Video: Meet C&EN’s Talented 12 for 2024

C&EN senior editor Craig Bettenhausen asked several Talented 12 members questions during ACS Fall 2024

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The following is the script for the video.

Craig Bettenhausen: What research are you seeing here that you find the most exciting?

Alisha Jones: Everything and anything RNA. There was a really cool symposium or session yesterday on RNA therapeutics using computational and experimental approaches. That was pretty hot.

Ahmed Badran: Oh, man—I mean, actually having an entire session devoted to how you can use chemistry for sustainability-driven applications is pretty exciting to me. So I’m glad to see that we and others are focused on trying to come at this problem from many different directions.

Nako Nakatsuka: I mean, the “Talented 12 Symposium” was just so amazing. I loved hearing about Frances Arnold’s story. It’s always so inspiring, and also just seeing the diversity of how chemistry can be used in so many different realms of research. With all the amazing cohorts for this symposium was superinspiring, and I really enjoyed it.

Jesus Moreno: I guess it would be to learn more about the research that I’m doing in targeting protein degradation. As a medicinal chemist, it’s also really fun to see the first disclosure talks to see what other companies are doing to, you know, treat patients with diseases that have high and unmet medical needs

Rachel Carter: I’m really excited about using sodium and sulfur to make more globally abundant batteries to address some of our climate change needs.

Julian West: You know, everything’s exciting in its own way. You know, I think we’ve had a lot of really exciting results recently with ion catalysis and vitamin B12 catalysis. But, you know, again, we’re just always one experiment away from the next direction. So, you know, really, if somebody is excited about it in our lab, I’m superexcited about it.

Chibueze Amanchukwu: Really just talked to my colleague on radionuclides to study pharmaceutical systems. And the question is, Why haven’t we been using that to study material science problems? So that’s been cool to learn.

Michael Skinnider: I thought Ahmed Badran’s talk, evolving more efficient RuBisCO variants, was so exciting and—both obviously from the applied, you know, the implications for, for climate change, but also for our understanding of basic plant biology. You know, why are these proteins so inefficient in the first place? And what, you know, fitness advantage does that have? I thought that just raised so many interesting questions.

Outi Keinänen: Oh, I love what Nako was talking about the neurotransmitters. I’m actually wearing a bracelet that has all those neurotransmitters she was talking about.

Rob Dennis-Pelcher: I would say it’s really just the breadth of research on so many different topics and so many different collaborations. I think it’s really exciting and looking towards sustainable solutions for a variety of industries, variety of problems. And I think that’s the most exciting thing to me.

Frances Arnold: Oh, I love the fact that people are being so creative in enzymology, making enzymes do the most amazing things. My former students and people all over the world are looking at biology with completely new eyes now—the chemists’ eyes.

Craig Bettenhausen: When you’re not in the scientific crowd, what’s your favorite “go to” example of chemistry in the real world?

Outi Keinänen: Well, microplastics is easy because everybody knows about them. But then combining radiochemistry is sometimes tricky because people think that when I work with radioactivity, it makes me radioactive and they take like a couple steps away. So I try to always make sure that they understand the difference between working with something and getting contaminated.

Michael Skinnider: I guess, you know, I find myself having to explain what natural products are quite a bit. So I always go back to the, you know, examples of the first natural product, antibiotics, penicillin or, the first natural product, anticancer drugs like doxorubicin. So those are good ones.

Julian West: I mean, I think one thing that really connects with people, at least from my perspective, is sustainability. Again, you know, just trying to do right by the planet and, you know, make things that aren’t going to mess it up too much, much worse. So, you know, moving away from those superprecious, you know, gold, platinum, the things we want to make jewelry out of for catalysts. You know, catalytic converters are so expensive, you know, why can’t we use dirt like iron and cobalt?

Jesus Moreno: I tell them if they watch Breaking Bad and say that I make drugs—just in a more legal and regulated way.

Chibueze Amanchukwu: Batteries. I’m falling in love with batteries because they’re very easy to explain things to people. And everyone already has a personal understanding of what a battery means and what the battery does and what challenges they have with batteries. So I often use that as a gateway to teach about chemistry.

Ahmed Badran: That every, every atom of carbon is built—that you are built from—either came from a plant or a bacteria.

Alisha Jones: I do spend a lot of time talking about, like, beer brewing. That’s not—that’s chemistry, but not what I do in the lab. And a little bit more about rocks, like—wait, wait, wait— like this one right here is straight silica. So, like, you know, people like chemistry. They just don’t know they like chemistry. I have to let them know that this is what it’s about.

Craig Bettenhausen: So I didn’t see that, but tell me, what’s the deal with this rock?

Alisha Jones: So this is actually called Libyan Desert Glass. And 29 million years ago there was a meteorite that hit a desert in Egypt, and this was actually formed. And the story behind it is in the 1920s they dug up King Tut’s grave. They opened it up, and he had this breastplate, this breastplate on him. And this was actually not this one specifically, but there’s a stone very much like this in the middle. And no one for like over a decade knew what it was. And then in the 1930s someone had actually gone out to the desert and said, Hey, that’s that thing that we’ve been trying to figure out from King Tut’s breastplate. And so it became pretty popular. Nowadays you can actually find it on Etsy if you want your own piece. However, I got this from the coolest geologist I know, Mike Rampino, he’s at NYU. There’s some really cool stuff. You can find him on PBS. So yeah.

Nako Nakatsuka: I guess I like to connect with people through other means like sports or—for example, I was just talking to a couple of my fellows who are saying like, Oh, I also do triathlon, or you know I also am a runner, I did track and field. And so I think that’s a really great way to connect. And I always made friends through being on teams like this throughout my journey. At UCLA I joined a triathlon team; in Fordham I was on track and field. And so it’s a really nice way to connect with people outside of science.

Rachel Carter: I mean, batteries are a fun one because most people can relate to them. So I talk about, like, better ways to charge your phone or things to consider with respect to batteries.

Rob Dennis-Pelcher: I would say yeah. Tires are pretty, it’s remarkable. I never knew until I started at Goodyear how complex they are and how much goes into ‘em.

Frances Arnold: Cooking. No doubt.