Chemistry Beyond the Bench

SEPTEMBER 2011

CHEMISTRY BEYOND THE BENCH

Chemistry beyond the bench

he designation of 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry (IYC) Tby IUPAC and UNESCO provides an ideal time for chemists to take stock: to examine their place in the wider world, reflect on chemistry’s history and look ahead to future opportunities and challenges. Inspired by the themes that IUPAC has created for the IYC, this collection of Commentaries considers a broad spectrum of the issues facing chemistry today. Chemistry needs to improve its relationship with the wider public, many highlighted the limited availability of many of whom seem unaware of its benefits, and mineral resources. COVER IMAGE even suffer from ‘chemophobia’. And with How can the inadequate educational The designation of 2011 as the International this image problem, what can be done to resources be improved in developing Year of Chemistry by the United Nations inspire the next generation of chemists to countries? This problem, in addition to poor offers our community an opportunity not study what can seem like a daunting and general infrastructure, severely restricts only to celebrate its successes, but also to demanding discipline? Once their studies access to the many potential benefits that look critically at the challenges it faces. are over, how can new chemistry graduates chemistry offers to improve people’s lives.

COVER DESIGN: ALEX WING. IMAGES: DUCKS, © HEATHER and postgraduates respond to the changing Even in more developed countries, other BUCKLEY, WWW.HEATHERBUCKLEY.CO.UK; MARIE CURIE, © industrial job market? barriers have hindered access for around PHOTOS.COM/THINKSTOCK. OTHERS: © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ L TO R: JAVARMAN3; MAREK ULIASZ; OLIVIER LANTZENDÖRFFER; Although there have been many half of the population; how have things CATENARYMEDIA; CHRISTIAN WAADT; BANKSPHOTOS; JAMEY chemical triumphs in the design and changed for female chemists in the 100 years EKINS & ANDREY PROKHOROV; UYEN LE. production of new medicines over the since Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel NPG LONDON past century, there are constant worries Prize in Chemistry? The Macmillan Building, that the drug pipeline may be running Chemistry has achieved great things 4 Crinan Street, London N1 9XW dry. Will a better understanding of the in the past century, playing a large part in T: +44 207 833 4000 physical chemical behaviour that underpins creating the modern world as we know it. But F: +44 207 843 4563 human biochemistry improve the drug- improvements in communication, education [email protected] discovery process? New drugs aren’t the and accessibility are needed to ensure that INSIGHT EDITORS only things in short supply: recent concerns chemistry has a global and sustainable future GAVIN ARMSTRONG STUART CANTRILL over the scarcity of rare-earth metals have in the next 100 years and beyond. STEPHEN DAVEY ANNE PICHON NEIL WITHERS CONSULTING EDITOR COMMENTARIES LAURA CROFT Sex and the citadel of science SENIOR PRODUCTION EDITOR Michelle Francl 670 ALISON HOPKINS SENIOR COPY EDITOR Communicating chemistry for public engagement JANE MORRIS Matthew R. Hartings and Declan Fahy 674 ART EDITOR The two faces of chemistry in the developing world ALEX WING

CONTENTS C. N. R. Rao 678 EDITORIAL ASSISTANT REBECCA CARTER From crazy chemists to engaged learners MARKETING MANAGER through education LOUISE PORTER David K. Smith 681 PUBLISHER RUTH WILSON The changing landscape of careers in the EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, chemical industry NATURE PUBLICATIONS Keith J. Watson 685 PHILIP CAMPBELL Minerals go critical Roderick G. Eggert 688 Getting physical to fix pharma Patrick R. Connelly, T. Minh Vuong and Mark A. Murcko 692

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Sex and the citadel of science Michelle Francl One hundred years on from Marie Curie being awarded her second Nobel Prize there has been only a handful of female scientists who have received the call from Stockholm. Why are women still underrepresented? A lack of ability or passion, or could it be that we create labs into which women don’t quite fit?

suspect it was a bacterium that turned me into a chemist. The summer between I third and fourth grade I was sick, too ill to get out of bed for a month. Once I was well enough to be bored, my mother, desperate to keep her invalid child amused and lacking the modern-day sickroom essentials of DVD players and video games, brought me a new book to read. It worked. I was transfixed from the first page, whisked from Chicago’s oppressive midsummer heat to the crisp late-autumn days of nineteenth- century Warsaw to walk along the banks of the Wisla with young Manya Sklodowska and her sister. The tale had everything you would expect to capture a young girl’s heart: a motherless heroine, her odyssey across Europe to find the treasure she sought, wicked men bent on stopping her, a broken heart, true love, tragedy. Disney should have optioned it. I imagined myself in a Paris garret, bent over my books, so enthralled by my studies I barely remembered to eat. It was dark, sophisticated, full of mystery and intrigue, and deeply romantic. Ultimately the heroine — who had fainted from hunger in her Parisian attic — triumphs, winning not just the hand of her prince, but also two Nobel prizes. Long before I reached the last pages of Eve Curie’s biography of her mother, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up — a scientist like Manya, or as she was known to her scientific colleagues, Marie Sklodowska Curie. I was beguiled by the thought of OF MARIE CURIE © PHOTOS.COM/THINKSTOCK ORIGINAL IMAGE discovering new elements and new A portrait of Marie Curie’s face created from the photographs of around 200 women scientists. physics — and also of having a lab to call my own. Growing up in the 1960s, the daughter of two chemists who met in graduate school, Agnes Pockels to do her pioneering In an interview in the New York Times, it seemed perfectly reasonable to think experiments in surface chemistry in her then ACS president Thomas Lane noted that women could be top-notch research kitchen — work that laid the ground for that Ada Yonath’s 2009 Nobel Prize in scientists. Dinner-table conversations were Irving Langmuir’s 1932 Nobel prize — Chemistry for her work on the structure sprinkled with the names of my parents’ and forced mathematician and quantum of the ribosome reflected “a tremendous colleagues and mentors; more than a few mechanic Emmy Noether to list her classes change in the demographics of the field”, and were women. In 1964 Dorothy Crowfoot under David Hilbert’s name, seemed to have it is true that there has been a substantial Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, attenuated. Why then would it be a long increase in the fraction of women in the first woman to do so since Marie Curie’s 45 years before another woman chemist chemistry since Marie Curie defended her daughter Irène Joliet-Curie 29 years before. would get a phone call from Sweden early doctoral dissertation in 1903 — the first The societal constraints that had compelled on an October morning? woman in France to do so. Almost 40% of

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chemistry PhDs in the United States went to proper destiny of women until one sees a women in 2009 (ref. 1) compared with less thousand of ‘em doing something different. than 5% earned by women in 1960 (ref. 2). There is something wrong with it.”4 Despite these enormous gains, women are In the twenty-first century it is easy winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry less to dismiss Kipling’s characterization of frequently, not more. education as unsuited to women as mere If the demographics have changed for opinion. In these more measured times, the better since Marie and her daughter however, statistics — not a satiric pen — became Nobel Laureate chemists, what are wielded to reveal women’s proper hasn’t changed? Or perhaps what has destiny. Larry Summers, infamously changed for the worse? Where are the speculating on the diversity of the US twenty-first-century Marie Curies and workforce, does precisely that: “So my Dorothy Hodgkins, and what stands sense is that the unfortunate truth — I between them and a Nobel Prize? Ability? would far prefer to believe something Passion? Bias? Or could it be that women do else, because it would be easier to address not fit into the halls of science? what is surely a serious social problem if something else were true — is that the Ada Yonath’s 2009 Nobel combination of the high-powered job hypothesis and the differing variances Prize in Chemistry reflected probably explains a fair amount of this “a tremendous change in the problem [the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering demographics of the field”. faculties].” Citing statistics showing more variance in mathematical ability among Many of the theories regarding the males, Summers concluded that a greater underrepresentation of women in science proportion of men are truly gifted in would have been familiar to Professors mathematics, and by extrapolation, more Curie and Hodgkin. In their thorough capable of excelling in science5. review of the current literature on sex A single counterexample is sufficient to © PHOTOS.COM/THINKSTOCK and science, psychologists Stephen Ceci disprove a theorem (though many more and Wendy Williams group the working can be found3). The larger variance in external social constraints, but internal hypotheses regarding the relative dearth mathematical ability among males that cues; maybe the bulk of girls won’t take it of women doing science into three broad Summers cites is by no means universal. seriously. In a recent essay, George Will classes, namely (1) the fraction of women Twice as many males as females in the US takes up Kipling’s lament, citing as who have the native intellectual capacity scored in the top 5% on the mathematics evidence the small percentage of women to do science, particularly at the highest section of the Programme for International who major in chemistry at women’s levels, is much smaller than the fraction Student Assessment6. But what about in colleges (4% at Bryn Mawr, where I of men, (2) an inherent lack of interest the UK? The ratio of high-scoring males teach), where presumably there is no bias among women in the hard sciences and to females is very nearly one to one. The against women in science7. Although engineering, and (3) societal and cultural proportion of women at the top echelons 4% of students majoring in chemistry biases that push women out of the of aptitude in maths, using a number of sounds tiny, it should be put into context pipeline and lead to the devaluation of the different measures, varies from nation to by considering the number of students contributions of those who remain3. nation and culture to culture. These data majoring in chemistry at other institutions. Perhaps there aren’t any hidden strongly suggest that it is not nature that In the US, only 0.73% of students — male Marie Curies? The first of the theories is keeping potential Marie Curies from or female — elect chemistry as a major. would have it that Marie Curie, the lofty heights of Nobel-class science. Women at Bryn Mawr are six times more Irène Joliet-Curie, Dorothy Hodgkin and It would seem some places have, to use likely to major in chemistry than they are Ada Yonath are rarae aves — singular Larry Summers’s phrase, “a serious social at your average US college. One should women with both the capacity and problem”. I would argue that it is time to perhaps ask what co-ed institutions are interest to excel in chemistry. The attitude move the theory of naturally differing doing to discourage interest on the part of that women in general are incapable or variance in mathematical ability far men and women both. uninterested in doing science was certainly down the list of reasons that women are If the Marie Curies — women with the pervasive in Marie Curie’s time. In 1890, underrepresented in maths and science. As ability and passion to excel in chemistry — not long before Manya Sklodowska left a hypothesis it is remarkably persistent — are there, why don’t we see them? At the for the Sorbonne in Paris — because the perhaps because it demands no remedy — time Marie Curie was born, women chemists university in Warsaw refused to admit a still, the data strongly suggest that whatever were explicitly kept out of the picture. In woman — Rudyard Kipling wrote a biting immutable sex-based differences there 1874, when a group of chemists gathered satire after visiting Chautauqua, a resort are in the capacity to do science, they are to honour Joseph Priestly, a meeting in New York State where women denied secondary perturbations and should be that led to the founding of the American educational opportunities in more formal treated as such. Chemical Society, women chemists, venues gathered each summer to study: Could it be that women, although including Lydia Shattuck of Mount Holyoke’s “I’m awfully sorry for the girls who take capable of high-calibre science, inherently chemistry department, were in attendance. it seriously. I suppose the bulk of them aren’t all that interested? Perhaps gender The official photograph, however, shows don’t… One never gets to believe in the imbalance in science is not the result of only the men in attendance. The women

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chemists? Pushed off to stand with the men’s overtly as in the past or now implicitly: if Sorbonne would not give her space. When wives8. The year after she and her husband women are doing it, they can’t be doing Ernest Rutherford visited the Curies in Paris, won the Nobel Prize in Physics, Marie was it as well as a man. The most recent he wondered at Marie’s ability to accomplish at least in the picture, shown in a 1904 report on the status of women at MIT anything in that space, “It must have been Vanity Fair cartoon standing supportively notes this automatic discounting, the dreadful not to have a laboratory to play behind Pierre as he holds up a tube of tacit assumption that the standards are around in”. Indeed. radium, though she had been as much a necessarily different (and lower) for There are also less direct messages being driving intellectual force behind the project women, as an emerging issue10. sent by the spaces in science buildings. as had he. Contemporary popular accounts Although it is conceivable that women I remember spending the first morning characterized Marie as Pierre’s devoted fade into the background because they of my post-doctoral fellowship getting assistant and muse, “[Marie] has associated are doing work that is less interesting, oriented. I found out where my magnetic her name with his discoveries”.9 creative or important than men, evidence tapes could be read and where the recent Decades later, women scientists were suggests that just being male contributes journals were kept. And of course, the still contending with ‘out of sight, out of to an aura of authority in science. When location of the ladies’ room. The university mind’ attitudes. When my mother-in-law shown ten-minute clips of physics lectures, had graduated its first co-ed class a decade Gai Donnay, an eminent crystallographer observers rated male lecturers on average earlier, but it was soon apparent that it and chemist (she co-edited the Crystal as substantially more knowledgeable than had yet to come to grips entirely with the Data Tables), wondered why there had female lecturers, despite the fact that the women in its midst. When I pushed open been no women speakers at a minerology lectures were word-for-word identical; the the door to the ladies’, I encountered a conference, the organizer replied there lecturers were actors working from a script wall of urinals. I quickly ducked back out were no women in the field to be invited. and knew no physics11. It was also found and checked the door. ‘Women’. In more She promptly prepared for him a list that women post-doctoral candidates in than a decade, the only thing this highly of female Canadian geologists for the Sweden needed to be two and a half times as regarded research university with a large next time he found himself at such a productive as their male counterparts to be endowment had managed to change was loss. Peruse conference proceedings considered equally competent12. the sign on the door. It made me wonder, and photographs from the twenty-first If women are intellectually capable slightly tongue-in-cheek, if someone was century and it’s clear that women are not and interested, why is it that we fail to see thinking that women chemistry students as utterly absent as they were in the past. them as excellent scientists? Perhaps it is were just a temporary aberration. The The grounds on which the argument is because they don’t fit — literally. Do we architecture sent a subliminal message, even based, however, have subtly switched send a message, through subtle visual and if an unintentional one, about the building’s from the explicit and deductive: women architectural clues, that women don’t belong intended occupants — men. can’t do science at all, therefore there are in the world of science? no women who do science to recognize, Built space is not neutral, as Winston to the implicit and inductive: if a woman Churchill noted, “we shape our buildings, As much as scientists use has been recognized, it’s because she is a and afterwards our buildings shape us”. As labs to create science, labs woman rather than because of her science, much as scientists use labs to create science, therefore, women don’t do good science. labs themselves create scientists. Laboratory themselves create scientists. The assumption remains, whether stated space is indispensable for chemists, more so I would suggest than in many other I’d like to suggest that physical stature scientific fields. It follows that the influence is a factor we often overlook in the ways on chemists of their laboratory spaces is the physical surroundings subtly shape potentially higher. What are the spaces in our sense of scientists. I am old enough which we do and speak about chemistry to remember Lily Tomlin’s character telling us about who should do chemistry, Edith Ann: a grown woman in an oversize and how well they seem to do it? Are our chair, her feet swinging high above the laboratory spaces gender-neutral? floor, playing a child14. I think of Edith Ann The amount and quality of space a often, about as often as I sit in a chair in our scientist has access to are obvious markers departmental conference room, where my of status, linked presumably, to a proven feet don’t reach the floor. I feel like a child. record of creativity and hopefully promoting I am not even all that short; my height is future productivity. Space is hard to come within one standard deviation of the mean by in most institutions, and how much space for women. Still, the standard chair seat a scientist has is often a function of their is 17 inches from the floor; the natural stature — or at least their perceived stature seated position for the average male is 17.1 relative to their local peers. And we read it as inches from the floor. Chairs — in meeting such. In some institutions, women have less rooms and conference venues are built to space (adjusted for grant dollars) than men, accommodate the majority of men, and the signalling to visitors and students alike that minority of women (less than 5% in fact)15. whatever their productivity, they are not as Most women will look — and perhaps feel important as the men13. — just a bit out of place, faintly childlike in Marie Curie did her doctoral work in an outsized chair. Lab benches, lecterns and

