Monthly Archives: February 2009

Reactions – Andrew Weller

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1. What made you want to be a chemist?

Nothing that exciting! I was good at it at school and my chemistry teacher – Mr Colvin – was a truly inspirational (and ever so slightly mad) person. He instilled in me the beauty of the subject.

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

My dream job (apart from what I do now) would be running a bike shop / coffee shop. Two of my passions in life.

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

We can contribute so many levels, but energy, new functional materials and healthcare are the three areas that chemists have made, and will continue to make, major contributions that fundamentally change peoples’ lives. Being a chemist is very exciting. Enthusing the next generation of scientists to the joy of discovery and knowledge.

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

Neil Armstrong. Talking to the first man to walk on the moon would be inspirational.

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

It has been a long time since I did anything really serious (2002), but I did get a paper out of it. I am in and out of the lab almost hourly sometimes and I still get a massive kick out of my (very talented) co-workers “nailing” that important new structure or isolating a very sensitive complex.

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

Book: I am going to cheat: I would take Lord of the Rings, but smuggle in between the pages Dawkin’s Blind Watchmaker. Both books had a profound impact on me: the first just blew me away with its scale and vision; the second simply changed forever the way I viewed the world.

CD: Difficult. From Elvis in Memphis – he was the king and this is him at his best, or the best of Johnny Cash. I would cheat (again) and burn a CD with both of these on.

Andrew Weller is in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, and works on the synthesis, characterisation and reactivity of low coordinate late transition metal organometallics. This work has impact of catalysis, structure and bonding and new energy vectors.

ChemPod continues…

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Just a quickie post to let you know that the latest edition of ChemPod is now live! Here’s the all important description of what’s in it:

This show features the very first paper from our brand new journal Nature Chemistry; listen in to discover how to pair nucleotides in a cage. Plus, a new form of the element boron, how to make a nasty seafood toxin in the lab, and eccentric English chemist Martyn Poliakoff tells us about his Periodic Table of Videos on YouTube.

You can find it by going to our chemistry portal and navigating to the ChemPod page.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Chemistry countdown complete

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As you may have noticed, it’s been quite sometime since I’ve blogged… there’s been a small matter of launching a journal that has kept me somewhat busy. Well, the fruits of many, many people’s labour is now out there for all to see – our first advance online publications went live yesterday: a research article from Makoto Fujita and colleagues and an associated News & Views article by Jim Thomas. I won’t go into details about those articles here; I encourage you to go and check them out on our website…

What I would like to point you to, however, is the write up in C&EN about the launch of Nature Chemistry. Obviously Sophie only had a limited number of words for her story and so I would just like to show you the complete Q&A I sent to her. Here it is:

1. Why is Nature launching Nature Chemistry?

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) has launched a small number of journals in the physical sciences (such as Nature Materials, Nature Physics and Nature Nanotechnology) and each of them have very quickly established themselves as recognised venues for the publication of high-impact research in their respective fields. Following on from the success of these other titles and their positive reception within the scientific community, we we are now determined to bring the authority and reputation of the Nature name to the subject of chemistry. Nature Chemistry continues NPG’s policy of only launching new journal titles where we will add genuine value to the literature. Moreover, NPG’s commitment to innovation in online publishing means we are well placed to offer new opportunities for chemistry publishing on the web, such as the display of chemical compound pages and 3D structures — which have already been implemented by our sister journal Nature Chemical Biology.

2. How might the launch of Nature Chemistry affect the chemistry publishing community?

The launch of Nature Chemistry offers authors from all of the sub-fields within chemistry a choice for where they wish their most significant work to be considered for publication. There are actually a surprisingly small number of what can be described as general-chemistry journals — and a high-quality journal alternative, from Nature Publishing Group, that fits this description can only be good for the community. Competition helps invigorate the market, so if the launch of Nature Chemistry spurs other chemistry publishers to look at what they do and try to improve themselves — it is the researchers who publish in and read these journals who will benefit.

3. What is your vision for the journal?

There is a trend to carve up chemistry (and science in general) into smaller and smaller niche subjects and launch very narrowly focused journals that are only of interest to those within that particular sub-field. It is our aim that Nature Chemistry will, as much as it can, transcend the boundaries within the subject of chemistry and its content will appeal to a broad audience in the community. Nature Chemistry will be a place where readers know they can find high-quality research as well as insightful comment and analysis about other aspects of chemistry, such as education, policy, safety, funding and other related issues.

