Shuli You is a Professor of Organic Chemistry in the State Key Laboratory of Organometallic Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and works on methodology development, total synthesis, and medicinal chemistry.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I was good at chemistry in high school and then chose chemistry as major in university. Now I really enjoy being a chemist by developing new tools that allow the facile access to novel molecules with interests.

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

In reality, if I did not get the chance to study in the college, I would be a farmer now carrying on my parents’ job. However, if I can choose, I would like to be an editor for a scientific journal. In that way, I want to try my best to make sure that every submission is fairly treated.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

We are working on the new methodology development based on C–H bond direct functionalization and asymmetric dearomatization. I hope that eventually our methodologies can be used by every chemist to produce the molecules they are interested in.

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

Fredrick G. Banting, who won the 1923 Nobel Prize for his discovery of insulin. I was so intrigued by the story on the discovery of insulin, and I have so many questions to ask.

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

This reminds that I have not done lab work for quite a while. Last time I did something on asymmetric Friedel-Crafts reaction was about one year ago. Now I really miss the very beginning of my independent career during when I had a lot of time to do experiments.

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

It is definitely not a book on chemistry. It is a hard choice, and I probably will take “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown and then a music collection of late pop singer Teresa Teng.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why?

Professor Lixin Dai from our department. Professor Dai is a noble man, great chemist, and a person with unique character.

Christopher O’Brien is in the School of Chemical Sciences at Dublin City University and works on the development of robust catalytic synthetic methodology and target oriented synthesis.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I always liked chemistry I was taken aback at an early age by the beauty of it. As to what made me do what I do and the way I do it, that stems from a conversation I had with my grandmother from my father’s side. I think it was at the start of my undergraduate degree at UMIST, or may be slightly earlier, that my granddad was diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer’s. I can’t remember whether my conversation with my grandmother was before or after my granddad forgot who I was. The doctors’ were beating around the bush giving the usual false hope. So I told my grandmother frankly what was going to happen and that she should say her goodbyes as sooner or later he would not know who she was. Alzheimer’s can progress rapidly and in the case of my granddad in the space of one year he had forgotten who I was. To illustrate this during my degree I took a year out to work in Europe for Philips. When I left he knew who I was when I returned he did not. Overtime he forgot most people. Interestingly, just before an Alzheimer’s suffer dies he or she can have one moment of clarity. Fortunately, it was during this time that Alice was able to say goodbye to Len.

So now I am driven to develop synthetic methodology so that medicinal chemists etc. have the tools they need. I hope in the future no-one has to have a conversation with their grandmother like I did or witness the slow disintegration of a loved one.

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

I would be a patent lawyer or a computer programmer. I remember in my early teens spending hours coding a program on an Acorn Electron. I still remember fixing a sprite that was not behaving. I also studied some patent law at university and it has come in very useful.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

Now I am working on selective catalytic processes that I hope to integrate into larger multi-catalytic self-assembling arrays. My group also tackles target oriented synthesis of compounds that target certain biological problems.

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

Even though I think you should learn from history or you will repeat it I don’t believe in idolising people. So I have no interest in meeting any historical figures. Instead I would like to have dinner with my Granddads as I never had the chance to speak to them before they died or lost their memory due to Alzheimer’s disease.

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

The last experiment I did in the lab was a few weeks ago and it was the generation of a special base for the catalytic Wittig reaction. I try to remain in the lab as much as possible.

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

I’d take a copy of the SAS survival handbook. I don’t plan on staying on the desert island for long I have things to do. As for music may be the theme music to The Great Escape for motivational purposes.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why?

I would like to see Ryan Gilmour at ETH Zurich interviewed as I think he is doing some interesting chemistry.

Sota Sato is from the Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Engineering in The University of Tokyo, and works on coordination chemistry based on organic synthesis to produce self-assembled huge, well-defined molecules and to reveal the magnetic properties of discrete molecules for application in NMR analysis.

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

Definitely, there were many teachers in my life who guided me to become a chemist. As an elementary school child, I was fascinated by butterflies for their diversity of color and wing patterns and for the mysterious change in figure from a grub to an imago. My uncle, Mitsuo Jinkubo, and father, Kazumune Sato, taught me about the fascinating living world and related concerns of the natural environment. In junior high school I found that important things hidden behind textbooks can be accessed through chemical experiments, and finally my high school teacher and my first co-author, Toyokazu Usui, taught me how to become a chemist with a letter article: in a sense, I became a chemist at that time.

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

I wanted to be involved in the professional area where overwhelming personal techniques play a central role. My grandfather, Saburo Sato, who is now 101 years old and an extremely dexterous artisan of scientific quartz glass, impressed me and I thought about becoming a craftsman. Unfortunately however, I found that I am not good with my fingers. Accordingly I was interested in a profession backstage in the theater, where massive scale lighting systems and sound equipment are operated in a tense atmosphere, because stage business is always in progress in front of an audience. I imagined that to operate these complex systems at will based on a wide and deep knowledge of them would bring me satisfaction, producing dream-like scenes.

3. What are you working on now, and where do you hope it will lead?

I am working on synthetic chemistry, to develop a methodology to synthesize the world’s largest molecule and to find a new application based on molecular design. Molecules with a new class of structures often lead to a practical usage; rather I hope the chemistry will entice the scientific playful spirit of both professional chemists and other interested people.

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

Tenshin Okakura (1863-1913), who was a pioneer of aesthetics in the Japanese Meiji period. Against the established Japanese painting circle, he struggled to produce a new paradigm and also introduced Japanese arts and ways of thinking to foreign countries. I want to know how he thought in turbulent frontier and how he made the decision to cut open a novel field in art. I am very sad to hear about the loss of Rokkakudo in Kita-ibaraki City, the historical small architecture where Okakura spent much time for contemplation, which was lost in a huge earthquake and resulting tsunami in Mar. 2011. But it is also really encouraging to know that funding and intense effort are going towards rebuild it as part of restoration after the disaster.

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

After getting my current job as chemist several years ago, I have not had a chance to perform synthetic experiments by myself. I do fragmented but difficult pieces of experiments supporting my students. I am sure that the style is efficient, but I’m not sure that I am satisfied as much as I was as a doctoral course student…. My tiny synthetic chemistry in a flask in my hands still seems shining for me even though the final solution always gets brown with unknown trace amounts of chemicals.

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

Once I traveled alone to isolated islands in Japan and found that I did not need books or music. I enjoyed watching the unusual scenery day and night and listening to the natural music, such as the sound of the wind, waves, or animals. If I was in such a precious situation, which I have not been recently, I would not need artificial works, but I dare to pick my favorite piano music “Suite Bergamasque” by Claude Debussy in case of a completely boring island.

7. Which chemist would you like to see interviewed on Reactions – and why?

Prof. Dr. Jeffrey M. Stryker, an organometallic and organic chemist in the University of Alberta. I spent a couple of months as a visiting student in his laboratory during my doctoral course. He is a very strict, intelligent chemist, and I like his warm personality with an open mind.