© ISTOCKPHOTO.COM / ALISTAIR SCOTT / ALISTAIR © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM a leaking shed — formerly a dissecting blackboard heights are similarly designed room — behind Paris’s Municipal School for the average man. Every time I sit down, Chairs can come in all sizes! of Industrial Physics and Chemistry. The stand at a blackboard, lab bench or lectern,

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I’m almost imperceptibly reminded I gender colour-coding scheme every don’t fit — and so are my colleagues and day — the number of theoretical plates is students. Do we automatically downgrade extraordinarily high. what women have to say because when If we want to see our next woman we see them in the context of the lab or chemistry Nobelist before 2084, might the lecture space they look like children, I suggest that all of us, women and men not adults? alike, need to do as we do in our own fields, Part of this is the result of standardization deal in data. Regardless of how we try to and modularity in architecture, a trend quantitatively dress up the nineteenth- that has grown since the time of the century myth of women as unhappy, Curies, when mass production and the struggling scientists, lacking the passion establishment of standards were in their and the intellectual power of the best infancy. A photo of Marie Curie standing ALEX WING men, it doesn’t measure up. Yet something next to a bench in the lab she designed, makes it difficult to imagine that women shows it well proportioned for her height. elect to play with a tea set as happily as a are fit to be scientists, and to see women as Architectural critic Thomas Gieryn argues truck, as long as it’s brown17. exceptional scientists. We may not be able that although standards enable architects to It makes me wonder if one reason the to avoid the gender-linked colour-coding work efficiently, the result is that occupants science and engineering pipeline begins to imposed by the larger society, but we can of a space are generally unaware of the leak girls at middle school is not due to some be more attentive to the spaces we create underlying assumptions made in design innate sex-linked lack of interest, but because in which we do and talk about science, as and construction16. If you’re not asked that’s often when ‘real’ lab equipment starts well as the materials we use to do it. Even about chair heights, it may never occur to to be used regularly, the colours of which small tweaks in the conditions under which you that they have been selected to fit a are drawn largely from the male-associated a chromatography column is run can affect particular subpopulation. palette. Pick up a lab supply catalogue, what the separation. It’s not just the size of the furniture or colour jumps out at you? Blue? Green? I wonder if what underlies the inability height of the blackboard that sends these Google images for ‘chemistry laboratory’, to fully acknowledge the social biases signals. Consider the noise as a session chair and sort by colour (yes, you can do that!), that obscure and downplay women’s reverses the lapel mic so it can be clipped many more images will be classified as blue scientific achievements, and the ways to a woman speaker’s blouse. Or now that or green (a factor of six in my search) as in which our spaces silently speak to us slide carousels and projectionists are a thing compared with purple or pale yellow — or about who belongs and who doesn’t, who of the past, how awkward and unpolished a pink. For children who have had their toys seems capable and who does not, is the speaker can look juggling a laser pointer and and clothes colour-coded by intended gender assumption that if a Marie doesn’t make a the power pack for the microphone, while for years — you can find the aisle with critical breakthrough, of course, a Pierre trying to advance to the next slide in her action figures for boys, without recourse to somewhere will. Will chemistry make presentation with a remote. Ginger Rogers signs, by looking for the strong primary and all the critical leaps it could, without the may have had to do everything Fred Astaire earthy colours and avoiding the pastel-toned contribution of half of its finest minds? I, for did backwards and in high heels, but aisles — it might go without saying that one, would rather not risk it. ❐ a female speaker who forgets to don science stuff is for boys to play with. something with pockets or lapels may find I’m not arguing that lab colours are Michelle Francl is in the Department of Chemistry herself having to do what her male colleague directly intended to signal ‘women stay at Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania does, but with both hands tied up. out’ or ‘these scientific instruments are for 19010-2899, USA. Colour cues in architecture and in men only’, but suggesting in a social milieu e-mail: [email protected] equipment design are also communicating where colour encoding of objects for rapid References who should be working in laboratories. In identification is ubiquitous, it is hard to 1. Doctorate Recipients from US Universities: 2009 (NSF 11-306, Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine reviews avoid reading the subtext colour provides. National Science Foundation, 2010). the literature that explores the relationship If the sign on the door read ‘Men’ and you 2. Roscher, N. M. & Cavanaugh, M. A. J. Chem. Educ. 64, 823–827 (1987). between colour-coding and gender walked into a pink space, might you not 3. Ceci, S. J. & Williams, W. M. The Mathematics of Sex (Oxford expectations17. It is, she says, relentless. check twice? Univ. Press, 2010). Within an hour of birth, infant girls are Chair heights and the colour of 4. Kipling, R. Abaft the Funnel (Doubleday, 1909). 5. http://president.harvard.edu/speeches/summers_2005/nber.php labelled with pink hats, the boys, tagged NMR consoles may well feel like trivial 6. http://pisacountry.acer.edu.au/ blue. But when Marie Curie was born, details, it might be hard to imagine how 7. Will, G. F. Newsweek 156, 24 (2010). such colour-coding was non-existent, and such inconsequential factors could play 8. Shmurak, C. B. & Handler, B. S. Hist. Educ. Quart. 32, 315–342 (1992). when her daughters were born, the code a significant role in keeping women 9. Quinn, S. Marie Curie: A life 193 (Simon & Shuster, 1995). was the opposite; pink was considered a from being recognized as scientists, or 10. Report on the Status of Women Faculty in the Schools of Science and stronger, more masculine colour. Children discourage them from entering science in Engineering at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011). 11. Bug, A. Phys. World 23, 16–17 (August 2010). quickly learn to read these colour clues the first place. Of course, chemists regularly 12. Wennerås, C. & Wold, A. Nature 387, 342 (1997). (at least those who are not colour blind). separate closely related materials, by simply 13. http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v48pdf/011204/GenderEquity.pdf Pink, purple and pastel things are for girls, repeating the separation process many 14. http://www.lilytomlin.com/charns/edithann/ea_book1.html whereas the blue, green and earth-toned times on a chromatographic column. The 15. Kroemer, K. H. E. in The International Encylopedia of Ergonomics and Human Factors (ed. Karwowski, W.) 199 (Taylor stuff belongs to the boys. Even three-year- ability to chromatographically resolve two & Francis, 2001). old children will reliably assign the colour samples depends not only on the selectivity 16. Gieryn, T. F. Theor. Soc. 31, 36–74 (2002). pink as belonging to the category ‘girls’18. of the process, but on the number of 17. Fine, C. Delusions of Gender: How our Minds, Society and Neurosexism Create Difference (Norton, 2010). The colour-coding can even trump other theoretical plates. Think about the number 18. Leinbach, M. D., Holt, B. E. & Fagot, B. I. Cognitive Dev. gender-linked cues — preschool boys will of times a child encounters the standard 12, 107–130 (1997).

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The communication of chemistry to wider society is difficult because of ‘chemophobia’, its inherent complexity and its lack of unifying grand themes. To engage with citizens about the benefits and related dangers of the field, chemists must improve their dialogue with broader sections of the public — but how?

hen Pulitzer Prize-winning Molina after they published their study on science journalist Deborah Blum CFC destruction of the ozone layer1. Wwrote The Poisoner’s Handbook Communicating chemistry in (2010), which described the evolution of contemporary culture, where the historical forensic science in 1920s America, she associations of chemophobia exist proposed as its subtitle: ‘A True Story of alongside a dependence on the products Chemistry, Murder and Jazz Age New York’. of chemistry, is challenging and complex; But when the book was published, its sub- there is no guaranteed formula for title was ‘Murder and the Birth of Forensic success. A suitable metaphor for thinking Medicine in Jazz Age New York’. Blum about how to communicate chemistry is explained the reasoning behind the title retrosynthesis: a chemist starts with their choice: “The Penguin sales team said that the target audience and the desired outcome of word chemistry on the book’s cover would their communication and works backwards, tank sales”. without assumption, to design the most It’s not that chemistry is too intellectually appropriate communication strategy. To do challenging for wider audiences. Bestselling this, we argue that chemists should move books on complex, specialized scientific from viewing communication as being solely topics published in 2010 included about improving scientific literacy to seeing Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of it as a means of engaging audiences with Henrietta Lacks, which covered the biology their work. We argue that vague notions of a of cancer, to Stephen Hawking’s The Grand ‘general public’ should be understood more Design, which detailed the physics of the as a collection of different segments of the universe’s beginnings, and Sam Kean’s public, or different publics, each with its own

The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True © THE PENGUIN PRESS values, knowledge, beliefs and motivations. Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the Moreover, we argue that chemists should World from the Periodic Table of Elements chemistry — dyes, drugs, new materials — draw on the reservoirs of knowledge from (note that chemistry is not mentioned that carried on into the early twentieth research in science communication to better explicitly in this title). century. Perhaps the turning point was the communicate their work in a way that It seems that, paradoxically, books about First World War, often termed The Chemist’s fosters trust, builds relationships and creates chemistry need to avoid mentioning it in War, in which dynamite, high explosives a dialogue with multiple audiences — in a order to be popular. This is symptomatic of and poison gas took such a terrible toll. That contemporary communications landscape what chemist and popular science writer very much coloured public perspectives that is social, pluralistic and participatory. Pierre Laszlo termed ‘chemophobia’ on on chemistry”. the part of the public1, with the popular Other twentieth-century controversies Challenges in communicating chemistry associations of the field, according to the followed. Lasting damage to the reputation Aside from chemophobia, the editors of The Public Image of Chemistry, of chemistry was caused by the thalidomide communication of chemistry faces ranging from ‘poisons, hazards, chemical scandals, the Bhopal catastrophe and the several obstacles. Chemistry itself is a warfare and environmental pollution to pollution of both the Rhine in Europe fundamentally difficult subject. For someone alchemical pseudo-science, sorcery and and Love Canal in the US. The reaction who has not immersed themselves in the mad scientists’2. of the chemical industry to some events field, it is not easy to develop a feel for This often-pejorative connotation of often compounded the controversy: some how chemistry works. Take, for instance, chemistry is partly a consequence of its chemical lobbyists tried unsuccessfully to chemists’ reliance on molecular structures history. Steve Miller, a chemist and planetary smear the credibility of Rachel Carson after to communicate. To the initiated, a chemical scientist at University College London, her book Silent Spring (1962) described the structure is a wealth of information and co-author of Science in Public (1998), environmental consequences of pesticides, contained within an efficiently minimal noted that “during the nineteenth century, particularly DDT — and similar instances package; each structure has chemical there was great excitement in the results of occurred with Nobel-winning Rowland and properties implicit to its representation.

