What Lies Ahead Make Chemical Ten Leading Chemists Set Priorities for the Forthcoming Processes Greener Decades, and Reveal the Scientists They Find Inspiring

Home , Emil Fischer, Martyn Poliakoff, Svante Arrhenius

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CHRISTOPHER C. CUMMINS S. J. Coleman J. S. Better living through chemistry Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge

Chemistry is not always well encapsulated by a simplistic ‘big question’ formula. Advances in chemistry are needed to address myriad issues, ranging from resource stewardship in the global carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, to energy-saving ways of doing catal- ysis with inexpensive, abundant elements. Chemistry has a fundamental part to play in developing a future wherein a high living standard is attainable for all without the sacrifice of our environment and habitat. I admire Marie Curie (see ‘A gallery of greats’) tremendously because of the abso- lute, relentless determination she exhibited in performing the excruciatingly tedious work involved in the isolation of radium. The brilliance of her ideas was backed up by a Herculean work ethic. All budding scientists should read her biography. MARTYN POLIAKOFF What lies ahead Make chemical Ten leading chemists set priorities for the forthcoming processes greener decades, and reveal the scientists they find inspiring. University of Nottingham, UK

to transformative innovation. The key question facing green chemists and PAUL WENDER Those who see problems through a process engineers this decade is how to design molecular lens are well positioned to molecules with specific properties and func- Look through a address some of the major problems of tions and, then, how to make those molecules our time. We cannot hope to improve pub- with minimal waste and hazard. Chemistry molecular lens lic health, for example, without a shift in has made huge strides in this in recent years emphasis to early detection and prevention but still we are often reduced to tinkering Stanford University, California of disease. That in turn requires an under- with molecules and observing the changes in standing of the molecular origins of disease their properties rather like computer hackers Chemistry has often been called a ‘central and the design of molecules that can detect probing an unfamiliar piece of software. science’. In my view, it is more accurately a early molecular events that lead to disease Looking further ahead, everything we ‘universal science’. It deals with molecular progression. make and use involves chemical elements structure, function and synthesis, subjects Our energy future is also inexorably and, in the past 100 years, we have squan- of great importance across the whole of intertwined with questions of structure dered many of the planet’s resources in science. The problems of our time and of and function, whether connected to energy making the paraphernalia of modern life. the future are not confined to a single dis- collection, storage or conversion. Smart Concentrated deposits of minerals have cipline. Indeed, research and how we think materials and responsive devices require been mined, and the elements within them about problems are becoming increasingly molecules or molecular systems that both scattered across the globe. Now, many of ‘molecularized’, because questions require detect an event and structurally change these elements are becoming so scarce that an understanding of atomic-level struc- in response to it. We are in the midst of a they are ‘endangered’. Unless we can invent ture and function and the ability to design molecular revolution that will profoundly sustainable substitutes, many of the products and make new molecules and systems — change our world. that support current society, from laptops to whether drugs, diagnostics, new materials fertilizers, will disappear. And chemists are or even functioning cells. From molecular 20��: YEAR OF CHEMISTRY best placed to make these inventions. anthropology to molecular zoology (and Celebrating the central science The most important year, rather than even molecular gastronomy), we have nature.com/chemistry20�� person, in chemistry was 1869. Dmitri entered an age of exploration that will lead Mendeleev in St Petersburg proposed the

