!

Letters from Lindau: Day 4

Posted on 04 Jul 2013 by Stuart Cantrill

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Well readers, we are officially halfway through the Lindau Meeting, and time has flown!

Today began with worms, C elegans to be precise, and the work of Martin Chalfie, 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, of green fluorescent protein (GFP) fame. Of course the story of GFP and worms are unrelated, but this story began over 30 years ago with an interest in senses, specifically touch. As I’m sure you can appreciate, senses, even in worms, are very complicated, so the multiple processes involved in modulating touch sensitivity did not begin to form a clear picture for the research team until well into the study. It has become evident over the past few days that, in biological studies, the completion of a story and the confirmation of a hypothesis are often dependent on the development of the appropriate technology — something I, as a synthetic chemist, have never really stopped to consider, and which I often take for granted!

The next talk by Steven Chu, 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics (for using laser light to cool and trap atoms), and coincidentally the most recent Secretary of Energy in the US government was one that got most people talking long into the lunch break — the challenges resulting from climate change. As we are all aware, the levels of atmospheric CO₂ have increased exponentially since the beginning the Industrial Revolution to a level significantly higher than that ever recorded in the last 600,000 years, which has since resulted in a multitude of other environmental effects: climate change, a recent abundance of natural disasters, global warming, and increasing sea levels, to name but a few. Recent scientific and technological advances (more efficient fridges, electric cars, and so on) have evolved to decrease the effects of energy consumption on the environment, but we are only touching the surface of what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, many of the technologies and renewable energy sources currently available cannot be widely utilised, because of their high costs; costs that are often dictated by bureaucracy. In order to make the technological advances required, fundamental energy research needs to continue, in conjunction with mission-directed research, for which a number of funding agencies dedicated to this approach now exist. I was also able to attend a discussion with Chu, in which the point was also raised that in addition to the research being carried out, it is also important the general public are educated in both the research that is going on to help in their future, but also, and perhaps more importantly, they need to begin to appreciate that their actions today will have a serious effect on their future — a facet of science communication I am very interested in. Perhaps I should look into a career in politics?

We transitioned from this passionate talk to one on an equally important topic — aquaporin (AQP) H₂O channels — by Peter Agre, 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. These channels facilitate transmembrane water permeability, and direct the flow of H₂O into a number of types of cells in a very controlled fashion. There are hundreds of different AQP that have been discovered, 13 of which are present in humans. Defects in the function of these systems can then have a profound physiological effect on parts of the body, including kidneys, lungs, eyes, and the blood-brain barrier, to name but a few. Perhaps the most significant effect occurs with aquaglyceroporin (a form of AQP) in the presence of malaria, in which the system increases the virulence of the disease. Unfortunately, malaria is now becoming drug-resistant, so if a system can be developed in which the AQP is knocked out, we stand a chance of beating malaria and the detrimental outcomes it has on those affected.

As an avid crystallographer, I have been excited to hear from Dan Shechtman, 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and the development of five-fold symmetric, aperiodic crystals for some time now. This work proved to be a paradigm shift in the field of crystallography, which until recently was considered a ‘mature’ science, and even facilitated a radical change in the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) definition of what a crystal is, to now allow it to exclude periodicity from its three-dimensional lattice. Shechtman stressed the importance of keeping a detailed lab notebook, so that in the case you need to discuss your research disbelief to future audiences, you have some visible proof. Of course, the diffraction patterns (the most beautiful I have ever seen!) with obvious five-fold symmetry were sufficient! The time it took for this work to be accepted by the scientific community (two years until the first publication was accepted), show the impact new results can have on scientific fields assumed to be fully characterized. In fact, it was only upon the death of Linus Pauling in 1994 that the scientific community truly began to accept the discovery of quasi-crystals and his ‘papers stopped being rejected!’