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With the structure being a chemist’s primary Furthermore, according to the Stanford form of communication, how can the University chemist Richard Zare, “scientists non-chemist be expected to understand? who do speak to the public are considered The field is also marked by complexity. by other scientists to have lost their way as And although chemists and those who to what is really important” — despite more admire chemistry may find beauty in this than two decades of political imperatives complexity, it is easy to see why some in the UK and Europe urging scientists to 3–5 non-chemists find the science capable of communicate with non-specialists . © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/MA-K producing results that seem patently absurd. Chemistry, furthermore, has no single Take two different plastics, for example. idea that unites the field. Science writer Polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride are Philip Ball noted that the chemical bond, both polymers. They have the same basic “the glue that makes the entire discipline repeating structure. The difference between cohere”, is one of several “convenient (and the two is that the constituent monomer contested) fictions, such as electronegativity, that makes up polyvinyl chloride has a oxidation state, tautomerism and acidity”6. chlorine atom where polyethylene has a Elsewhere, Ball argued that because of this hydrogen atom. The size difference between lack of disciplinary unity, there has been these two atoms is incredibly small. The little chemistry-focused fiction, popular atomic diameter of chlorine is larger than science writing, television programmes

that of hydrogen by 150 pm. On an atom- and cultural debates — compared with LONG © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/SHARON by-atom basis, this difference seems hardly physics, biology and mathematics. He worth noting. Yet, when strung together wrote that chemistry, a science of synthesis, have been challenged by the conclusions into long polymers the difference between “seems to have little to offer in the way of of several decades of empirical studies a flexible, transparent plastic water bottle grand themes”7. Evolutionary biology and from science communication, which (polyethylene) and a rigid, opaque PVC cosmology, by contrast, were particularly agree that an audience’s values, ideology, pipe (polyvinyl chloride) couldn’t be more suited to storytelling, as narratives were religious identity, existing knowledge and obvious. Admittedly, there is more to the an intrinsic part of their disciplines, and perceptions of risk all contribute to their processing of these polymers than discussed their science usually had a philosophical opinion of science. Following on from this here. However, this is the appearance to dimension8. This lack of unification was seen work there has been a movement away from someone looking at water bottles and PVC also in the results of an informal online poll deficit approaches towards more effective from outside the world of chemistry and taken by Nature Chemistry of their Twitter science communication initiatives aimed at materials science. followers to find out who they thought was fostering trust, dialogue, relationships and Global climate change is another example the most important chemist of all time. participation. These approaches have been of an outwardly absurd effect of chemistry. There was no clear consensus (although classified as dialogic or public engagement Observed increases in surface temperatures Pauling came out on top). Compared with models of public communication10. on a global scale (diameter ~107 m) can the agreed-upon greats of physics and Such public engagement on chemistry, be linked to several specific molecules biology (Newton and Einstein, and Darwin, however, should not be confused with (diameter ~10–10 m). To compound this respectively), chemistry has had a much purely self-promoting public relations contradiction, the effects of climate change broader collection of heroes. exercises. Rather the opposite in fact: it are measured in terms of years (~107 s) even involves ensuring that chemists do not though molecular vibrations, which occur Scientific literacy to public engagement provide “a falsely benign image of the on a timescale of 10–15 s, are responsible Communicating chemistry involves much world — where chemical plants are only for the warming effects. The fact that these more than chemists and their organizations associated with the production of goods observations and correlations are correct adopting a particular communication style. It that yield ‘better living through chemistry’ doesn’t make them any less bizarre. involves them rethinking their current style and never with the realities of chemical Moreover, chemistry is an insular field. with respect to the historically dominant pollution and toxicity”11. And there has Articles in research journals are written in model of science communication to the been an unfortunate tendency for chemists a necessary jargon in which the latest in a general public, known as the scientific literacy to avoid addressing these darker aspects of string of incremental research is described. or deficit model approach. Communication, their field. Nobel Prize-winning chemist Historically, once chemical formulae became in this model, is viewed as a linear process Roald Hoffman noted: “We don’t have the established, Steve Miller noted, “chemists of transmission in which the scientific very small and the very big. But we have were so pleased with themselves that they community corrects the apparent knowledge molecules on the human scale, complex forgot they had made their subject seem deficiency of a public who do not know enough to hurt us and heal us. There is an more distant, more remote, more arcane to enough science to value it and to discuss it internal fear in our community in talking others”. Most chemists do not actively work rationally9. Furthermore, scientific facts are about the ‘hurt’ part above. That’s a mistake.” on communicating their research in ways often assumed to be self-evident, speaking for Rather, chemists and chemical that are approachable to non-specialists. themselves, interpreted similarly by different organizations should focus their There are several valid reasons for this. citizens. But, should citizens choose not to communication efforts on building what There are no pressing reasons for most accept these facts or not to interpret them as Rick Borchelt, special assistant for public research to be broadly communicated. scientists do, then this lack of understanding affairs, National Cancer Institute, in the Absolute truths are difficult to come by. is characterized as a communication failure, US, has called ‘the trust portfolio’, where The nature of the chemist’s day-to-day blamed on journalists, communication communication between science and work shies away from speaking in terms of professionals or a public that is viewed as its various publics is open, two-way and blockbuster, field-reshaping paradigm shifts. irrational. These deficit model assumptions transparent, in which non-scientists are

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communication studies that can be applied to communicating chemistry. We offer the following five strategies for chemists to consider in their communication efforts:

Practice research-driven communication. Chemists can draw on decades of evidence-based and hypothesis-driven research from communication studies and science communication, which has historically a strong focus in the field on public attitudes, media coverage of science and the communication of contentious science-policy issues. Borchelt advises that established formative social science research techniques, including focus groups, surveys and interviews, could be used to identify various publics and understand how these publics acquire information12. Evaluative

© ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/BANKS PHOTOS © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/BANKS research can be used to test the effectiveness of communication messages, approaches or actively involved in decision-making about communication can organize scientists, and techniques, before and after communication the regulation, funding and direction of mobilize enthusiastic non-scientists in the campaigns. Overall, this research should aim, scientific research12. Yet dialogue approaches pursuit of persuading policy-makers. not just to determine an audience’s knowledge have not entirely replaced deficit approaches Importantly, policy and social debates of chemistry, but also their attitudes, values to public communication. Chemists, and that involve chemistry (revolving around and beliefs that affect how they view the field scientists in general, are used to presenting terms that include budget, the environment, or topic being communicated. their work and allowing their results to human health and innovation) need speak for themselves. Converting to a new to involve chemists. As Tim Radford, Understand the audience. Part of this social style of communication is not trivial and former science editor of the Guardian science research involves understanding it can be confusing knowing just how to newspaper in the UK, has noted in his the various audiences for chemistry. These approach a non-specialist audience with new recent commentary in Nature, scientists audiences are complex, but previous research chemical information. can and should be the ones leading the way has identified some ways of categorizing them But while many chemists are not keen communicating their field14. Chemists have for scientific information that can be applied to step forward and engage with broader an innate grasp and feel for the ways and to chemistry. Taking climate change as an audiences, chemistry risks becoming the wonders of molecules. Who better to example, there are ‘issue publics’ consisting completely cut off from society. Removing communicate this passion and intimacy of diverse small groups of people that are the field from public discourse through a lack than those who practice it daily? And here extremely concerned and informed about of engagement will imperil chemistry and scientists have an enormous advantage in climate change and environmental issues, be detrimental to civilization. Conversely, communication — they have a large amount based on their values and identities18. There a public that is better equipped to join in of cultural authority and public trust. A 2010 are also broader audiences that are inattentive chemically relevant debate is undoubtedly survey found the majority of citizens in the to climate change, but might be exposed to beneficial. This is clearly important when 27 member states of the European Union — the issue while consuming information after considering arguments such as those put 63 per cent — agree that scientists working a major focusing event, such as the 2010 forward by Roald Hoffmann in his book at a university or government laboratory Gulf Oil spill19. These broader, inattentive exploring the sociological and philosophical are best qualified to explain the impact audiences might also bump into climate dimensions of chemistry, The Same and Not on society of scientific and technological change information while searching for other the Same (1995). He said that, as experts developments15. The next best qualified, for content, including entertainment media20. in the profession of molecular pursuits, citizens, are scientists working in industrial The broadness of the field of chemistry, with chemists do not have a mandate to make laboratories. In the US, citizens believe that its varied areas of focus, means chemistry decisions on the risks and benefits of the science leaders discussing public policy is potentially able to connect on topics of molecules they create13. Citizens and elected issues are relatively knowledgeable, impartial concern to members of these various publics. officials have this mandate, which chemists and should be relatively influential16. should help to inform. A public that is better Participate in the new communication able to accurately scrutinize the endeavours Strategies for communicating chemistry landscape. Chemists are communicating in a of chemists is a benefit to those professionals There are many approaches that can be contemporary communications environment (who are dependent on their support for used when relating scientific information. that is pluralistic, participatory and social. funding) as well as society at large. A recent Depending on the context of each piece and The traditional gatekeeper role of the science example of the success of such public the audience to whom this information is journalist as privileged conveyer of specialist engagement is the Science is Vital campaign being presented, a strategy can be designed information to general audiences has in the UK, which was organized in response based on the strengths and weaknesses of weakened. Journalists and scientists, readers to the announced cuts in the governmental different communication approaches17. and critics, professionals and amateurs, are funds for science during 2010. Impressively, Building on ideas of public engagement, simultaneously producers and audiences of the campaign showed how effective there are established techniques from science content. Chemists are using blogs

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and other social media to communicate about chemistry should be related in terms tested and improved, re-thought anew their work and agendas directly with various of human impact and interaction where after each initiative, building on previous publics. Chemistry organizations are possible. Because the fruits of chemistry efforts. As in retrosynthesis, chemists creating their own publishing platforms to touch and impact the everyday lives of have more than one way to achieve their reach the audiences themselves. Chemists, humanity in a way that would seem to communication aims. Just as E. J. Corey furthermore, can be part of an increasingly surpass the research done in other sciences, developed retrosynthesis to achieve a collaborative relationship that journalists are the field has some significant leverage in target molecule “without any assumptions having with their audiences21. Blogs aimed terms of communicating to non-chemists. with regard to starting materials” (Nobel at non-scientists are a great entry point for Deborah Blum notes that chemistry is not Prize Lecture, 1990) chemists must leave reaching a broad audience (and also a useful just “the story of some weird experiment behind their preconceived notions for way to hone general writing skills, which done in a distant lab. It’s the story of dinner their preferred forms of communication. has an importance for grant applications or something equally ordinary and therefore They must focus instead on the goals that cannot be understated). Well-written important”. Steve Miller echoed: “I do think that they hope to achieve. And much blogs aimed at chemists have the potential you have to tie chemistry to ‘something’. like retrosynthetic methods, adoption of to reach a large section of the profession In my case, that something is astronomy these new communication techniques by and initiate very important discussions and planetary science. If you can tell an the chemistry community will open up a within the community, as Derek Lowe’s In interesting story of the ‘how we got to here world of possibilities for developing a fuller the Pipeline blog does so well. The popular from there’ type, then I think people will relationship with society. ❐ Periodic Table of Videos has justifiably read about chemistry — at least I hope they become very popular with both chemists will”. And Miller noted that “books trying Matthew R. Hartings is in the Department of and non-chemists alike, and is an example to popularize chemistry — for example, Chemistry, American University, Washington, DC, of how alternative media are sometimes the those of Peter Atkins — concentrate more USA; Declan Fahy is in the School of Communication,

© ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/WEBPHOTOGRAPHEER best ways to inform and entertain. on chemical outcomes, and where we find American University, Washington, DC, USA. those outcomes, in foods, drugs, plastics etc, e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] than they do on the actual business of chemistry itself, which is the making of References those foodstuffs, drugs and plastics from 1. Lazlo, P. in The Public Image of Chemistry (eds Schummer, J., Bensaude-Vincent, B. & van Tiggelen, B.) Ch. 12 (World much simpler starting points”. In addition, Scientific, 2007). many have called for greater emphasis on 2. Schummer, J., Bensaude-Vincent, B. & Van Tiggelen, B. (eds) in chemistry studies inquiring as to the origin The Public Image of Chemistry 1–6 (World Scientific, 2007). 3. Bodmer, W. The Public Understanding of Science of life or for the drive to create materials for (Royal Society, 1985). green energy that can replace fossil fuels. 4. House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology Science and Society (Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 2000). 5. Science in Society Action Plan (European Commission, 2002). Frame key messages to prompt engagement. 6. Ball, P. Nature 469, 26–28 (2011). Chemistry is a broad, complex field and 7. Ball, P. in The Public Image of Chemistry (eds Schummer, J., cannot be communicated in its entirety in Bensaude-Vincent, B. & van Tiggelen, B.) Ch. 4 (World Scientific, 2007). a single initiative, so chemists must learn 8. Eger, M. in The Literature of Science: Perspectives on Popular Science to focus on framing their messages in ways Writing (ed. McRae, M. W.) 186–213 (Univ. Georgia Press, 1993). Communication by scientists in this new designed to encourage public engagement. 9. Miller, S. in Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Communication (ed. Hornig Priest, S.) 207–209 (Sage, 2010). media environment can also inform wider Within communication studies, frames have 10. Nisbet, M. C. et al. Am. J. Bot. 96, 1767–1778 (2009). debate on scientific issues. The coverage been defined as interpretative storylines 11. Schummer, J. & Spector, T. I. in The Public Image of Chemistry surrounding the publication in Science that explain why an issue is important (eds Schummer, J., Bensaude-Vincent, B. & van Tiggelen, B.) of a paper reporting bacteria that had in societal debate24. Frames work to Ch. 9 (World Scientific, 2007). 22 12. Borchelt, R. E. in Handbook of Public Communication of incorporated arsenic into their DNA is an distil complex issues by stressing some Science and Technology (eds Bucchi, M. & Trench, B.) Ch. 10 illustrative, and cautionary, example. The perspectives, arguments and considerations (Routledge, 2008). study garnered plenty of anticipation after over others, stating why an issue might be 13. Hoffmann, R. The Same and Not the Same (Columbia Univ. Press, 1995). it was heavily promoted by NASA but was a problem, who might be responsible and 14. Radford, T. Nature 469, 445 (2011). 25 subsequently crititiqued online by scientists, what solutions are needed . For example, 15. Science and Technology (European Commission, Special non-scientists and journalists21. Its authors, public attitudes to nanotechnology vary Eurobarometer 340, 2010). 16. National Science Board in Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 having initially removed themselves from depending on its applied context: energy Ch. 7 (National Science Foundation, 2010). discussing its contents outside the peer- applications are viewed more positively than 17. Irwin, A. Handbook of Public Communication of Science and reviewed arena, eventually responded to the those applications focused on health and Technology (eds Bucchi, M. & Trench, B.) Ch. 14 (Routledge, 2008). 26 18. Kim, Y. M. Commun. Res. 36, 254–284 (2009). critical comments in two announcements human enhancements . 19. Nisbet, M. C. in Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society on the personal website of the study’s lead (eds Dryzek, J. S., Norgaard, R. B. & Schlosberg, D.) Part 7 author, Felisa Wolfe-Simon23. Contemporary Summary (Oxford Univ. Press, in the press). 20. Feldman, l. et al. in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on and future scientific results that solicit a The most successful communicators of the Real Impacts of Fake News (ed. Amarasingam, A) 25–46 broad public audience must be willing to chemistry might use a combination of (McFarland, 2011). fully adapt to the contemporary media these approaches simultaneously. This 21. Fahy, D. et al. Journalism: Theor. Pract. Criticism (in the press). landscape with its multiple platforms. is a significant task, especially as it is 22. Wolfe-Simon, F., Switzer Blum, J. & Kulp, T. R. et al. Science 332, 1163–1166 (2011). impossible to predict in advance which 23. http://storify.com/dvergano/the-arsen-chronicles Tie chemistry to society. Audiences are strategy will be the most effective. However, 24. Gamson, W. A. et al. Am. J. Sociol. 95, 1–37 (1989). likely to be interested in chemistry topics one principle remains certain: effective, 25. Ferree, M. W. et al. Shaping Abortion Discourse: Democracy and the Public Sphere in Germany and the United States (Cambridge that are connected to wider social issues or engagement-focused communication is Univ. Press, 2002). broader themes. Therefore, communication an ongoing process, continually refined, 26. Pidgeon, N. et al. Nature Nanotech. 4, 95–98 (2009).

