1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I was always fascinated by nature as a child. I studied lake water and plants with a microscope, spent a lot of nights outside watching stars, built small electric circuits and, of course, I had a small chemistry lab in our cellar. I enjoyed all these experiments and what they told me about nature. Later in school I had a very good chemistry teacher who encouraged me to take part in the International Chemistry Olympiad (an international competition for high school kids). The first time I totally failed in our national selection rounds. But I guess that finally tipped the balance towards chemistry. I got ambitious and the more I got involved with chemistry, the more I loved it.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

Most likely a medical doctor. As a teenager I started to work as a voluntary paramedic and I still do it from time to time. Being able to help people is a very gratifying job, even though it is a very tough job with a lot of responsibility. So I guess if chemistry or natural sciences were not my profession I would have ended up in medicine. Although as a child, to become a cook was also tempting for me. I still love to cook, even though I am probably not as skilled in the kitchen as I am in the chemistry lab.

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

First, as Ronald Breslow once put it, chemistry is the central science. Everything that goes on around us is somehow linked to chemistry. The more and more we learn about the molecular basis of life itself, the development of diseases or the function of drugs on a molecular level or how material properties depend on their molecular composition, the better we will be able to improve our life and deal with the upcoming challenges threatening our planet. Second, chemistry is the only natural science that not only tries to understand what is going on around us but also is capable to create. We can make new molecules, that never existed before; new molecules with new and much desired properties. Chemists create new drugs in order to improve our life and health. Chemists create new materials with improved properties for thousands of applications in our modern world. Chemistry can help to solve so many problems we are facing today: energy crisis, food and water supply, health issues or environmental challenges just to name a few.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

Leonardo da Vinci. He was probably the most fascinating scientist that ever lived on our planet. It is amazing how much this one person accomplished and in how many different disciplines and fields: arts and sciences, chemistry and physics, medicine and biology, architecture and engineering and many more. He invented so many things that we still use today, even though in a modified and improved version, but still essentially going back to his ideas. And he achieved all this under really challenging and also sometimes life-threatening political circumstances.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

Well, that was quite some time ago at least in terms of real scientific research. It was about six years ago when I just started my own academic career and when I had only three coworkers who just started to work with me for their diploma. It was a five-step synthesis of one of the building blocks, a guanidiniocarbonyl pyrrole derivative, we need for our research. Unfortunately, I do not have any time for lab research myself any more. And I guess by now my coworkers are much more skilled in the lab than I am due to lack of practice. However, I organize a chemistry day for high school students once a year. And on that day I also present some experiments like the classical nylon synthesis or gun cotton. It is always a “big show” also for my coworkers to see me in lab coat again and doing experiments.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

Is there a book, how to make coffee from coconuts? That would be my first choice. Otherwise, perhaps the New York City telephone directory. That has so many pages which are good for making fire. As for a CD, does a CD player run on coconut oil? To be more serious, I could read the Lord of the Rings again and again, and a CD with music from Andrew Lloyd Webber would be nice.

Carsten Schmuck is in the Institute of Organic Chemistry at the University of Würzburg and works on supramolecular chemistry and its application in bioorganic chemistry (e.g., development of drugs and sensors) and material sciences (e.g., self-assembled nanostructures).

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I see this as a two phase process, first why I chose chemistry and secondly why I decided an academic career was for me. The first one is straightforward, I decided to take chemistry at university because my teacher (Abraham Darby School) went that extra mile to make studying chemistry enjoyable. The reason I decided to become an academic is more diffuse, but does include being inspired by wonderful lectures by the late Donald J Cram (Pacifichem 1987), who sent a CPK model of a carcerand around the audience, and Sir J Fraser Stoddart (1990 Halifax, Canada) who used language and colours to convey difficult concepts. Special thanks also go to Professor Seiji Shinkai who polished my skills as a chemist and taught me that “even monkeys fall from trees”!

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

An artist – art has always been one of my greatest passions. I am particularly inspired by sculptures and 3D art. You could say the love of sculpture is why I am a chemist – since in chemistry we create art in the form of molecular sculptures.

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

I believe that what we do as scientists should be for the greater good. I also believe that it is your chemistry that should contribute and not you the chemist. In science, it is what has been achieved and not the individual which is important.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

Richard Feynman – who was one of the most inspiring scientists of the 20th century. In particular his Horizon Interview in 1981 – “the pleasure of finding things out” sums up the way a scientist should live their life. One problem may be that during the meal he may have to be stopped from dropping O rings into everyone’s iced water. However, he could make this up by providing post dinner entertainment on the bongos.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

I like to be involved in experiments as much as possible. This summer I helped a visiting Japanese student who is part of a Royal Society International Joint Project collect fluorescence data. This was a rewarding experience and resulted in a paper for the student (Jusaku Minari) and the academics involved (Kazuo Sakurai, John S Fossey, Steven D Bull and Tony D James). Finding time to do experiments can be difficult – but thanks to the JSPS, I will get 60 days (Short Term Fellowship) from the end of January as a visiting Professor in Kyushu University to spend time experimenting to my heart’s content.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

I prefer listening to music than reading books, since I can listen to music while doing other things. Therefore, I would choose two CDs which contain songs that remind me of my time spent in Canada as a PhD student and one that reminds me of my postdoctoral research in Japan. The first is by Pink Floyd (The Dark Side of the Moon) containing the track ‘Time’ and the second is by The Boom containing the track ‘Shima Uta’. The one reminds me of camping on Galliano Island and the other of humid summers spent cycling around Japan

Tony James is in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Bath and works in the area of supramolecular chemistry and in particular on the development of sensor molecules for saccharides.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I always wanted to be a chemist. As a child I loved playing with my chemistry set and was always looking for supplies and reagents to run new experiments.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be – and why?

I love to write. If I had the time I would love to try my hand at writing fiction.

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

We have already made very important contributions, although most people are unaware of them. In the next few decades, chemists must play an important role at solving the energy problems that we will face as we run out of oil. We should also learn to publicize our efforts and success stories more effectively.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

I have always been very intrigued by Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who could have changed history in unforeseen ways as he came very close to defeating Rome. But I am not sure that he would be a good dinner guest! I would also love to meet Santiago Ramon y Cajal, the first Spaniard Nobel Laureate in a scientific discipline. His impact in neuroscience has been very pronounced and he did all his research work without any support at all.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab – and what was it?

Just a few days ago I was helping in my own lab, testing a new design for a spectroelectrochemical cell. Unfortunately, I have little time to work in my own lab. About seven years ago, I did a lot of scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) experiments during my last sabbatical, in Al Bard’s lab, at UT-Austin.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

This is an impossible question to answer. OK, I would take “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and The Beatles’ Abbey Road.

Angel Kaifer is in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Miami and works on the electrochemistry of supramolecular systems.