4. What sets Nature Chemistry apart from existing journals?

There are a number of ways. Our team of professional PhD-educated editors play a significant role not only in overseeing the peer-review process, but also in the presentation of the papers we publish. The text of each paper is carefully edited (in collaboration with the authors) to ensure that it is as broadly accessible as possible to the wider chemistry community. Moreover, the editors offer detailed feedback on the graphical material in each manuscript and suggest ways in which it can be improved where appropriate. The editors’ expertise is also invaluable in identifying and commissioning review articles that will serve as authoritative reference works in their areas.

In addition to the research papers, Nature Chemistry will also publish other materials to complement this content, such as editorials, commentaries, research highlights, meeting reports, News & Views, features and regular columns from a small stable of writers.

We are also planning to provide interactive 3D displays of molecules and other compound specific information for substances that are described in the research papers. Links to PubChem will be provided and we are exploring the possibility of including links to other databases. Shortly after launch we also expect to be able to provide text-mined content, where relevant terms are marked-up and linked to databases if appropriate.

Beginning with the publication of the first issue, readers will be able to comment on journal content — in a similar fashion to which one is able to comment on a blog post — including the research papers as well as in other sections of the journal.

5. Librarians often say there are already too many journals on the market. What is your response to that statement?

I agree, there are. There are too many high-cost low-impact narrow-scope journals that divide chemistry into ever-decreasing slices. Nature Chemistry will offer value for money in that the content will be of the highest quality and will be relevant to the vast majority of chemists, rather than just a few members in any given department.

6. What other journals is Nature considering publishing?

I don’t know what other journals NPG are planning to launch, you’d have to ask someone far more important than me! What I do know is that NPG are conscious that budgets are tight for everyone at the moment, so we won’t be launching new journals without thinking really carefully about whether there is a genuine need for them.

7. Anything else you’d like to add?

Readers and authors can also keep up with what Nature Chemistry is doing by checking out NPG’s chemistry blog, the Sceptical Chymist (https://blogs.nature.com/thescepticalchymist/) and also our Facebook page!

If you made it this far, well done! And now go and check out those AOP articles…

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

NChem Research Highlights: Nanotube electrocatalysts, pentagonal prisms and corroding platinum

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Did you know you can get an RSS feed of our Research Highlights?

Carbon nanotubes can do anything, it seems. And now vertical arrays of nitrogen-doped CNTs have been found to be effective oxygen reduction electrodes, for use in fuel cells. Another cheaper alternative to platinum, which is the usual material used.

According to valence shell electron pair repulsion rules (VSEPR – remember learning those in long-ago undergrad days?), what structure would you expect a compound with 10 Ge atoms around 1 Co? Distribute all those bonds equally and you’d get a bicapped square antiprism. But instead you get a nearly geometrically perfect pentagonal prism — even the Ge–Ge distances BETWEEN the pentagonal faces are nearly the same as those WITHIN the faces.

Platinum and corrosion are two words I don’t normally associate with each other — especially because during my PhD we had a (terrifyingly expensive) Pt crucible that could withstand anything, at any temperature. But it looks like chlorine can do it, and exposing certain Pt surfaces to chlorine gas results in PtCl4 clusters forming as part of a highly ordered Cl-PtCl4 layer.

And finally…watch this space for more from Stu later today!

Neil

Neil Withers (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Reactions – David Cahen

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1. What made you want to be a chemist?

After realizing at an early age the problems I’d have becoming pope, pilot or ambassador (that is the chronological order in which I remember my aspirations), I must, around the age of 8–9, have become hooked on science (I distinctly remember trying to keep cutting my piece of cheese to get to an “atom” of cheese and this was before I started classical Greek…). In my first year of chemistry (10th grade) at a small provincial school I had a great teacher, Niels Wiedenhof, and out of the 8–10 science-oriented pupils that were taught by Wiedenhof that year, two became chemistry professors (the other is Theo van de Ven at McGill). Wiedenhof went on to work for Philips in public relations and then did the first ever Dutch Ph.D. on public understanding of science.

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

Geology and/or climatology, but I hope I would not work as hard as I do now so as to have plenty of time for my great second love, history, something I always was fascinated with (and it apparently runs in the family as my brother became a historian and nowadays directs the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam).