6 January 2011 | VOL 469 | naTurE | 23 © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved COMMENT periodic table and Thomas Andrews in I admire a perfect blend between Jacobus unlikely that human activity could lead to Belfast invented the term ‘critical point’ at van ’t Hoff (1852–1911) and Hans Wyn- such an increase. Now more than 100 years which the distinction between a liquid and a berg. Van ’t Hoff, the first chemistry Nobel have passed, the scale of human activity gas disappear. Supercritical fluids have been laureate in 1901, proposed seminal insights has grown enormously, and we can see that the focus of my research for the past 25 years into the three-dimensional arrangements Arrhenius got it mostly just right. and led me into the field of green chemistry. of atoms in space, thereby introducing the The periodic table has influenced me since field of stereochemistry. Remarkably, he high school and, recently, launched me onto got this idea at the age of 22, showing the KAREN WOOLEY YouTube: www.periodicvideos.com. strength of combining a passion for science with originality of thought. I admire my Enhance selective PhD adviser Hans Wynberg for introduc- LAURA KIESSLING ing me to the fascinating world of chiral interactions molecules and for his drive to stimulate the Mimic how nature young generation to work at the frontiers Texas A&M University, College Station of science. makes polymers Over the next decade the design and study of polymers as functional materials for medical University of Wisconsin-Madison PAUL ALIVISATOS and other applications must address three pri- mary challenges. First, how to enhance selec- One very basic question we must answer is Replicate tive interactions while avoiding non-selective how biological systems make polymers of ones, so that molecules can target specific tis- controlled sequences and lengths without photosynthesis sues in vivo. Second, how can chemists create a template. Carbohydrate polymers are the single, well-defined structures, as formed most abundant organic substances on the Director, Lawrence Berkeley National in nature, instead of populations of materi- planet and we do not know how they are Laboratory, California als with varying composition, structure and generated and how their lengths are con- size that result from experiments in the lab? trolled. This information could allow us to This will be the decade when we finally learn Third, how can synthetic organic chemists better harvest cellulose for energy, design how to make artificial photosynthesis work in extend the exquisite control they wield over better vaccines for pathogens, control a practical way. The goal dates back to Melvin the construction of natural drug products growth-factor signalling pathways in can- Calvin (1911–97), who developed our under- and analogues to allow new synthetic targets cer or development, and devise new types of standing of the biological carbon cycle, and for chemical manipulation, including ribo- antimicrobials. Understanding how nature who appreciated the need to establish a stable somes and viruses. All of these require greater makes polysaccharides could also provide cycle for human use of energy. An artificial control over intermolecular interactions. insight into a wide range of polymerization photosynthetic system could provide us with As a young girl, I admired Marie Curie, reactions, including those that underlie the a sustainable form of energy for the future. but over the years, my appreciation for sev- formation of telomeres —protective caps on This grand challenge requires chemists to eral ‘giants’ of modern chemistry has grown, chromosomes — and their role in cancer. solve many deep and long-standing prob- especially for those, such as Robert Grubbs I admire so many chemists, living and lems. For instance, we need to understand (who shared the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chem- dead. Pushed to choose one, I would go with multi-electron and multi-step catalytic events istry for his work on organic reactions), who Emil Fischer (1852–1919) for his imaginative more deeply, so that we can design better cat- are driven by scientific curiosity and main- applications of organic synthesis to address alysts for oxygen generation from water and tain a humble, friendly personality and active problems in biology. He was perhaps the first for the reduction of carbon dioxide to fuel. mentorship of young chemists. chemical biologist. We need to learn how to assemble precise multi-component nanoscale light-absorb- ing and charge-separation systems and to DAVID KING E. W. ‘BERT’ MEIJER integrate these with catalysts. These systems need to be grown from abundant materials, Solar power is Foster synthetic by processes that can be scaled to vast areas, by inexpensive means. the future self-assembly This problem was investigated in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but then there was a Director, Smith School of Enterprise Eindhoven University of Technology, 30-year hiatus. In the intervening decades, and the Environment, Oxford, UK the Netherlands nanoscience has developed, and there are new theoretical and analytical tools at our The next decade will hopefully see the ‘How far can we push chemical self-assem- disposal. generation of an efficient photovoltaic bly?’ is without doubt the most intriguing Rather than pick a favourite scientist, material that can be cheaply produced and challenge we as scientists have to solve in the I prefer to call attention to a remarkable is attractive to architects and builders to use decades to come. Synthetic chemists are able paper: ‘On the influence of carbonic acid on the outside of buildings — in plastics, to prepare almost every molecule present on in the air upon the temperature of the paint or ceramics, for example — thereby Earth, but we now need sophisticated ways ground’ (Philos. Mag. 41, 237–276; 1896). revolutionizing the use of solar power. to assemble and organize these molecules In it, the physical chemist Svante Arrhenius The figure I find inspiring is Antoine into functional molecular objects. New (1859–1927) estimates that a doubling of Lavoisier (1743–94), the father of modern methodologies, mechanistic insights, out- the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will chemistry. The major intellectual con- of-equilibrium and kinetically controlled increase the earth’s temperature by 5 °C. A tribution contained in his outstanding assemblies are just a few important topics few years later he refined his calculation monograph Elementary Treatise on Chem- in this interdisciplinary field of science. to get 2.1 °C. At the time, he considered it istry (1789) marked the development of an

