Chemistry Newsletter Chemistry CHEMISTRY NEWSLETTER 13 Issue 13 March 2012 A Sheffield Chemistry Degree is the right career move Contents The 2012 Guardian University Guide declares that, out of all the Russell Group A Sheffield Chemistry Degree of research-intensive university chemistry departments, our graduates have is the right career move 1 the best career prospects. In fact, within six months of leaving Sheffield, 91% of our 2011 graduates were in employment or had gone onto further studies. A new look at the periodic table 2 Generally speaking, a degree in chemistry is always an excellent career Wise men and women from the choice: studies by the Royal Society of Chemistry show that around a third East – New collaborative degree of chemistry graduates go directly into a laboratory-based career, but many programme with China 3 others find that their newly acquired skills and experience are a passport into a wide-range of professional, scientific and technical, manufacturing, financial, Professor Steve Armes and his teaching, or information- and communication-based careers. Indeed, as two polymer-based zoo 3 current Sheffield students explain, Chemistry at Sheffield has equipped them with exactly the skills they need for their next step in their chosen careers. We like Chemistry and we like Physics, but which is better? 4 Holly Rogers graduated with a BSc(Hons) from the Department of Alumni 4 Chemistry last July and is currently studying for an MSc in Science Communication. Aimed at scientists Chemistry at Sheffield who wish to develop their skills to With an annual intake of around communicate complex scientific ideas 160 – 170 talented undergraduate to a general audience, this new course students a year, Chemistry is one exploits the University of Sheffield’s expertise in science, medicine and of the biggest science departments journalism and is run by a unique in the University of Sheffield. Our collaboration of academics from Undergraduate students are drawn Holly Rogers (far right) discusses an assignment on the the Faculties of Science, Medicine from four different continents. science behind performance enhancing drugs with her fellow MSc science communication students Dentistry and Health, and Social Find out more at: Sciences. Speaking of her www.sheffield.ac.uk/chemistry/ time in Department of Chemistry, Holly says: “The department is very well structured. They make sure you get lots of contact with your tutors all the way through your degree, which means they know your strengths and weaknesses, and can give you the best advice about your future choices.” Her future plans? “I like the idea of working as a science journalist, or perhaps in a science centre.” Andy Brown is a final year student on the MChem ‘Chemistry with study in Industry’ course. As he was a German speaker, Andy’s third year placement was in Germany. He says; “My industrial placement in Frankfurt was an amazing experience, with the added bonus that I was paid and had reduced fees. My expertise and confidence in the lab just sky-rocketed.” He is sure that his MChem has helped him onto the next step of his career: “During my industrial placement, it really clicked with me that I wanted to go on and work in the pharmaceutical industry and as I moved forward in my fourth year research project I realized that research chemistry was the way I wanted Current student Andy Brown’s next career to go. So, I started applying for PhD postions, particularly in Sheffield because step – joining the fight against cancer I love it so much. I eventually got a PhD with the Sheffield Cancer Research Institute where I will be looking at anticancer agents.” 4 A new look at the periodic table That familiar and iconic image of chemistry, the periodic standard grid fashion within a rectangular ‘ocean’, each table of elements, is reproduced in countless chemistry ‘country’ can then be stretched using a mathematical textbooks, classrooms and lecture theatres. Traditionally, algorithm so that its area is proportional to a specific of course, the groups of the table are displayed as columns property of that element.” Mark has produced ‘cartograms’ of equal sized tiles, each of which represents an individual displaying information on a wide range of element element. However, by using methods traditionally used properties including density, abundance, and melting by geographers, the Department’s Dr Mark Winter has points; although – if adequate data are available – just recently developed radically new ways of looking at the about any property can be charted by this method. table. The two examples below illustrate how this method aids For many years, mapmakers have designed charts in which data visualization. As Mark points out, in the melting point the sizes of countries appear in proportion to a property cartogram; “gases such as those of group 18 and others of that region such as their population. In a paper just display as vanishingly