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

I can only reply looking through my alternative sustainable energy spectacles: Chemistry is at the centre of humankind’s largest ever challenge, securing a sustainable future for the world with humans, humans that can have a lifestyle that allows them to keep their great achievements in health, mobility and communication, that the past centuries have brought. Apart from what chemists do in the lab, they should teach and explain, to help educate as large a part of the population in terms of basic scientific concepts, to minimize the fear of science and optimize realism of expectations, leaving Doctor Who-like escapades to sci-fi.

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

Baruch de Spinoza. From what I have read (by others, like my nephew who wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on him) I very much identify with his view of the world and god, but whenever I try to read the original, I get stuck. I want to ask him to explain his philosophy in his words, where I can stop him every time I get lost.

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

I pass thorugh the lab on my way to the office but, probably to the relief of students rarely intervene (interfere?) hands-on. Still, in 2003/4 when in Princeton working with my colleague Antoine Kahn, I prepared our samples for electron spectroscopy, to understand the electron energetic effects of molecular modifications of GaAs and, even if I say so myself, did pretty well. On a much smaller scale, a month or so ago, just passing through the lab, I figured out with a simple experiment why our low temperature electronic transport set-up was not functioning.

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

This is clearly an outdated formulation of the question. For the second part I assume that I will have a solar panel or small windmill to power my electronic device. Also, CD is out and it will be an MP3 player. Now, having an MP3 player, I can put books on it, can’t I?

Book: Mr. Mani, of A. B. Yehoshua; it has a strong historical aspect AND, much of it is written as half of a dialogue, which leaves the reader to make up the other half, something that can be done time and again, and never has to (and will be) the same.

CD; Orpheus and Euridice of Gluck, not only because it is divine music, but also because Gluck gave it a happy, rather than the mythological tragic, ending and I love happy endings (my family and students may claim, though, that it must be one of Tom Lehrer’s (remember his periodic table..)).

David Cahen is in the Department of Materials & Interfaces in the Faculty of Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute, and does research on understanding how molecules can control electronic transport, figure out basic limitations of this control, and search where are the possibilities for fundamentally novel science here, All this is done with special emphasis on the relevance for alternative, sustainable energy and, especially for new (and old) solar cells.

A chemistry prescription

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Many moons ago, I had a few thoughts about how scientific words are pronounced, and particularly wondered if different pronunciations might reflect where scientists were trained, either in a certain field or a specific country. The precursor to this question, though, is where do the words originate?

One obvious possibility is that once a new word or definition appears in print, scientists across the world can see the article and use the new term going forward. This would explain how groups of people use the same word but pronounce it differently, as there isn’t anyone flying around to different universities to give speech lessons (although that would be awesome. Count me in!). That’s also the rationale behind our recent Commentary on GPCR nomenclature (in our new March issue). However, what happens before the first paper gets published? Are pockets of researchers discovering new phenomena and weird effects, and just calling them all different things? Are some of these discoveries so obvious in their terminology that everyone just happens upon the same name? I imagine that it’s a bit like getting glasses, with similar yet subtly different words being thrown around until everyone focuses on a single term.

In contrast to the ‘first publication defines a new name’ idea, what happens if two competing sets of terminology are published at the same time? I think a related problem happens a lot in biology, where the same proteins (or genes) from different species get different names, and then papers have to spend a lot of time explaining that this protein is equivalent to that protein but not that other protein, etc.. But with two terms for the exact same thing, which one wins out? And is there a way to prevent this kind of silliness, or is that just one of the perverse joys of being in science?

Finally, what about more elusive ideas, like how to develop standards for a new field? How do researchers arrive at a meeting of the minds when each scientist may have a different idea of what is appropriate and/or different abilities to meet those standards? This has been a particular difficulty for scientists working on small-molecule screening, as discussed in our March editorial. What other fields are encountering this problem, and how are you/they dealing with it? In the editorial, we suggest a couple of remedies; if those don’t work, I’d suggest you take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

Catherine (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)

Chemist’s choice

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We’ve done it again — only this time it’s bigger than before. Following on from an experiment a couple of months ago, in which we made a News & Views article on organic synthesis freely available for a week, we’re now bringing you an entire collection of News & Views pieces, covering a diverse range of chemistry. You can find everything here, and once again the content is as free as the birds (at least, it will be for two months).

The articles were originally published in Nature over the last year or so, and provide you with expert commentary on some of the top chemistry papers from recent times. So, if you’d like to hear Stuart Schreiber’s thoughts about a recent development in diversity-oriented synthesis, Chaitan Khosla discussing the relevance of dynamics in enzyme function, or perhaps Craig Hill waxing lyrical about one of the latest discoveries in late transition metal oxo complexes, why not go and have a look? And we haven’t forgotten all the physical chemists and materials scientists out there, there’s something for everyone.

