A Prizeworthy Package

Every issue of C&EN carries a wealth of information on the chemical enterprise. This week’s issue, however, is especially chock-full of stories that reflect the incredible breadth of our discipline and industry.

We lead off our News of the Week Department with a story by Deputy Assistant Managing Editor Maureen Rouhi on that annual, much anticipated event: announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry (see page 8). The prize this year goes to Yves Chauvin of the French Petroleum Institute, Robert H. Grubbs of Caltech, and Richard R. Schrock of Massachusetts Institute of Technology for developing olefin metathesis.

This Nobel Prize is particularly satisfying, for a couple of reasons. Unlike some recent Chemistry Nobels, which honored work that was quite biological, this year’s prize honors research that is chemistry at its most fundamental: the breaking and making of chemical bonds to create new compounds. Olefin metathesis is one of the most useful synthetic techniques to be added to the chemist’s toolbox in recent years.

It is also satisfying because one of the five references provided by the Nobel Foundation in its supplementary information on the chemistry prize is the 2002 cover story by Rouhi on olefin metathesis (C&EN, Dec. 23, 2002, pages 29 and 34). Rouhi’s stories on the chemistry of olefin metathesis and the history of its discovery are the most comprehensive and accessible articles on this subject you will find. They are available on the C&EN Online home page.

The three stories in this week’s Business Department illustrate the global nature of today’s chemical industry. In the lead story, Senior Correspondent Patricia Short examines the development of a vibrant biotechnology sector in the Czech Republic (see page 17). Senior Editor Rick Mullin profiles University of Utah spin-off LineaGen, which is making the Utah Population Database available to drug and biopharmaceutical firms (see page 20). The database, Mullin writes, is “an extensive compilation of genetic, epidemiological, demographic, and public health statistics on Utah families” that is regarded “as a gold mine for genetics and genomics researchers.” Finally, Hong Kong Bureau Head Jean-François Tremblay writes on the opening of the $2.9 billion chemical complex in Nanjing built by BASF and China’s Sinopec (see page 22).

In this week’s Government & Policy Department, Senior Editor Bette Hileman provides an in-depth look at the current thinking on chemical intolerance, in particular the curious relationship between this environmentally induced illness and addiction (see page 24). In the second story, Associate Editor Susan Morrissey reports on efforts to increase the participation of minorities in math and science. And our cover story is a probing interview of Ralph Cicerone, the newly installed president of the National Academy of Sciences, by Senior Correspondent Lois Ember (see page 31). Cicerone is a major figure in science policy circles, and Ember’s interview provides many insights into where he will take NAS during his six-year tenure.

The Science/Technology/Education Department is a rich smorgasbord of stories on chemistry and chemical education, many of them based on presentations at the recent ACS national meeting in Washington, D.C. Nuclear forensics, nanotechnology applied to contact lenses, the complex chemistry of ginkgo trees, the synthesis of the first room-temperature-stable electride (a compound in which the counterion in an alkali-metal crytpand complex is a trapped electron), ancient DNA from bones, Inside Instrumentation, the history of two seminal chemistry textbooks, and trends in chemistry libraries are examined.

Wait, there’s more! Much more. The bulk of the issue–160 pages of it–is devoted to the technical program of this year’s Pacifichem (see page 56). More than 11,000 papers will be presented in 957 sessions in Honolulu, Dec. 15–20, and all of them are listed here. In our ongoing series of employment features, News Editor William Schulz provides useful information on working in Europe (see page 219). Finally, in an almost perfect bookend to the news stories on this year’s science Nobel Prizes, Newscripts provides breaking news on the 2005 Ig Nobel Prizes awarded on Oct. 6 at Harvard University (see page 232).

This is the meaty package of news and information that C&EN strives to provide its readers every week. Happily for C&EN’s staff and readers, we don’t do 232 pages every week!

Thanks for reading.