C The work of these scientists, among others, has inspired the current generation of chemists. The International e

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Antoine Lavoisier Dmitri Mendeleev Josiah Willard Gibbs Jacobus van ’t Hoﬀ

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Svante Arrhenius Marie Curie George Porter Robert Grubbs (1859–1927) (1867–1934) (1920–2002) (1942– ) om row row om TT y. Bo y. TT e g /

pl understanding of chemical elements, the developing more-productive crops, will Chemists can contribute key advances in the law of conservation of mass, the end of the all require the contribution of chemists — creation of batteries with twice the energy S; SS S; i B phlogiston theory (which had been blocking organic and inorganic, physical, polymer, density and five times lower cost (so ten or progress) and even the end of alchemy. Mod- materials and biochemists. times better) than current batteries. This ern chemistry, materials science and physics I most admire Josiah Willard Gibbs is required to make electric cars a reality. mann/C

TT emerged, to a large extent, from the progress (1839–1903). He contributed immensely to Chemists need to develop better catalysts

; Be ; that this work represented. establishing chemical thermodynamics and for conversion of solar energy to liquid fuels pl /S i physical chemistry. His work had enormous and to exploit new chemical cycles (that ST breadth for his time, for any time, spanning don’t currently exist in nature) for creating

novo mathematics, physics, chemistry and engi- useful energy, using materials abundant on . r JOANNA AIZENBERG ;

S neering. The list of phenomena and laws he Earth. They need to work with biologists to

hive discovered, studied and explained, and that radically improve the efficiency of biologi- C Promote r a carry his name, is so impressive that even a cal photosynthesis by reprogramming the ure sustainable living fraction of them would make their author a natural machinery for both food and fuel CT i

p very prominent scientist, worthy of remem- production.

ind Harvard University, Cambridge, bering for many years. Where would chemis- Long term, chemists need to develop ways w h Massachusetts try be today without all that Gibbs energy? of synthesizing molecular systems that can T or regulate their own behaviour in response to n Chemists are tackling questions of sustain- external changes, and that can repair them- : akg/ : r ability and will continue to do so. They are selves if damaged. This latter task is prob- – l GRAHAM FLEMING following several important and interrelated ably too difficult to achieve in ten years, but avenues: development of efficient alternative Catalyse energy should still be a goal. Top row row Top energy sources, smart and sustainable use of The chemist I admire is my thesis adviser natural resources, preserving the environ- production George Porter (1920–2002) for his ability ment, combating hunger and improving to do groundbreaking science (leading to human health and living standards across the Vice-chancellor for research, a Nobel prize), his ability to connect with globe. The processes and materials needed in University of California, Berkeley young people and non-scientist adults, and all these areas, such as effective use of solar his strong sense of social justice. As I pre- energy, hydrogen-based fuel, nuclear-waste The major problems for chemists to help pared his biographical memoir for the Royal minimization and handling, water purifica- solve (‘important’ problems can no longer Society, I learned how much effort George tion, adapting coal-based technologies to be solved by any single discipline) all relate had put in to securing the release and exit the highest environmental standards and to energy, its generation and its storage. visas for ‘refuseniks’ in the Soviet Union. ■