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Chemistry creates both agony and hope in less-developed countries — although it may provide solutions to many of the problems faced there, the lack of expertise and poor infrastructure renders research extremely difficult. What challenges must scientists overcome and what can be done to improve matters?

ome of the most pressing problems science of chemistry or its potential use for imbalance of development and to increase faced by humankind today concern national development. Even today, such an the stability of the world has to be based on Sthe rapid decline in energy sources and understanding is retarded by barriers to the scientific knowledge. in the quality of the global environment, sharing and use of the scientific knowledge the depletion of natural resources and the necessary to make decisions. These barriers Chemistry that we need pressures of an increasing population, many include poor education, a lack of exposure Chemists have made use of every possible of whom are in poverty and are illiterate. to science in children’s formative years, means to study the structure, properties, Chemistry-based solutions to some of these an inadequate grasp of science by the phenomena and processes of atoms, problems may provide remedial measures, general public (especially administrators molecules and materials in their various and yet the full benefits of developments in and politicians), a lack of proper facilities states. Traditionally, chemistry has dealt this vital subject are not available to a vast for training, poorly endowed laboratories more with diversity whereas biology has part of humanity. It is essentially only in the and teaching institutions and the isolation been involved with complexity. Chemists advanced world that science and technology of scientists. I shall address some of these are now trying to understand more complex in general, and chemistry in particular, have issues in this Commentary, for I believe that systems while maintaining the diversity of contributed to individual fulfilment, and science, in particular chemistry, is a crucial their synthetic targets. Of the many areas of to the well-being of nations. A fairly high contributor for improving the quality of life. chemistry, I see a great future for materials percentage of the global human population I make this case with the fundamental faith chemistry and chemical biology. These areas

ANNE PICHON does not have a proper knowledge of the that the mechanism to reduce the global will not only help the development of new science but will also answer the growing demands of society for cleaner technologies, better health, food security and alternative energy sources. The main challenges of chemistry today deal with some of these problems of global significance. These problems are of even greater concern to the developing world. For example, in the health area, there are many diseases specific to developing countries that have not received adequate attention. Malaria is yet to be eradicated, and HIV and tuberculosis have hindered progress on all fronts in many of these countries. Much research has to be done on communicable diseases and the necessary drugs found for curing them. One of the most poignant issues relates to the fact that, even today, most people in the world do not have safe drinking water, and this is the origin of many diseases. It should be possible to find simple chemical methods for purifying water at the level of individual households, as well as at village and city levels. Most developing countries are yet to formulate a sustainable energy strategy. Each country will have to decide on the kind of Research has been carried out since the early 1900s at the Inorganic and Physical Chemistry Department mixed-energy economy that is appropriate of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. for its needs. Work on solar energy will be

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especially useful to the developing world, position in a well-known institute located I started the lecture, but suddenly the which, in many cases, has the advantage of in Bangalore. I was supposed to carry out electricity failed. The organizers said they much sunlight. research using diffraction, spectroscopy had a diesel generator that would help me to and such techniques but there was no continue the lecture. After ten minutes, the Challenges of this century diffractometer, no spectrometer nor any diesel generator failed to produce electricity. Chemistry will find new directions and other such facility in the institute. It was The organizers said that they were extremely challenging opportunities in this century, a real struggle and there was no money sorry that the stock of diesel had run out, but will also face unprecedented problems to buy chemicals or instruments. Foreign and the generator could not be started. I arising from the increasing divide currency exchange was not available and sadly had to leave the university without between the haves and the have-nots and I received a grant of US$8 — the giving the lecture, and could from increasing human population and equivalent of about US$60–70 only promise them that I migration. Chemists have an obligation today — for going abroad for would come back some day to serve all of humanity, not just those conferences. I had to fabricate in the future. who can afford the latest technological even the smallest of things — What is sad is that even gadget. In so doing, there is much to be including furnaces. I had teaching material and done in inculcating a scientific attitude in to think of research curricula are out- the citizens of the world and in ensuring problems that could dated in many of the that they have the necessary capacity to be pursued with the developing countries. appreciate and participate in scientific available facilities. It is as though the endeavours. The few success stories in the Some of my papers problem will never developing world have shown that there of that period later end. I do not know can be social progress only with proper became highly cited ‘classics’, of a single institution in ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/EKINSDESIGNS; ENOT-POLOSKUN ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/EKINSDESIGNS; education and attitudes, with progress but I had to wait for several India that is comparable to © particularly enhanced when women receive years before having the kind any of the best institutions this education. There is a real dichotomy in of facilities that I required. in the advanced countries. I those relatively more advanced developing I slowly built up facilities with compare a developing country, countries: on the one hand, science has to my PhD students. The situation fortunately especially one of the least developed, to a GLOBE;ATOMS: be used to solve basic problems and on the has changed remarkably in recent years. man standing on the banks of river that has other, it has to be employed on a competitive India today can boast of a good economy a width that increases everyday. There is no basis for developing advanced technologies. and provides sizable funds for research and hope of ever constructing a bridge across There are very few scientific institutions higher education. Young people who join the river because the other side of the river of quality or trained personnel in most as faculty members today are given start- gets farther and farther away. of the developing countries. The average up grants and good salaries (my salary was The isolation of chemists in developing person is mainly absorbed in the day- US$175 per month when I came back to countries is a factor to be noted. Even the to-day chores of seeking a livelihood; India in 1959). It is wonderful to see the best of them have difficulty in keeping illiteracy and obscurantism are dominant. saga of development in India and a few abreast of their fields and they are unaware Even in a relatively developed country other countries but the situation is, however, of what is happening elsewhere. It is not the such as India, the prevalence of illiteracy not rosy elsewhere, particularly in the least ability in chemistry alone that matters, but it is something extraordinary — around developed countries. is also the availability of information on the 25%. The question arises, therefore, as to I was asked four years ago to visit a spot. How does one remain competent, let how we can make developing countries, country to help them to set up a laboratory alone be competitive, in a poor developing especially the least developed ones with such with reasonable facilities with the help of country? In most such countries, the formidable problems, become aware of the the World Bank. This country has a large number of scientists in any given area is progress in chemistry. number of brilliant people and a number rather small. One has to depend on friends Chemists who work in laboratories of colleges and universities. But in the elsewhere to have a meaningful dialogue or teach in educational institutions in entire country there was not even a single about a scientific problem. Having lived developing countries face immense scanning electron microscope or an X-ray and worked in India for over five decades, I problems. Countries such as Brazil, China diffractometer. In the absence of such feel (even with all the advances that we take and India have made considerable progress relatively elementary facilities, research is pride in) that most of us still face many of in recent years, and a few others such as badly hampered in these less-developed the problems that I referred to earlier and I Mexico and Chile are emerging to become countries, regardless of the excellent talent see no immediate remedy. prominent amongst the developing nations. there. What is even more glaring is that, in From what I have written above, Even in these more developed nations, some of those countries I have visited, the it should not be surprising that the scientists continue to face enormous internet is not freely available to school and contribution of developing countries to problems on a day-to-day basis, and college students. Until recently, one could world chemical research is rather small. those who perform well in educational not send e-mails even to scientists in some Based on the number of countries and institutions do so by working beyond the of these countries. their populations, developing countries call of duty. A serious problem is that even when should contribute at least 30–40% to global It will not be out of place for me to give a there are computers and e-mail facilities, the chemical research. If we take out Brazil, brief account of my own personal experience electricity supply and telecommunication China, India and a few other countries, working in India for over half a century after facilities are poor. I was asked to give a the remaining 100 or so countries my return from the USA in 1959. I did my lecture in a university quite recently, and contribute a very small fraction to world PhD and post-doctoral work in the USA I went there thinking that I was going to chemistry. In an account by David King and returned to India to take up a faculty excite the students about my recent research. a few years ago, the state of science and

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developing world. Let us not forget that the language of modern chemistry is essential today to deal with the world at large. Science has become a currency and that currency has to be available for a nation to be well regarded among the others in the world. There is much that countries with good facilities can do to change the situation. First of all, there should be intense cooperation and collaboration amongst the developing countries themselves. For example, countries such as Brazil, India and China can do much for other developing countries. Some of this is happening through the grants of The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World. Advanced developed countries can contribute by not merely offering fellowships and creating visiting professorships, but through close collaboration and by providing help and opportunities for young scientists in ANNE PICHON developing countries, especially in the A student working at the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research situated in Jakkur, least developed ones, to work in their own just a half-hour drive north of Bangalore. countries. This would require small research grants, frequent contacts and mutual visits. Such a programme should be encouraged on scientific research in various countries, among the referees of good research a large scale internationally. was compared, these included only four journals. There is widespread belief that the developing ones: Brazil, China, India and address of the scientist plays a significant A matter of urgency Iran (Nature 430, 311–316; 2004). These role in getting a paper published in a good These improvements described above have four countries together contributed less journal. Having published 1,500 research to be accomplished in the next decade or so. than 1% of the top 1% of the research papers, I think that there may be an element Otherwise, in this highly competitive world, in the world. All the other developing of truth in this. we will not take the time to think about countries put together must contribute the impoverished and the underprivileged, even less to the top fraction of research What do we do? as time goes on. It is possible that we will than this. There is some improvement in Is there light at the end of the tunnel? It is have new generations of citizens in the the performance of Brazil, China and India, easy to be pessimistic, but I would like to more advanced countries who may be and the number of scientific papers from take an optimistic attitude. I believe that completely ignorant of the world situation these countries has increased considerably, it is possible to network some of the select in spite of the world shrinking in size. especially from China. Until recently, Brazil colleges, universities and other institutions It is the responsibility of our generation and India contributed around 3% each of in the worst-affected developing countries to do something worthwhile. To start the world’s publications whereas China and connect them to the better institutions with, we should make a declaration on and the USA contributed 12% and 18% in the world. It should not be difficult to the importance of science and the role respectively. China will soon surpass the US ensure that most of the educational and of chemistry in society and the need for in the number of papers it publishes. The research institutions have good internet, governments to support chemistry. I make quality of this research, however, remains a e-mail and fax facilities. Modern facilities the recommendation, being conscious of problem: as an illustration, the proportion for teaching and research could be provided the fact that even in some of the relatively of global citations is 30% for the US and for at least some of the better institutions. advanced countries, attitudes of the society 4% for China. In chemistry, the number China and India spend around 2% and or the government may not be all that of citations per research paper is 6.86 for 1% respectively of the GDP on research favourable to science. We should make a China and 6.96 for India compared with and development — broadly comparable case for chemistry in the developing world. the world average of 11.19. It is notable to the EU average of 1.84% and the Let me close by stating that scientific that in many of these analyses, developing USA’s 2.6% — whereas some of the least knowledge, of which chemistry is an countries from Africa and other parts of the developed countries spend less than 0.1%. important part, is the common heritage of world are not even mentioned. National governments will have to take humankind. It is only this treasury of human With increasing competition and responsibility to support chemistry (in fact knowledge that may provide a remedy to increasing demands on quality, I wonder all of science) because of the negligible conquer inequality and to bring about an whether there will ever be a reasonable support from industry. Governments have acceptable standard of life for most of the contribution to chemical research from to be the instruments of change; the catalysts world’s people. ❐ the poor underdeveloped countries that and the providers. To make this happen, form a large chunk of the world. I must also academicians and educators have to help C. N. R. Rao is in the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for mention that many chemists in developing in changing the attitudes of people and Advanced Scientific Research and Indian Institute of countries feel that there is in-built prejudice politicians. If all this becomes possible, we Science, Bangalore, India. against their papers and a certain reservation can make some progress in chemistry in the e-mail: [email protected]

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As well as teaching students what we know, it is becoming increasingly important to teach them how we think. We must take a scientific approach to science education and experiment with teaching methods, including context-led work and media-rich resources, to foster active and independent student engagement.

recent anti-drugs campaign in the engage in change that may lead to profound The context-led approach, however, often United Kingdom introduced a improvements in educational outcomes3,4. covers a smaller syllabus base, rewarding Asinister new character to the general Against this background, it higher-level tasks such as interpretation and public — the ‘crazy chemist’. Intent on has increasingly become clear analysis rather than breadth of conceptual selling ‘dangerous chemicals’ to young that the second group of coverage. As such, even though these people, this bald-headed man, with an evil ‘non-scientific’ students finds approaches are now very well look in his eye, was used to warn 18–24 the traditional approach to embedded in schools in a year-olds away from the dangers of newly chemical education difficult number of countries, there emerging ‘legal highs’1. and/or uninspiring, remains considerable Clearly, chemistry — and chemists — struggling to understand suspicion amongst have an image problem. About fifteen years the relevance of some professional ago, in an influential survey carried out by conceptual chemistry. chemists that the the Royal Society of Chemistry, primary Such students ideally context-led teaching school teachers reflected the attitudes of need to develop methods somehow the general public when they described scientific (or chemical) encourages

chemistry as “a difficult and boring subject literacy, allowing them ‘dumbing-down’, COPYRIGHT © 2010 CROWN pursued by intelligent but unimaginative to understand the world and that the group people”2. And although much has changed they live in, and engage of students composed since then, a negative impression of in a meaningful way with of future scientists chemistry is clearly still embedded in the scientific developments will be ill-served by public psyche. How can we teach chemistry that will have impacts on the perceived absence of to students so that they move away from their lives5,6. Can both groups of factual knowledge15,16. this perception that chemistry is inherently students be engaged in schools without In my view, it is essential that bad? Employing the very best approaches to compromising on education? we should be very clear as scientists about engaging students with chemical education what we want to teach our students — lies at the heart of solving this problem. From information to interpretation as others have asked17, do we want our In science education, there is sometimes In recent years, there has therefore been students to know what we know, or do we perceived to be a tension between two intense interest in, and development want them to understand how we think? groups of school students. The first group of, context-led approaches to chemical Increasingly, the internet age is having is composed of those who will go on education in schools7–9. Rather than a dramatic effect on the requirements of to become scientists — perhaps even focusing on teaching conceptual chemistry, science education. One of the rate-limiting chemists — and the second (often larger) a context-led approach relies on engaging steps in being a scientist used to be the one contains those who will not. Many students’ natural curiosity to understand retrieval of information. As a graduate professional scientists argue that the first the world around them, and leads them to student, I remember day-long hunts group of students requires a conceptual solve real-world problems by exploring the through convoluted library indexes looking approach to scientific knowledge, in the underlying chemistry10. Thermodynamics, for obscure compounds and reactions. This form of rigorous facts and principles, such for example, can be taught in the context was a time-consuming process, and as such, as thermodynamics or organic mechanisms, of space flight or the energy present in there was a significant advantage of having often taught in an abstract manner. As food, and organic chemistry may be taught the knowledge available in my head, for such, much of science education has through a need to understand the synthesis easy recall. Put simply, chemists who knew traditionally been delivered in this way. It and behaviour of drug molecules. There more stuff could get on much more quickly. is perhaps surprising that scientists, who is clear evidence that such an approach However, with the internet, typing a query inherently believe in experimentation and can improve student engagement and into the right search engine will now return progress, are really quite conservative when attitudes to chemistry11,12, as well as information almost effortlessly — is it it comes to applying a scientific approach to enhancing student performance and depth really worthwhile committing all of this education itself, and are often reluctant to of learning13,14. knowledge to memory?