small areas, while the highest published in the American Chemical Society’s “Journal melting point solids – clustered clearly together toward of Chemical Education” – where it was highlighted on the bottom of the d-block and to the top left of the p-block the front cover – Mark, who is a Senior Lecturer in the elements – dominate the cartogram.” The cartogram for Department and teaches inorganic chemistry to students thermal conductivity very clearly reveals which elements in years 1 and 2, has shown that this approach can be used conduct heat best and also makes some strange anomalies to present in a simple graphical way interesting trends and discontinuities immediately obvious – look at the Mn/ within the periodic table. As he explains: “If the table is Tc/Re triad! treated as a map of square ‘countries’ arranged in the Cartogram representing melting point of the elements Cartogram displaying the thermal conductivity of the elements 2 Wise Men and Women from the East – A new collaborative degree programme with China The Department of Chemistry’s international reputation for excellence has led to an unprecedented joint teaching venture with a Chinese university. Nanjing University of Technology (NJUT) is recruiting outstanding students from China for a new kind of chemistry degree. During this programme, NJUT students will study in China for their first three years taking several chemistry courses taught in English by visiting academic staff from the Department in Sheffield. For their fourth year, the students will then come to Sheffield to join the final Sheffield Staff join their Nanjing-based colleagues and students at the new degree programme’s year of our BSc degree programme. inauguration ceremony at NJUT in October 2011. The new venture was kick-started in October with a formal inauguration ceremony at NJUT. Representing our Department at the ceremony were Professor Mike Ward, Dr Mark Winter and Dr Beining Chen, who are the Sheffield- based managers for the new joint programme. Professor Tony Ryan OBE, a physical chemist from this department, also attended in his role as the Pro-Vice Chancellor of the Faculty of Science. After the ceremony, Professor Ward started the NJUT students’ studies with a bang by delivering a set of introductory lectures on ‘The Chemistry of Explosives’. Our first cohort on the course contains 29 students but this will increase in future years to a maximum of 60 students. Apart from providing a steady stream of outstanding students from China into Sheffield’s Year 3, the academic staff exchanges instigated by the scheme will also provide a new route to research collaboration between the two departments. Professor Steve Armes and his polymer-based zoo In a recent paper featured on the cover of the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society, JACS, Professor Steve Armes has shown how chemistry can produce a whole host of “nano-creatures”. In the paper Steve and his colleagues show how to design polymers by an environmentally friendly technique called polymerisation-induced self-assembly (PISA). In this technique a soluble reactive polymer A is used to grow a second polymer B under conditions in which polymer B gradually becomes insoluble. Using this approach Steve’s research group has created an entire menagerie of polymer nanoparticles, which – when studied under electron microscopes – look just like creepy crawlies such as worms and jellyfish. These products have a wide range of potential industrial and biomedical applications, including the efficient intracellular delivery of biomolecules such as DNA, antibodies or proteins. Steve is enjoying a particularly good academic year: in addition to the JACS paper and a £1M grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, he has filed two patent applications on this work, had many grants from industry, and continues to teach lecture courses on the introductory polymer science and colloid science which underpins his research work. The cover of a recent Journal of the American Chemistry Society shows how Professor Steve Armes’s research group is creating a polymer zoo. 2 3 Chemistry Newsletter Chemistry We like Chemistry Alumni and we like Physics, Are you an Alumnus of the but which is better? Department? There’s only one way to find out - no, not by We would really love to know how you are a fight, but a BBC Radio 4 debate. If you were getting on. Tell us your news and we will share listening to The Infinite Monkey Cage the week it with our readers. Send your stories and before Christmas you would have caught the photos to [email protected] and Department’s Professor Tony Ryan and Professor we will endeavour to include your information Andrea Sella of University College London in future editions of this Newsletter proclaiming the supremacy of chemistry over physics. Coming out fighting in the physics corner were Professor Brian Cox and the comedian (and Physics graduate) Dara O’Briain.