The advent of multi-dimensional NMR spectroscopy is also an area of research near and dear to my heart, that is, the work carried out by Richard Ernst, 1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Ernst skimmed quickly over his work on NMR spectroscopy however, using it instead as a stepping-stone into sharing with us his other passion — Tibetan art. Of course, this interest in art is not entirely unscientific, with the household garage housing a Raman spectrometer, so that the molecular pigments can be analysed and the history and origin on the hundreds of paintings he owns learned. The point of this segue from traditional science, while obviously something that is a strong passion of Ernst, was intended more to show us that scientists need interests and passions outside of chemistry (although obviously not too far outside of chemistry!) We need to expand our interests to engage the parts of out brain other than the frontal lobe, and in this way we can discover ‘the multiple fascinations of reality’. This approach has obviously worked for other highly successful scientists — Einstein, Feynman, Hoffmann, da Vinci, but perhaps I will have to wait until after grad school to redevelop my interests outside of the lab. Does sleep count as an interest?

As I mentioned yesterday, much of the work being discussed has only been possible as a result of the work presented by other Laureates at the Meeting. The work on the solution-state studies of proteins using NMR spectroscopy by Kurt Wüthrich, 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was no exception. Previously, information on the structures of proteins was only possible using X-ray crystallography, which while very useful, only offers information on the protein conformation at very low temperatures, which freezes out the dynamic properties of the system. Luckily, the advent of protein NMR spectroscopy using various correlation spectroscopies offered such a method of studying the switching between the active and inactive states of proteins. Furthermore, 19F NMR spectroscopy was useful, as biological systems do not contain F atoms, so selective labeling of sections of the protein offered a means of introducing probes to the system that could be studied. While this work was specific to biological systems, it is also relevant to small-molecule chemistry, as it is often easy to get carried away with how nice a solid-state structure looks, but that this may or may not be the structure that occurs in solution.

We finished the day with a panel discussion from Gerhard Ertl, Bob Grubbs, Hartmut Michel and Richard Schrock on chemical energy conversion and storage. The four Laureates answered a large number of questions, but the main idea that arose was that we don’t necessarily have a lack of available energy, we just need to know how to harness it and store it in a useable form. The key to realizing these challenges will be interdisciplinary and we should focus on using multiple energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, thermal), rather than limiting ourselves to only one. Although, as Schrock mentioned, if we are correct in assuming we are moving into a new ice age, perhaps we don’t need to worry about the energy crisis… Don’t mull on that thought for too long, readers!

Letters from Lindau: Day 3

Posted on 03 Jul 2013 by Stuart Cantrill

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What a day readers, what a day! I mentioned yesterday that I was particularly excited about the talks planned for today, and they certainly did not disappoint.

We started the morning off with the very animated Aaron Ciechanover, 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, who while known for his work on ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation, spoke on the direction we, as young scientists, need to take in the development of new disease therapies. Drug discovery using high-throughput screening, while somewhat successful, is both cost- and time-intensive and Ciechanover said that we should instead focus on the ‘four Ps’ — participation (more knowledgeable patients), prediction (through the relative ease of mapping one’s genome), prevention (more and more often disease and drug side effects can be predicted) and personalization (disease and the related drugs are not one-size-fits-all). Of course, this approach is broader than simple target identification and validation — bioethics must be considered; that is, if we are able to predict the diseases we, and our children, could develop, should we take preventative action (and if so when)? As well as enabling new scientific methods and information, we also need to be aware of the sensitivity that the ability to obtain this data brings about.

Next up was Erwin Neher, 1991 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, who was trained in physics, but spoke to us about chemistry(!) Specifically, he discussed the use of fluorescent labels in cells to measure the changes in the concentration of intracellular Ca²⁺ that cause the release of neurotransmitters in the presynaptic nerves of the brain. Furthermore, the specific amount of Ca²⁺ released in specific positions at each stage of neurotransmitter release can be studied using cage compounds containing a known amount of Ca²⁺ introduced uniformly into the cell. Upon photolysis of the cage, Ca²⁺ is introduced in a controlled fashion into the cell to invoke the transmitter release, and the effects studied through fluorescence. Chemistry can do everything!