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Of course a foundation of sound want our students to know how to think. invariably find a predominance of chemical knowledge is crucial, but perhaps the bigger Using embedded context to give a deeper ‘leaks’, ‘poisonings’, ‘incidents’ and ‘pollution’. challenges facing the modern chemist are appreciation of chemistry and combining Only very rarely would a new drug be to appreciate the true value of the available this with active learning strategies can described as a chemical, and hardly ever information, develop the skills to interpret only empower our students with a greater would the clever chemicals vital for making it sensibly, gain the capability to make creativity — surely the characteristic we your iPhone work be acknowledged. creative connections between data from prize most in scientists. As such, I would different sources, and to be able to spot the argue that context-based teaching is The wider population are needles in the ever-expanding information beneficial, not only to those students in haystack. In essence, in the internet age, schools who will never work in science, but interested in chemistry, but the premium is shifting from information also to those who will be the scientists of the they don’t often recognise and facts (knowledge) to interpretation future. University educators should seriously and creativity (cognitive skills). Indeed, consider embedding context, as well as it as such. the most successful research chemists must merely concept, into their teaching. This can win grants, publish papers and have patents transform the student learning experience Although physics and biology have awarded based on their ability to innovate and encourage much greater levels of been well served by television shows or to form coherent new theories from engagement with the taught material. presenting the wider population with disparate facts. Indeed, from my own university-based the marvels of the natural world, or the How can we best prepare students to teaching practice, where I have embedded wonders of the universe, chemistry has achieve these goals? Does a traditional context into courses designed to teach been largely ignored24. This is in spite of knowledge-based education system, in fundamental principles of organic chemistry the fact that chemistry is fundamental to which the primary goal is to impart facts reactions and mechanisms, students life as we experience it — the way food to the students, really educate scientists for have responded with great enthusiasm, and drink taste, how drugs cure us, the careers in the modern world? making numerous comments such as: changing climate and the novel materials As important as what we choose to teach “You actually try to apply the science we that enable architects to design and build our students is whether we teach them to learn to real world topics. So thank you” amazing structures. I wish that the broader become active and independent learners, (anonymous undergraduate student survey, population saw the world like chemists do. taking responsibility for their own progress University of York). By seeing that everything contains atoms, rather than relying on an instructor to and by understanding them and the way always tell them what is right or wrong. Talking about science they combine into molecules, which interact Chemistry taught in a real-world context Such a real-world approach for students with one another and their surroundings, it provides excellent opportunities for active might also help to change the image of is possible to gain a unique understanding of learning, project work, group exercises and chemistry to a greater extent. In general, the world, and learn how to best manipulate innovative modes of assessment. All of these the mainstream media struggles with it. Furthermore, chemistry is a uniquely approaches allow students to actively engage science — perhaps reflected by the fact creative scientific discipline — chemical in their own education — a process that is that in UK-wide surveys, almost half of synthesis allows us to make some things known to give rise to deeper learning18–22. In respondents consider themselves poorly that are completely new, or to change and fact, from my own, very traditional, physics informed about science23. The poor media improve other ones. It is certainly not a education in school, the one thing that sticks coverage of science may be a consequence subject for the unimaginative — indeed, to in my mind was a two-day team competition of the majority of journalists and TV be a really successful synthetic chemist, a within our class in which we had to present performers coming from arts and social spark of creative genius is required. competing proposals to develop and design science backgrounds — indeed, even serious Interestingly, the wider population looks a communication network linking London national newspapers often employ only one at the world around them, and they are and Amsterdam. Arguably, I learnt more or two journalists with any kind of scientific interested in chemistry — but unfortunately, skills and physics from this game than background. The biggest single media they don’t often recognise it as such. In a through any of my ‘chalk and talk’ learning problem faced by the chemistry community, 2008 UK survey23, the results of which were experiences in the subject. however, can be summed up in a single also reflected in a Europe-wide study25, In the light of these considerations, I feel word — ‘chemical’. If you search any major 94% of the population were interested in that as well as knowing some chemistry, we online news outlet for this word, you will learning about health, 89% about medical discoveries and environmental issues, 79% wanted to know about new technologies and 77% about new scientific discoveries. Yet only 67% were interested in current affairs, 62% in sport, and 60% in UK politics — all of which fill our media. These figures are quite remarkable, and indicate a latent desire amongst the wider population to know more about science. Yet, a majority of respondents to the survey also agreed with the statement that science is “too specialised for most people to understand”. So how can we inspire the wider population with the wonders of science in general, and get them

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Science education, discussed above, and communication are two sides of this coin. Intervention through better science education, such as the contextual approach advocated above, is by far the best way to improve engagement with, and the image of, chemistry in the wider population in the long term. However, this does not mean that scientists should wash their hands of the issue, and assume that teachers will do all the hard work. Research has demonstrated that educational interventions made by practising scientists with schoolchildren are of huge value26. Furthermore, such interventions with the general public can also have a great influence. Practising chemists therefore have a vital role to play in the communication of science. It has been proposed that the secret to effective science communication and engagement lies in a five-fold approach defined by the vowels — AEIOU (awareness, enjoyment, interest, opinion-forming and understanding)27. By remembering that each impact29. From my experience, working with students. For example, Periodic Videos of these outcomes is equally important for the school students can be highly stimulating have done a wonderful job of creating audience, scientists can create high-quality and influential — not only for them, an online video database version of the and effective public-engagement activities. hopefully, but also for my own practice as periodic table32. Their combination of The traditional way of engaging non- a researcher. Questions raised by students spectacular experiments and the musings scientists with the marvels of chemistry has after my talks have opened up whole new of their very own ‘mad professor’, Martyn been to carry out spectacular experiments — research areas — in fact, one of the questions Poliakoff from Nottingham University, with explosions featuring heavily. There is asked by a student about how we can makes for compulsive viewing and has no doubt that such experiments have real stimulate DNA release from our synthetic generated a cult audience that extends into value in promoting the power of chemistry gene delivery vehicles remains one of the the general population. and providing a thrilling spectacle. However, biggest problems we are trying to solve in My own approach to YouTube in my opinion and that of others28, chemists our research30,31. (ProfessorDaveatYork) is somewhat as a community need to think hard about different33. As a way of engaging our own whether this is the best approach to ITube, YouTube, WeTube, ChemTube undergraduate students with the contextual engagement. Do such experiments make As described above, science communication relevance of what they were learning in class, chemistry seem approachable, or even safe? and public education has traditionally I initially made a series of support videos Or do they instead encourage the audience involved scientists going out and speaking outlining the organic chemistry inherent in to marvel at the powers of those ‘crazy to groups of students or members of the everyday things, such as a gin and tonic, a chemists’ who can control the inherent general public in outreach lectures, or Friday night curry, or a glass of coca-cola. risks? What does an audience take away at science fairs or cafes. However, in the I then went on to explore the chemistry of from such an experience? Do they gain the same way that education is changing in topical issues, like newly emerging drugs perception that chemistry is everywhere the internet age, so are the ways in which such as mephedrone, debunking some of around them and of huge potential benefit to scientists can engage with the world — the myths and providing reliable chemical their lives? students and otherwise — beyond the information. These videos have gone on Undoubtedly, the demonstration laboratory walls. As a result, a number of to engage a worldwide audience, receiving lecture will survive well into the future chemistry educators have begun to exploit hundreds of thousands of views and and continue to inspire a certain type of social media sites, such as YouTube. In generating hundreds of comments. chemist, but I believe it is essential that we this way, the traditional non-scientific These approaches can have a significant continue to develop truly engaging lectures, gateholders who control access to the impact on people’s understanding of science which should still include demonstrations media, such as the TV companies and and public health issues. This is reflected and lively audience participation, but in newspapers, can be by-passed. This enables by user comments such as: “brilliantly which chemistry is clearly placed within a the ‘bottom-up’ creation of a new science- explained and far more informative than societal context — the chemistry underlying rich media. anything… in the printed press”34. With medicine, forensics, the environment and At its simplest level, YouTube material these approaches, we can talk directly to so on. Lectures such as these can stimulate can consist of lectures, or tutorial-style students and the public, and hopefully move the audience to engage with chemistry in teaching, placed online to support students’ beyond the influence of the government- an entirely different way to ‘flash/bang’ learning, help their understanding of inspired ‘crazy chemist’ anti-drug lectures, allowing them to take away challenging concepts, and allow them campaign. As one viewer puts it, “Excellent an understanding of the true impact of to watch worked examples being solved. information, and far better a deterrent than chemistry on everyday life. Indeed, it is However, the power of science new-media any ban, facts rather than press-driven within this context that my own lecture on also extends far beyond the ability to teach hysteria and idiot politicians ignoring medicinal chemistry has had significant and support university-level chemistry science and reacting to catch votes”34.

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In medicine, there has been considerable continue to inspire the next generation of David K. Smith is at the Department of Chemistry, interest in determining whether the chemistry learners, as well as being suitable University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK. wide range of videos posted on YouTube for public consumption. e-mail: [email protected] constitute useful and educational public- Beyond YouTube, it is also possible health information or not. It turns out to develop interactive resources that References 35 1. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_180662 that in some cases they are accurate , allow students to develop as active and 2. Public Perceptions of Chemistry, Qualitative Research, Management whereas in others there can be significant independent learners. For example Report (Royal Society of Chemistry, 1995). misinformation36. Only by scientists ChemTube3D, put together by Nick Greeves 3. Reid, N. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 9, 51–59 (2008). taking an active stake in video media, at Liverpool40, is an excellent collection 4. Childs, P. E. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 10, 189–203 (2009). 5. Holman, J. & Hunt, A. Educ. Chem. 39, 12–14 (2002). making their own videos and responding of 3D structures and animations, ideal 6. Shwartz, Y., Ben-Zvi, R. & Hofstein, A. J. Chem. Educ. to scientific misinformation, will we for supporting student learning, and 83, 1557–1561 (2006). ensure that quality material is available ChemSpider41, produced by the Royal 7. Schwartz, A. T. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 28, 977–998 (2006). 8. Parchmann, I. et al. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 28, 1041–1062 (2006). for students and the public worldwide to Society of Chemistry, is a powerful 9. Pilot, A. & Bulte, A. M. W. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 28, 1087–1112 (2006). engage with — which they are doing in molecular database for student use. 10. http://www.futuristspeaker.com/2011/01/curiosity-driven- huge numbers. This is therefore a great Educators at all levels should embrace such education/ 11. Cam, A. & Geban, O. J. Sci. Educ. Technol. 20, 26–32 (2011). way of demonstrating to many people the resources and encourage their students to 12. King, D., Bellocchi, A. & Ritchie, S. M. Res. Sci. Educ. amazing things chemistry can do, as well engage with them independently. This will be 38, 365–384 (2008). as encouraging them to take part in the the secret to our students’ ongoing success as 13. Demircioglu, H., Demircioglu, G. & Calik, M. debate — with both positive and negative independent learners long after they have left Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 10, 241–249 (2009). 14. Marks, R., Bertram, S. & Eilks, I. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. arguments — which is such an intrinsic formal education. Furthermore, we should 9, 267–276 (2008). part of chemical and scientific progress. all consider making additional materials 15. http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2008/ ourselves to enrich learning experiences, Number10Petition.asp 16. http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2010/ Although physics and biology and allow students to engage with learning Proposedexams.asp outside the traditional classroom setting. 17. Talanquer, V. & Pollard, J. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. have been well served by 11, 74–83 (2010). Conclusions 18. Overton, T. & Potter, N. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 9, 65–69 (2008). television shows, chemistry 19. Smith, D. K. J. Chem. Educ. 83, 1621–1624 (2006). As chemical practitioners, there are many 20. Oliver-Hoyo, M. T. & Allen, D. J. Chem. Educ. has been largely ignored. ways that we can move beyond the image 82, 944–949 (2005). of the crazy chemist sometimes imposed 21. Gutwill-Wise, J. P. J. Chem. Educ. 78, 684–690 (2001). 22. Kovac, J. J. Chem. Educ. 76, 120–124 (1999). Indeed, one of the great advantages upon us. We know that chemistry is not bad, 23. Public Attitudes to Science 2008 – A Survey (Research Councils of social media is the way in which it chemicals are everywhere and understanding UK, 2008). encourages viewers to participate, either by them is empowering — we now need to 24. Nature Chem. 2, 599 (2010). 25. Europeans, Science and Technology (European Commission, leaving comments, or in the case of YouTube, find ways to efficiently convey this to non- Special Eurobarometer 224, 2005). even by making their own video responses. chemists, or not-yet-chemists. We can achieve 26. Mahaffy, P., Ashmore, A., Bucat, B., Do, C. & Rosborough, M. This allows the viewer to become an active this by engaging with the twin concepts of Pure Appl. Chem. 80, 161–174 (2008). 27. Burns, T. W., O’Connor, D. J. & Stocklmayer, S. M. Public Underst. participant, sharing their experience of, and education and communication, in the same Sci. 12, 183–202 (2003). views on, the learning process. From my own manner we would like our students to engage 28. Sella, A. Educ. Chem. 47, 64 (2010). experience, user comments have prompted with chemistry. We need to seek out the very 29. Smith, D. K. J. Chem. Educ. 82, 393–400 (2005). me to reflect on the material I have produced, best ways of enticing our own students to 30. Posocco, P., Pricl, S., Jones S. P., Barnard, A & Smith, D. K. Chem. Sci. 1, 393–404 (2010). elicited responses from me, led me to become active learners, and in turn, translate 31. Jones, S. P., Gabrielson, N. P., Pack, D. W. & Smith, D. K. make videos on new topics, and sometimes these approaches into interactions with Chem. Commun. 4700–4702 (2008). even enabled me to form new professional a wider audience. I firmly believe that by 32. http://www.youtube.com/periodicvideos 33. http://www.youtube.com/professordaveatyork relationships. Furthermore, this experience placing chemistry in a clear societal context, 34. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJnr8b526o0 encouraged me to run an undergraduate and interacting with our audiences on such 35. Sood, A., Sarangi, S., Pandey, A. & Murugiah, K. Urology course in which students could submit their issues, we can not only turn our students 77, 558–562 (2011). 36. Steinberg, P. L. et al. Urology 75, 619–622 (2010). independent learning project work in the into more active, independent learners, with 37. Duffy, P. in Proc. 6th European Conf. E-Learning (ed. Remenyi, D.) form of a YouTube video. In this way, social the chemical literacy required for innovative 173–182 (Academic Conferences, 2007). media can be used to generate really active problem-solving, but we can also engage the 38. Agazio, J. & Buckley, K. M. Nurse Educator 34, 23–28 (2009). learning outcomes37–39 — with the students broader population, and convince them that 39. Haines, S. L. & van Amburgh, J. A. Am. J. Pharm. Ed. 74, 97 (2010). creating engaging, inspiring, innovative chemistry is an important and inspiring part 40. http://www.chemtube3d.com/ and highly educational material that will of their lives. ❐ 41. http://www.chemspider.com/