So what are you waiting for? It’s free!

Andy

Andrew Mitchinson (Senior Editor, Nature)

NChem Research Highlights: Total synthesis, boron boride and sensor arrays

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Action stations at Nature Chemistry HQ today…it’s the deadline day for all the News and Views, Feature and other articles that make up the ‘front-half’ — the non-research articles — of the FIRST ISSUE. Exciting times.

This week, Steve gets to grips with more stereochemically odd natural products — not literally, as it might poison him — polychlorinated and ‘stereochemically dense’ chlorosulpholipids, a seafood toxin. The key step, an epoxide ring-opening, resulted in the wrong stereochemistry, suggesting an unusual intermediate.

You might have already seen the new form of boron that’s been reported — after all, it’s been in big Nature, the New York Times, the Conan O’Brien show and quite a swathe of blogs! But here’s my take on the new form, including how it could be the first element with ionic bonding.

Being able to detect and identify proteins could help in diagnosing certain diseases, and many people are working towards sensor arrays that mimic how mammalian noses work (not sure I could smell the difference between too many proteins…). A new system has been developed that used quadruplexes of DNA arranged in a square. Each DNA strand has a fluorophore that gives off a different colour depending on which protein it’s interacting with.

And finally…it’s your last chance to enter our fabulous lab-coat picture competition! You can check out some of the entries (and our tea-pot cosy) on our Facebook group page.

Neil

Neil Withers (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Reactions – Nicholas Long

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1. What made you want to be a chemist?

Probably a number of reasons: (i) wanting to learn about colour — understanding of how it arises and how it can be harnessed and utilised; (ii) wanting to make compounds — especially if they were smelly, exploded or changed properties; (iii) and having a truly inspirational schoolteacher — Mr. Ken Jones.

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

An architect. I love the shapes and topology of (inorganic) compounds and often find myself doodling boxes, and 3D shapes. Add some numbers and angles, along with imagination, and it would be fun to design amazing structures.

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

Firstly by education — training and inspiring the next generation of scientists, but also by teaching the general public that chemistry is such a central and indispensable science with many, many facets. Secondly, by harnessing these talented chemists to tackle the major problems and issues that the world faces — climate change, sustainable energy/resources, medical/biological diagnosis and treatment.

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

Linus Pauling – anyone who wins two (unshared) Nobel prizes (one for Chemistry and the other Peace) must have some interesting views and dinner conversation would not be dull.

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

It’s been a long time since I was able to get stuck into some serious synthetic chemistry — these days I am mainly limited to helping my research students purify compounds via various crystallisation techniques — there is such a thrill when you see a set of beautiful crystals at the bottom of a Schlenk tube after an overnight re-crystallisation.

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

The book would be Papillon by Henri Charriere – a great, mainly true autobiographical story about the adventures of a French convict and fugitive, and one of the few books I have read twice. One CD is tricky and would depend on my mood. If classical – Rachmaninov; If jazz – Chet Baker; but for rock/blues, a Van Morrison compilation would probably capture the ups and downs of being on a desert island, along with some great tunes and a bit of a singalong.

Nick Long is in the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London and works on applied synthetic chemistry, particularly aimed at ligand design/catalysis and the synthesis of biomedical (PET, MRI and optical) imaging probes.

Spinning out

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Graham Richards, former head of chemistry at Oxford (‘the largest chemistry department in the western world’, don’t forget), has a new book out, and is interviewed in the Guardian here.

He’s a computational chemist – and has been since computers were the size of rooms – and has spun out two pretty succesful companies, Isis Innovation and Oxford Molecular (now part of Accelrys). The interview is an interesting read, and touches on the trouble with funding bodies, venture capitalists and the higher education boom in the UK in the 1960s.

On my travels last year I particuarly enjoyed talking to academics about how different universities exploit their research. The Weizmann Institute impressed me the most: the head of chemistry, Yehiam Prior told me that about 1/3 of their funding comes from exploiting their intellectual property – and they’ve been doing it for about 30 years. And I think the academics themselves get to keep about 50% of the cash, with the remaining 50% going straight to the department – the Institute overall doesn’t see a shekel.

Spotters badge to Dan Cressey at The Great Beyond.

Neil

Neil Withers (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)