Jean-Marie Lehn, 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, further confirmed this belief about how awesome chemistry is, when he aptly stated that it is chemistry that allows matter to become complex by acting as a bridge between physics, the basic laws of the universe, and biology, the rules of life. More specifically, this bridge is self-organisation, for which Lehn is well-known. Self-organisation, that is, supramolecular chemistry, takes chemistry beyond the molecule and pre-organisation, and into the non-covalent world. This self-assembly can be taken a step further through the introduction of reversible bonds to give constitutional dynamic chemistry, which adds a further element of possible adaptation to the system, specifically the ability of the system to respond to changes in its environment through redistribution of its components. The work that he presented, and that which I have been following in the literature for some time now, never ceases to amaze this diehard supramolecular chemist. I was also fortunate enough to attend a discussion session later in the day with Lehn, where students were given the opportunity to ask questions about his talk and make the most of his vast experience in academia. Of course it was interesting to have the chance to ask him the questions that come to mind when reading about his research, and listen to his thoughts and philosophy on science as a whole, but perhaps it was even more entertaining to hear his answers to the questions others asked of him, by those chemists (supramolecular and otherwise) who were having problems in their research and thought he could help.

Perhaps one of the most engaging talks of the morning was that of Ada Yonath, 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of the structure of ribosomes. Coincidentally, she is the only female Laureate at the conference. Yonath’s slides contained virtually no information, but there was no need to look at the screen, because it was impossible to not watch her — except for when watching the amazing videos she presented showing the motion of DNA translation in the ribosome, and how its activity can be prevented in various ways using antibiotics. She also presented an interesting approach for preventing the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria through the development of antibiotics that target more than one of the functions of the ribosome, i.e., a synergetic approach. Yonath further won over the females present in the audience by showing that women can be successful in science, as she has convincingly proven.

The next talk by Rudolph Marcus, 1992 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, is another Laureate who’s work I am familiar with based on the electron-transfer processes my own research aims to incorporate. This talk was perhaps one of the most personally useful so far, in terms of helping me to straighten out a concept in my own mind. As I am sure you are all aware, some of the literature discussing theory can be very…dense. I am in no way mathematically-minded, so to have the concepts spelled out with as few equations as possible was definitely beneficial, and it is nice to now properly understand electron transfer in molecular systems!

Photo courtesy of Anthea Blackburn

The talks were concluded by Richard Schrock and Bob Grubbs, 2005 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry for the development of catalysts for olefin metathesis. Schrock began the discussion with a background on the development of his molybdenum and tungsten catalysts, and the thought processes behind the development of each catalyst and their applications. Grubbs then continued with the use of his ruthenium-based catalysts in applications specifically related to green chemistry. These olefin metathesis processes have proved useful in green chemistry because the starting materials are often relatively simple and renewable (seed oils), the catalysts enable atom economy, decreased volumes of solvents and have high turnover numbers, and the products can be used to replace pollutants (new pheromone-based ‘pesticides’) or used in energy applications (living polymerization to make polymer photonic crystals). This was a particularly good duo of speakers, in that we were able to hear both the history of the work for which the Nobel Prize was awarded, as well as the applications it is now being used for, without all of the information being condensed into one presentation.

The day concluded with the annual ‘Grill and Chill’, where the meeting participants and the members of the Lindau community socialize over dinner, and provides us an opportunity to thank them for letting us invade their town for an entire week! The evening started off very pleasantly with warm weather, delicious German food and drinks and music, however as soon as the Lindau Mayor had welcomed us all and doomed the evening’s good weather, a storm arrived. I gained a lot of respect for those who had yet to eat, however, as they continued to line up outside for food, which was getting damper by the second — that’s dedication. Or the effects of hunger!

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Letters from Lindau: Day 6, the finale!

Letters from Lindau: Day 5

Letters from Lindau: Day 4

Letters from Lindau: Day 3