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Changes in the chemical industry over the past decade — ranging from globalization to an increased focus on speciality chemicals — threaten to leave the aspiring industrial chemist unprepared. This Commentary discusses those changes and outlines strategies to enter the job market as well equipped as possible.

he world of industrial chemistry has experienced significant upheaval since Tthe beginning of the new century. The recession that came after the events of 11 September 2001 was followed by a strong cyclical peak in 2005–2006. Thereafter, the financial crisis of 2007–2008 catalysed the most significant drop in chemical demand since the Great Depression. More recently, chemical profits have rebounded again, triggered by strong demand in the emerging economies, stabilization of the developed economies, and comparatively little capital investment by the leading chemical companies. The tactical responses to the market’s ebb and flow mask deep underlying structural changes in industrial chemistry that have occurred during this time period. The purpose of this Commentary is to describe these changes and how they might impact those chemists currently finishing their education and entering the job market. Although the target audience is broad

and the themes will be relevant to many / EREL PHOTOGRAPHY © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM already working in the chemical industry, a special emphasis is placed on students represent both a threat to the recent status easily be passed down the value chain. and post-doctoral fellows at traditional quo, and an opportunity for the most flexible Instead, volatility drives uncertainty and risk. Western universities who will be candidates to stand out in a difficult job market. Consider that in the past decade, the price for employment at large global chemical of oil has risen from its historical average of companies in the coming years. Clearly, Feedstock volatility. Prime feedstock costs $20–30 per barrel to approximately $150 in the impact on this population could be (for inputs such as ethane, naphtha and other 2008. This was followed by a crash to around particularly significant. by-products of fossil-fuel refining) have $30 during the recession. At the time of this become incredibly volatile, with a mostly writing, it is back to around $100. This input Changes in industrial chemistry upward trend. These feedstocks are cracked to cost ‘whiplash’ has caused a major shift in The four key structural changes that most ethylene, propylene and other key chemical how commodity chemicals are produced and impact aspiring industrial chemists are ingredients to form the basis of the modern who produces them. increasing feedstock volatility, an ever- chemical economy. Chemical refining is also Traditional players like BASF, Bayer, increasing focus on speciality chemicals an energy-intensive enterprise, leading to Dow Chemical, DuPont, General Electric by the chemical majors, a shrinking of further exposure to energy costs. and Monsanto have responded by reducing industrial central research budgets, and A common misconception is that their exposure through a combination of unrelenting globalization of both real and expensive feedstocks are inherently bad partnering with national oil companies, intellectual capital. For today’s students, the for the chemical industry. In fact, it is the leaving the commodities market and impact of these four trends will be acute volatility of these costs that does the most refocusing on specialities or fully divesting and effectively permanent, and should be damage, because in an orderly market their chemical arms. National oil companies well understood. As will be seen below, they incremental expenses and savings can more like PetroChina, SABIC and Sinopec,

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160 have impacted hiring requirements in the industry, which will be described in further detail below. 140 Globalization. The emerging economies are quickly increasing their investment 120 in education and research. According to the US National Science Foundation, the 100 number of first university degrees awarded in natural sciences and engineering in China has risen sharply since 2002. In contrast, 80 the number awarded in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States remained essentially unchanged during this 60 period. Human capital and talent are evenly distributed across the globe, and technology eekly spot price (dollars per barrel)

W and economic development has unleashed 40 previously untapped talent onto the global stage. In addition, instead of Western 20 universities attracting the best of the best from around the world by default, more top talent candidates are staying in their home 0 countries to obtain their graduate degrees. Big 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 chemical companies have responded in kind, Year opening up state-of-the-art research facilities The variation of oil price from 2006 to present. Data for the weekly United States spot price ‘free on in countries such as China, India and Brazil. board’ weighted by estimated import volume; taken from the US Energy Information Administration, As manufacturing has been transferred http://go.nature.com/PvQ6qA. to where feedstocks are available, stable and comparatively cheap, in many cases so has the accompanying research. The which have access to cheap feedstocks and Engelhard. These are just some of the need to have research in close proximity to and/or strong support from their national many examples of a trend that looks likely to manufacturing is often not fully understood. governments, have made significant gains continue in the coming years. Cycle times for the development and in commodity chemical market share. implementation of new technologies are These players work to neutralize feedstock Shrinking central research. The shorter when researchers and operational volatility through long-term contracts on transition from graduate school to a large engineers work together in person. key inputs, often at advantageous prices. company’s central research organization has traditionally been a common and Tips for aspiring industrial chemists Increasing focus on specialities. straightforward way for top graduate The attributes needed to compete for Concurrent with reducing their exposure students and postdoctoral fellows to become employment in the modern chemical to commodity chemicals, Western-based industrial chemists. However, because industry have changed. However, the chemical majors have shifted towards speciality chemical investments tend to curriculum at most traditional Western speciality chemicals further downstream create products with shorter life cycles, and universities does not necessarily reflect from the prime feedstocks. For example, traditional long-term research has focused on these new dynamics. Those students and Monsanto spun off its chemical arm feedstock refining and associated processes, postdoctoral fellows who proactively (Solutia) and is now a leading agricultural many large companies are either reducing adapt on their own are most likely to find biotechnology company. Bayer and DuPont their investments in central research or success in the new environment. The ability have aggressively exited commodities and applying significantly more rigorous business to demonstrate a range of skills, such as repositioned to focus on specialities and assessment to existing projects. communication, business acumen and agricultural biotechnology. Dow Chemical Research budgets have become more project management is crucial to standing and BASF remain integrated, but through focused on near-term business activities, out from the field. incremental investments have become and it is more common to have dispersed As mentioned earlier, product life cycles more focused on speciality chemicals and researchers embedded within business units are shrinking. Industrial chemists can advanced materials. General Electric exited than in previous eras. The ‘not invented expect to work on dozens of technologies chemicals altogether, selling its plastics here’ syndrome, defined as a mistrust of during their careers. Although a certain division to SABIC and its silicones business technologies that haven’t been developed in- amount of mastery of a single discipline to a private equity firm. house, has been replaced with active external is needed to complete a dissertation, it is All of this activity has led to a significant research arms that scour universities and important that potential industrial chemists consolidation in the speciality chemicals start-ups for technologies that have already demonstrate that they are willing and able space, with many acquisitions of well-known been significantly de-risked. Venture to learn new technologies. There are several companies by the large players. For example, capital and other investment tools are being ways to demonstrate this competency to Dow Chemical recently acquired Rohm & increasingly used for purposes aligned to potential employers, including learning and Haas, DuPont announced the purchase of corporate strategy (over and above pure mastering the research of other professors Danisco, and BASF purchased Cognis, Ciba financial goals). These and other trends within one’s department. Another approach

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is to learn a new area of research every growth — skills feed off each other via a might find themselves communicating with 6–12 months. This can be accomplished cycle of positive reinforcement. venture capitalists, government regulators, by investigating and reading the leading Understanding the concepts of the critical investors and board members in the span literature in the area, or by participating in path, resource management and stakeholder of several days. The ability to bring together a different, focused conference outside of analysis are important in many aspects of key concepts and tailor them to several one’s speciality every year. Whatever the life. In an ideal world, graduate schools audiences, both in writing and through approach, the value that can be derived from would require formal project-management verbal presentations, is a powerful and diversification is significant. training for graduation. Without this, career-accelerating complement to deep The surest way to demonstrate the ability candidates would be well-advised to learn technical ability. In addition, understanding to become a technical generalist is to master project management on their own, and treat the fundamental differences between the fundamentals. Basic thermodynamics, activities like writing papers or dissertations communicating with small groups and kinetics and engineering skills will always as formal projects. As a rule, any set of presenting to larger audiences is important. prove useful — much more so than specific activities that takes more than two–three It is very common for candidates to deliver knowledge of narrow fields that happen to hours of dedicated work should get at least a long presentation at the beginning of an be in vogue today. These foundational skills 20 minutes of planning, including a detailed employment interview, and to follow this form the basis of all future learning, and can and thorough answer to the following four up with several one-on-one interactions. often be overlooked in the rush to specialize. questions: What is success? What is needed Those candidates who proactively master Although a strong foundation in the for success? What is currently rate-limiting? all elements of communication will find fundamentals and a diverse knowledge What resources are already available? themselves at a strong competitive advantage. of cutting-edge research are important, An appreciation of the fundamentals The impact of globalization means that candidates can further differentiate of finance and marketing is also critical learning a second language, understanding themselves by rounding out their non- for modern industrial chemists. Potential other cultures and generally improving one’s technical skills. Doing so will help employers already assume that candidates knowledge of foreign affairs and trends can candidates respond to the trends of can solve technical problems. Candidates only improve a candidate’s chances of finding increasing focus on specialities and should also be able to contribute to sustained success in the chemical industry. shrinking central research. In fact, proactive determining which technologies should be Many industrial scientists will be expected skill development beyond chemistry is worked on, acquired or avoided — decisions to travel the world or spend years working in usually not sufficiently emphasized in today’s that require knowledge beyond the technical. another country. Demonstrating the ability curricula. Candidates should invest at least This is especially true for the development and desire to do so sends a powerful message 20% of their time and effort on activities of speciality chemicals. It is not uncommon to corporate recruiters. It is also highly that broaden their ability to compete in the for industrial chemists to spend a large likely that candidates will be expected to global economy. The three most important portion of their time with customers, where participate on global teams, with members skills to master include basic project they must gain a clear understanding of in different geographies and time zones. management, the fundamentals of business market needs and buying trends. Learning Finally, candidates need to continuously and the ability to communicate with a what makes good business sense and what pay attention to their personal brand. Joining diverse audience. is likely to fail can increase one’s success rate one company and staying for 35–40 years Not all skills are created equal. By far the on projects. And success on projects is a until retirement is becoming rarer. The most important skill that can be learned is powerful enabler of long-term career success. industry rationalization described earlier project management. Once mastered, each The ability to translate invention into means the odds that a company will be subsequent skill-development exercise can innovation (and ultimately profit) is often acquired, spun off or combined with another be treated as a project, and the time spent predicated on engaging in critical discussions enterprise in a joint venture are increasing. on getting better and broader can have an with a host of technical and non-technical Developing, nurturing and protecting a impact analogous to compound interest audiences. Modern industrial chemists personal brand is an important part of sustaining a successful career. By acquiring the skills described above, candidates will come closer to achieving this important objective.

Conclusions The changing landscape in the chemical industry has raised the bar for aspiring industrial chemists. Traditional career paths have been replaced and those who are most flexible and can adapt the fastest will thrive. A strong technical background, while still necessary, is no longer sufficient to compete on the global stage. By following the advice outlined herein, students and postdoctoral fellows can gain a competitive edge in the job market. ❐

Keith J. Watson is Senior Director, Strategic Marketing, Thermosets at The Dow Chemical Company, Midland, Michigan 48674, USA.

ALEX WING e-mail: [email protected]

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The spectre of insecure supplies of some mineral raw materials could hinder the development and deployment of new technology. This Commentary discusses and analyses the reasons behind the potential insecurity, how markets are responding, and what roles government should play.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost, world. As a result, there has been near panic supply will not keep up with the increase For want of a shoe the horse was lost. outside China, as the unavailability of rare in demand due to the time lags involved in For want of a horse the rider was lost. earths could constrain the development bringing new production capacity online. For want of a rider the battle was lost. and manufacturing of important emerging For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. technologies around the world. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. The issues of mineral availability, The unavailability of rare — Old proverb however, are broader than rare earths and earths could constrain China. Rare earths are but one example of eemingly small issues can have a number of mineral-derived elements for the development and significant consequences. Rare- which there are concerns about availability manufacturing of important Searth elements, which have featured or security of supply, especially in the clean- prominently in the popular press in 2011, energy and defence sectors. The elements emerging technologies. provide an example. They are used in of concern typically make up only a small small quantities, but provide essential percentage by weight of a material or The fear is not so much that these chemical and physical properties to a product, yet are essential to its performance. elements will become more expensive — growing number of emerging technologies: Some observers refer to these elements although users are always concerned about permanent magnets in hybrid vehicles and as critical elements or minerals — that is, costs, most of these elements represent wind turbines, compact fluorescent light those that are essential in use and subject to only a small portion of the total. Rather, bulbs, electric-car batteries, speciality glass supply risk. the concern is that physical unavailability and catalysts used in petroleum refining, Concerns about mineral availability will mean that manufacturers cannot among many others. The demand for some come in two forms. The first is that supplies make certain products, leading to lower rare earths could increase enormously of some elements are insecure because of production and profits. This could have in line with demand for these products. geologic scarcity, extraction difficulties, important spill-over effects on local, regional However, essentially all mining of rare-earth reliance on their extraction as by-products and even national economies, and in the minerals occurs in China, which is cutting or dependence on sources in politically case of defence or military materials, even its exports of rare earths to the rest of the volatile countries. The second is that on national security. Over the longer term, the spectre of an element’s unavailability could influence which ones materials scientists and engineers choose to include in new materials — more specifically, these choices could lead to materials with inferior performance compared with those that otherwise would be designed. A fundamental cause of concern about critical minerals is that materials based on them are becoming increasingly complex. We are using more of the periodic table than in the past: a typical smart phone contains up to 60 elements from the periodic table. Computer chips from the 1980s contained 11 mineral-derived elements whereas those from the 1990s contained 15 — future chips could see the inclusion of as many as 50–60 elements. General Electric estimates that its products contain some 70 of the first 83 elements in the periodic table. In contrast, as recently as two or three decades ago, smart phones did not exist, computer use was limited, and a typical household owned

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perhaps 20 elements. As a result, we need 1 2 to locate and develop sources for mineral- H He derived elements that until now have not been in great demand. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Li Be B C N O F Ne

Criticality is in the eye of the beholder 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Exactly which minerals are critical varies Na Mg Al Si P S Cl Ar from industry to industry, nation to nation, and over time. Tellurium is critical to 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 cadmium-telluride photovoltaic thin films, K Ca Sc Ti V Cr Mn Fe Co Ni Cu Zn Ga Ge As Se Br Kr indium to flat-panel displays in televisions 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 and computer screens, platinum-group Rb Sr Y Zr Nb Mo Tc Ru Rh Pd Ag Cd In Sn Sb Te I Xe elements to automotive catalytic converters, 55 56 57 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 and samarium and cobalt to the strong Cs Ba La Hf Ta W Re Os Ir Pt Au Hg Tl Pb Bi Po At Rn permanent magnets used in, for example, wind turbines. 87 88 89 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 A number of recent studies identify Fr Ra Ac Rf Db Sg Bh Hs Mt Ds Rg Cn possible critical elements. Each list reflects a specific context. In the field of energy, for example, the US Department of Energy in 2010 identified1 five rare earths (dysprosium, 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 europium, terbium, neodymium and Ce Pr Nd Pm Sm Eu Gd Tb Dy Ho Er Tm Yb Lu yttrium) along with indium as especially 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 critical to wind turbines, fluorescent Th Pa U Np Pu Am Cm Bk Cf Es Fm Md No Lr lighting, electric vehicles and photovoltaic thin films. Also focusing on energy, a study Elements (shaded) that might be considered critical in important current or emerging technologies. by the American Physical Society (APS) and Materials Research Society2 (MRS) identifies the same six elements as possibly the alternative ceramic magnets. Similarly, on availability, as the APS–MRS report2 critical, plus several other rare earths, processing innovations involving additional illustrates. Although essentially no element the platinum-group elements and several heat treatments mean that less molybdenum is in danger of being used up (or depleted) elements important for photovoltaics is needed per unit mass in certain high- in a geologic sense, some elements are (gallium, germanium, selenium, tellurium), strength steel alloys. Tellurium would no not significantly concentrated by geologic as well as cobalt, helium, lithium, rhenium longer be critical if photovoltaic materials processes above their average abundance and silver. For military hardware and not reliant on tellurium come to dominate in the Earth’s crust. Germanium — used in defence systems, Parthemore3 identifies thin-film materials (for example, copper- fibre optics, infrared optics and photovoltaic the following elements as critical: gallium, indium-gallium selenides). cells — is an example. Germanium is not lithium, niobium, the rare-earth elements, Which elements or materials are critical especially rare, on average, in the Earth’s rhenium and tantalum. also changes with developments in the crust but it is only rarely present as the Geography can also influence whether a supply side of the markets. If, as seems likely, main component in minerals. In other particular mineral is critical. For European new sources of rare-earth elements emerge cases, technical limitations constrain industry, the European Commission4 outside China, the supply risk caused by the availability of an element. Rare- identifies fourteen elements or families of the geographic concentration of current earth elements are not, in fact, very rare elements as critical: antimony, beryllium, production will lessen. geologically. They exist in a number of cobalt, fluorspar, gallium, germanium, minerals, such as eudialyte, that at present graphite, indium, magnesium, niobium, Each element has its own story are not a source of supply because existing the platinum-group elements, rare From all the attention rare earths have methods of mineral processing and earths, tantalum and tungsten. The received, one might think that geopolitical extractive metallurgy are inadequate (both Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National risks are the only cause for concern. technically and commercially) to remove Corporation (JOGMEC) maintains joint Geopolitical risks are certainly important the rare earths from other elements and, in government–industry stockpiles for seven for those elements with geographically turn, separate the rare-earth elements from elements (chromium, cobalt, manganese, concentrated production, where one one another. molybdenum, nickel, tungsten and or a small number of companies or By-product supply represents a different vanadium) deemed especially important for governments might act opportunistically form of risk. Indium, for example, is a by- Japanese industry and for which there are or unpredictably to the disadvantage of product of zinc production and tellurium significant supply risks. JOGMEC5 is closely users. Platinum-group elements fall into this a by-product of copper refining. The key monitoring several others (gallium, indium, category, with some 80 per cent of recent insight here is that the availability of indium, niobium, platinum, rare earths, strontium production located in South Africa, as well tellurium and other by-products is strongly and tantalum). as cobalt with half or more of current mine influenced by the commercial attractiveness Over time, which materials are deemed production coming from the Democratic of the main product with which the by- critical changes along with advances in Republic of Congo, one of the least stable product is associated. A significant increase materials science and engineering. Cobalt is nations in the world. in the price of a by-product may not result less critical in certain types of magnets than But reality is more varied and nuanced. in a significant increase in its production. it once was because of the development of Different elements have different constraints Conversely, a drop in demand for the main

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the waste created in the first place. Indium provides a good example. Indium–tin oxides (ITOs) provide electrical conductivity in flat-panel displays (for example, in computer monitors, televisions and smart phones). A decade ago, the efficiency of the sputtering process that formed ITO thin-films was such that only around 30% of the indium made its way onto the films. When indium prices rose significantly because of increased demand for flat-panel displays, manufacturers responded by improving the sputtering process such that now some two-thirds of the indium ends up on the films. A third set of options requires the redesign of materials, a longer-term response to supply risks or availability constraints. One form of redesign focuses on reducing the amount of an element needed in a material to achieve a desired level of performance. Another form of

© ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/KYU OH © ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/KYU redesign replaces a more risky with a less risky element in a material. A final (and the product could cause a drop in supply of the only those projects now in advanced most significant) form involves an entire by-product and, in turn, a price increase for exploration or development will be redesign of a material for a specific function the critical by-product. producing rare earths in the next few years. (for example, replacing incandescent with Environmental and social concerns These projects are essentially limited to the fluorescent or LED lighting). are factors influencing the availability Mountain Pass mine in California, which is of an element. That mineral production being re-opened, and the Mount Weld mine Government has important roles can have negative consequences for the in Australia, where there is a deposit of rare Despite the incentives that markets provide, natural environment or local communities earths that has been under investigation for governments have important roles to play is not in dispute; it can and does in some many years. in framing market decisions. Markets, circumstances. Rather, the point is that left alone, do not always function well. processes to ensure that mineral production Chemical research on the There are important and essential roles for occurs in ways that are consistent with government in the following areas: standards for environmental protection and supply side is arguably respect for society can increase the time lag just as important as International trade. Well-functioning between an unexpected increase in demand markets require unimpeded flows of goods and creation of new production capacity substitutional research. and services across national boundaries. In to meet it, and also redirect the location of situations where access to critical elements production away from nations with stricter Increased recycling can also be an or materials is constrained by restrictive (or less predictable) environmental and important response to constraints on supply. trade practices — such as export restrictions social rules to nations with less strict (or Recycling comes in two forms. The most on mineral raw materials, and import more predictable) rules. obvious comes from recycling of products restrictions on processed and semiprocessed at the ends of their lives — for example, the minerals and metals — governments should Market response times matter recovery of ferrous and non-ferrous metals intervene with the objective of promoting Market forces alone provide powerful from junked automobiles. Less obvious free trade. incentives for private and public institutions but very important is the recycling of to respond to the issues and potential manufacturing scraps or waste. Information and analysis. Sound decision- problems identified above. On the demand side, market forces making requires good information. Supply risks — especially those encourage users to obtain ‘insurance’ against Government is an important facilitator signalled by higher prices for a mineral the supply risks. In the short to medium of the provision of information in many or element — encourage investment in term (one to a few years), users can maintain situations (for example, nutritional new sources of supply. In rare earths, for stockpiles, diversify their sources of supply, information on food, macroeconomic example, exploration has boomed worldwide develop joint-sharing arrangements or statistics). For rare earths and other over the past two years, fuelled by questions develop closer ties with producers to critical minerals, in particular, a significant about both the reliability of supplies from guarantee sources. challenge for both market participants and China to external consumers, and the Another set of options, involving policy makers is lack of transparency in the prospect of booming demand. Over the next somewhat longer response times, relates way the markets operate. five to ten years, a number of mines outside to manufacturing. Users can reduce their of China are likely to begin production. need for certain materials by optimizing Education and research. Over the longer However, given the long lead times between manufacturing processes — that is, by term, scientific and technological innovation initial exploration and mining (which can increasing the recycling of manufacturing is the key to meeting the challenges of rare range from five to fifteen years or more), wastes (as noted above), or by reducing earths and critical minerals. Education

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and research go hand in hand. Educational A number of other government in academia, industry and government programmes, especially those at the interventions in markets have been laboratories. Much attention so far has graduate level, educate and train the next proposed, such as military or economic focused on so-called substitutional generation of scientists and engineers. On stockpiles of rare earths and other critical research, that is, research aimed at reducing the supply side, education and research in elements, loan guarantees for investments or eliminating the need for critical the geosciences, mining, mineral processing in mines and processing facilities, and elements through materials redesign or and extractive metallurgy, environmental special, fast-track environmental permits development of completely new materials. science and engineering, manufacturing for mines that would produce rare earths or Less widely appreciated, but arguably just and recycling can help mitigate supply other critical minerals. These more-direct as important, is chemical research on the risks and increase mineral availability. market interventions, although perhaps supply side: in the geosciences (finding On the demand side, improvements in advisable in specific circumstances, are more and developing mineral deposits), mineral materials design — fostered by education controversial and less compelling in general processing and extractive metallurgy and research in materials science and as responses to the challenges of critical (converting mineral raw materials into engineering — can ease the pressures minerals — at least to most economists. metals or other intermediate products in imposed by those elements or minerals environmentally acceptable ways), and subject to supply risks or limited availability. Final thoughts recycling (of manufacturing wastes and Government, in addition to simply funding Materials have grown more complex, end-of-life products). education and research, can play an drawing on an ever-increasing portion Market and government responses — important role in facilitating collaborations of the periodic table. At the same time, a involving chemists and other professionals — among universities, government research variety of geologic, geographic, economic can ensure that we do not lose our kingdom laboratories and industry. and political factors have raised concerns (development of clean-energy, defence about the availability of essential inputs and other technologies) for want of a nail Information, education and research all to important technologies, especially (critical elements). ❐ share a common characteristic: they are in the energy, communications and to a significant degree what economists defence industries. Roderick G. Eggert is Professor and Director the call public goods. Public goods tend to be Panic is not helpful. It tends to result in Division of Economics and Business at Colorado undersupplied by the private sector alone knee-jerk reactions that are short lived. The School of Mines, in Golden, Colorado 80401, USA. because the benefits of a private investment issues surrounding critical elements and e-mail: [email protected] in these activities are diffuse and difficult minerals need serious, sustained attention. References for a private investor to fully capture. Pre- Market responses to ‘criticality’ are necessary 1. http://go.nature.com/jRUdDQ commercial research is especially ‘public’ in and are happening. But market responses 2. http://go.nature.com/ly4XHh this sense. alone are not sufficient. Governments 3. http://www.cnas.org/node/6315 4. http://go.nature.com/yto76i A common conclusion of almost all facilitate and frame market activities and 5. www.jogmec.go.jp recent studies1–7 on rare earths and critical have a responsibility to step in when markets 6. Eggert, R. G. Issues Sci. Technol. 26, 49–58 (2010). minerals is to urge governments to improve do not function well. 7. Committee on Critical Mineral Impacts of the US Economy; Committee on Earth Resources; National Research Council and expand activities related to information For chemists and chemistry, there Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the US Economy (The National and analysis, education and research. are important research opportunities Academies Press, Washington DC, 2010).

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Powerful technologies allow the synthesis and testing of large numbers of new compounds, but the failure rate of pharmaceutical R&D remains very high. Greater understanding of the fundamental physical chemical behaviour of molecules could be the key to greatly enhancing the success rate of drug discovery.

he origins of the pharmaceutical purposes of this Commentary, we are leaving progress requires a far more fundamental industry date to the second half aside the equally thorny issue of target understanding of the physical principles Tof the nineteenth century when selection, which is undoubtedly also a major governing how drugs work on the bench, in a young and still developing organic contributor to pharmaceutical failure). the manufacturing plant and in the body. chemical industry and emerging Problems with efficacy and safety may wholesale production apothecaries were often be traced to failures in identifying Understanding how ligands really work drawn together1. From their inception potent and specific agents that can interact Small-molecule ligands bind to proteins in Germany, followed by the USA and with a selected protein target, or the and control their functions by inducing England, pharmaceutical companies formed failure of those agents to target the desired conformational changes (allostery), changes alliances with academic laboratories to cells or reach the appropriate subcellular in the association state of multiprotein convert fundamental research into practical compartment. Most agents never make it complexes (polystery) and changes in their technologies to drive drug discovery. to the clinical-testing stage, because even if phase (polyphasy)4. To decrease reliance on The incorporation of fundamental compounds are discovered that bind to their empiricism it is necessary to understand advances in organic chemistry, physiology, targets of interest in molecular and cellular phenomena such as the following: What pharmacology, physics and molecular models of disease, those compounds may fail determines how tightly a small molecule biology has remained a hallmark of the to achieve adequate adsorption, distribution, binds non-covalently to a protein in aqueous pharmaceutical industry. metabolism and elimination in man, as solution? How does the binding of a small- Despite these scientific advances, it ascertained by their behaviour in model molecule ligand alter the conformation is widely recognized that the process of organisms. Lastly, there may be problems and thereby the function of a protein discovering and developing new medicines with the anticipated manufacture, storage through allosteric control? How does the remains relatively inefficient as measured and administration of these compounds binding of a ligand lead to a change in the by the high failure rate. A major problem is when rendered as solid-state materials, state of association of one protein with that drug discovery remains fundamentally which thwarts their practical development. another, leading to polysteric alteration rooted in empiricism, so that outcomes All of these reasons for failure are in a signalling or metabolic process? How in the pharmaceutical industry are strongly linked to our inadequate can ligand-binding trigger a change in the realized only after lengthy research and understanding of how the chemical and phase of a protein, as in the case of certain development (R&D) followed by clinical biological agents we devise — our drug disease states such as sickle-cell anaemia testing in humans. By comparison, in candidates — function at the molecular level, and Alzheimer’s? Questions surrounding the telecommunications, automotive and and hence limit our ability to make more the predictability of the free energy of ligand aerospace industries, outcomes can be predictive outcomes. More specifically, we binding and the mechanisms by which effectively assessed through modelling and lack fundamental and complete answers to ligand binding leads to allosteric, polysteric simulation well before production begins2. three questions: (1) How do drugs interact and polyphasic control are fundamental to What can be done to improve the as ligands and substrates of biological our understanding of, and modulation of, current state of affairs? The three most macromolecules in simple aqueous media, disease states. often cited reasons for drug failures are in cells, and in the human body? (2) How Science lacks a general method to a lack of adequate safety, efficacy and do drugs behave as — and how can they calculate the equilibrium constant for non- pharmacokinetics in clinical trials3. To be rendered as — materials that can be covalent association of a small-molecule

© ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/CATENARYMEDIA understand the root causes of these clinical practically manufactured, formulated and ligand to a protein in aqueous solution failures, one must delivered so as to gain entry to the aqueous at a fixed temperature and pH, even examine what media of the human body in the first when both the high-resolution structures happens in the place? (3) How can we build tools that will of the reactants (unbound protein and whole organism equip researchers with what is necessary ligand) and product (protein–ligand as well as at to experimentally access answers to complex) are available5. Solving the the cellular questions 1 and 2? Until we gain a far better ligand-binding problem would obviate and molecular understanding of the fundamental principles the need to synthesize and empirically levels. (For the relating to these phenomena, and learn test large numbers of compounds by to leverage our increased knowledge into affinity screening platforms. Lead practical technologies, drug discovery and selection and lead optimization would development will remain a highly ineffective be much more efficient, with more process. In short, we believe that further efficacious and selective drugs that could

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be administered at lower doses, reducing the risk of off-target toxicities. However, solving the ligand-binding problem will require a more thorough understanding of the thermodynamics of protein–ligand interactions and more accurate models of how water is involved in binding6–9. Beyond understanding the thermodynamics of protein–ligand binding in simple dilute aqueous solutions, it is necessary to understand and quantify the breadth and strength of interactions in cells — a far more complex environment10–12. Drug-discovery assays cannot be run in these environments of macromolecular overcrowding, and yet we know that both the effective concentrations of ligands and the kinetics of ligand–protein association will be strongly affected by the ‘cellular soup’. The best we can hope for is to obtain a correction factor so we can extrapolate from the in vitro situation of dilute concentrations to this in vivo environment of hyper-concentrations. Such a correction factor might be obtained through some combination of surrogate measurements and modelling. More than accounting for the affinities of ligands in cellular environments, it is important to have a quantitative ‘functional GOODSELL © 2011 DAVID model’ for understanding the interactions An artist’s impression of an Escherichia coli cell showing the complex, crowded nature of the cell interior. that a protein target has with other components of the cellular machinery such as proteins, nucleic acids and lipid because the human body is an open the cell), and function in a variety of structures. A functional model is a physical system — the drug is constantly being distinct environments defined by the chemical description of the underlying removed and the proteins constantly turned cell’s compartmentalized organization. chemical species participating in binding over. In the body, long drug-residency time In addition, proteins must alternate events, embodied by a mathematical at the site of action can have a huge effect on between inactive and active conformations model that can be used to both account biological efficacy. Thus, ‘insurmountable’ in response to post-translational for experimental observations and make drugs are of great interest. The slow off-rate modification(s) — such as acetylation, predictions. Examples of such models are and high residency time of such drugs can phosphorylation or the formation of those that have been put forth for repressor lead to safety concerns, but there is also the disulfide bridges — and engage in protein– control of gene regulation13 — the process potential benefit that less drug will need to protein interactions that enable their proper of turning on or off the formation of gene be administered, lowering the risk of side function. The various steps of proteostasis products such as proteins — or voltage effects caused by binding to an unintended are carried out by networks containing control of ion channel function14, which is target. Interestingly, an increasing number hundreds of components, and the physical key to the proper functioning of cells. In of safe, efficacious drugs are now being chemistry underlying these processes is the absence of the ability to measure and shown to display insurmountable kinetics. enormously complex. model the concentrations and functions Many of these compounds form either Whereas aberrant proteostasis can of the macromolecular species affected by reversible or irreversible covalent bonds lead to disorders such as Huntington’s drug action in cells, we are often tripped with their receptors15. Although traditional disease and cystic fibrosis, there are several up in drug discovery by the assumptions equilibrium binding measurements fundamental issues that hinder research of reductionist logic, and ultimately are a good start, studying receptor off- in these areas. First, it is not generally disappointed with results from cellular and rates will allow for true optimization of understood which specific step in the in vivo testing. ‘insurmountability’ within a series16. proteostasis cascade is damaged. Is it folding A critical area of physical chemistry Another important area for or trafficking? Is protein aggregation playing research surrounds the kinetics of ligand– physical chemistry-based research is a role? This leads to confusion about the protein association. Most drugs compete proteostasis — the process by which physiological relevance of any cellular with natural substrates at their sites of proteins, newly translated from assays. Second, we generally lack a detailed action, and they are ‘surmountable,’ that messenger RNA, arrive at their native molecular understanding of the defect. As is, their interaction with the target is structure(s), and how these structures a consequence of these issues, molecular fast. In the lab, we measure the activity are maintained and turned over. Proteins optimization is quite challenging and progress of these compounds with closed, in vitro must be folded, trafficked and localized towards important new medicines has been measurements that may be misleading (transported to specific locations within slow. Fundamental advances in our physical

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which interbacterial communication drives without having explored the solid-form behaviours such as bioluminescence, biofilm landscape available to the compound. formation and virulence25. Considerable A practical concern of pharmaceutical basic science and engineering, supported solids is that of undesired solid by physical chemistry, will be required to transformations during manufacture or develop this technology to the clinical stage. storage. After having developed, registered and commercialized an oral dosage form Understanding drugs as materials of an HIV protease inhibitor, Ritonavir, a The ultimate outputs of pharmaceutical less soluble polymorph was discovered in R&D are: a product to be administered to a routine manufacture, causing a disastrous patient (such as a tablet, capsule or injectable supply scenario that took many months to solution), a process for manufacturing the rectify33. More recently, a sterile injectable active pharmaceutical ingredient and the solution of cytarabine for treating acute drug product, and an approved clinical label myeloid leukemia has proved problematic claim outlining the appropriate medical use to manufacture owing, in part, to of the product. Although attention is often crystallization34. Anecdotal accounts of focused on what the product does medically, physical transformations during development the actual formulated drug product and the leading to failed programmes abound. As A drug bound covalently to its target. Reproduced active pharmaceutical ingredient material a result, many pharmaceutical companies from ref. 47, © 2009 NPG. are what enable the product to attain the have taken the conservative position to claim on the label26. Compounds that not develop compounds with challenging work in isolated protein assays, cellular physical properties (for example, metastable understanding of the steps of proteostasis will systems and animal models may not crystalline or amorphous forms). By having be critical to future success17–19. necessarily lend themselves to the processes a more detailed understanding of the Another grand challenge is manipulating of pharmaceutical development, the goal risks of developing challenging materials, the delivery of drugs to maximize their of which is to have robust manufacturing enlightened business decisions can be made bioavailability at the desired site of action. processes to make the active pharmaceutical leading to more compounds advancing A modern variant on the prodrug concept, ingredient (API) and a formulated drug to development. Integrating the materials where the dosed compound is converted product that can be delivered to patients to science and characterization skills into to active drug in the body, is the ‘pro- achieve the desired pharmacological action. the discovery process can therefore be ligand’ — a drug that is activated only in the If we were able to develop a greater fraction highly beneficial leading ultimately to an presence of a specific enzyme found in high of the compounds that we synthesize in increased overall success rate. In this way, the concentration surrounding the target cells20. discovery, pharmaceutical R&D would be enlightened medicinal chemist is transformed Antibody–drug complexes provide both more successful. into a supramolecular solid-state chemist tissue targeting and the potential benefits One of the marvels of chemistry is that concerned with the task of optimizing non- of polypharmacy21. Many nanotechnology compounds can exist in any number of covalent bonds to expand her/his mainstay approaches are also being investigated, such distinct solid forms. When rendered as competency of forming covalent bonds35. as the use of fluorescent mesoporous silica crystalline materials, compounds can display A growing practice that we consider nanoparticles to deliver the cancer drug polymorphism, with each crystalline form to be problematic in the pharmaceutical camptothecin to tumours22. Furthermore, or ‘polymorph’ having a unique crystal industry is that of outsourcing manufacture, biodegradable nanoparticles have been structure and set of properties, including thereby separating R&D from manufacture shown to penetrate mucous layers and reside aqueous solubility, melting points, solid-state during development. In other industries in target tissues for up to several weeks, reactivity and stability27. Compounds may such as the computer and chemicals gradually breaking open and releasing also be rendered as amorphous materials industries, it has been recognized that their cargo23; biodegradable nanoparticles or as ‘nanomaterials’ — phases with their ‘where manufacturing goes, innovation functionalized with aptamers can specifically own unique properties28,29. Multicomponent follows’36,37. With the explosion of effort target cancer cells by recognizing the crystalline phases such as salts or co-crystals in novel areas such as pharmaceutical extracellular domain of prostate-specific can be prepared for a compound, as well as nanomaterials, we must ensure practical membrane antigen24. These examples multicomponent amorphous dispersions and manufacturing paths to introduce them as highlight the importance of understanding multicomponent nanophases (for example, medicines. More broadly, being aware of the the binding, transport and reactivity of these liposomes or polymeric micelles)30–32. The factors governing the physical stability of complex nanoparticles to enable us to design ability to render a compound in a particular materials can enable ‘translational’ thinking the precision delivery systems that could lead solid form, with properties that allow it to that will result in fewer compounds rejected to revolutionary medicines. be robustly manufactured, stably stored, as being ‘undevelopable’ and fewer disasters Looking further into the future, reliably administered to patients (orally occurring downstream in development ‘nanofactories’ — multicomponent or otherwise) and be absorbed to achieve and commercialization. molecules that under the right the desired pharmacokinetic behaviour, is circumstances can turn on or off selected essential to pharmaceutical R&D. Given Catalysing instrumentation research processes in the body — may provide a that the solid form of a compound can Instrumentation has transformed all highly precise way to deliver medicines have remarkable consequences on its fields of scientific inquiry. However, it to the correct tissues at the right time. An functional behaviour, a careless discovery is noteworthy that most instruments interesting proof-of-concept study has team may unwittingly stop development of a used in pharmaceutical research are been performed that takes advantage of compound that fails to achieve oral exposure commercial products designed to satisfy quorum sensing, the bacterial property by with the solid form that was first rendered, the largest customer base performing the

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most common experiments. Innovative macroscopically scratched surfaces and can Mark Murcko is Chief Technology Officer at Vertex research often means attempting unusual amplify the Raman signal by a million-fold. Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, experiments requiring commercially These nanotechnology methods are being USA. Pat Connelly is Senior Director at Materials unavailable equipment ranging from simple combined with microfluidics to build sensors Discovery & Characterization, also at Vertex fixtures to fully engineered instruments, whose improved sensitivity and robustness Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, and yet most pharmaceutical companies could become powerful tools in the discovery USA. Minh Vuong is Senior Director, Instrumentation do not have this capability nor do drug- of ligands that help repair conformationally Research & Development, at Vertex Pharmaceuticals discovery scientists clamour for it. It is defective proteins such as mutant cystic in San Diego, California, 92121, USA. common for research scientists in more fibrosis transmembrane conductance e-mail: [email protected] 43,44 physics-oriented industries to consider regulators . Another interesting recent References custom-designed instrumentation as example relevant for understanding 1. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/83/8325/8325intro.html part of their experimental process. protein folding is ‘fast relaxation imaging’, 2. Kuljis, J., Paul, R. J. & Stergioulas, L. K in Proceedings of the 2007 Pharmaceutical R&D can and should a combination of fluorescence microscopy Winter Simulation Conference, Washington, DC (eds Henderson, S. G., Biller, B., Hsieh, M.-H., Shortle, J., Tew, J. D. & Barton, R. R.) benefit from such culture. and fast temperature jumps, applicable in live 1449–1453 (Winter Simulation Conference Foundation, 2007). cells45. Technologies such as these can enable 3. Paul, S. M. et al. Nature Rev. 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