Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | fall 2006
Good Chemistry

 


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GOOD CHEMISTRY
A LOOK AT THE VERY COOL, NOT-SO-SCARY DOWNRIGHT AMAZING CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT AT IOWA STATE

This is a story about chemistry.

Wait! Don’t stop reading! Seriously – please don’t turn the page!

OK, thanks for staying with us. Because we know not everyone loves chemistry, or at least they THINK they don’t love chemistry. Some of us don’t even know what chemistry really is. It just conjures up some long-ago fear of going into a classroom where you’re totally confused, frightened, possibly bored… and to top it off, it smells funny.

We’d call that bad chemistry. Maybe you had a bad chemistry teacher in high school. Maybe you were so afraid of chemistry that you took other classes to ful-
fill your science credits.

Whatever. We’re here to tell you that chemistry = good.

Good research, good faculty, good program at Iowa State. All good.

Read the stories on the next few pages, and we think you’ll agree. You might even learn something! A bonus.

P.S. Here’s a hint: If you’re still not so sure about all of this, read “Chemistry 101: A Primer” first, right there in the next column. It might help.

See ya in the chem lab!

Chemistry 101: A Primer
For those of us non-scientists, getting excited about chemistry is a bit of a stretch.

But we should put aside our lab-phobia and think about it this way: Without the study of chemistry, there would be no medicine for our headaches, no plastic
for our flip-flops, no spandex for our swimsuits, no preservatives to keep our food fresh, and no gasoline for our cars.

Chemistry has been around since the world began. Early man was fascinated by the chemical reaction that caused fire. He used fire to cause other chemical reactions by cooking.

Pretty soon, folks began to smelt red rocks into iron, bake mud into bricks, sauté fat and ashes into soap, curdle milk into yogurt, ferment grain into beer and cabbage into kimchee. Some would say chemistry caused civilization.*

You don’t have to be a chemist to use chemistry at work. Doctors and chefs, farmers and winemakers, builders and lab technicians all rely on the science of chemistry to do their jobs.

Chemistry is often considered the central science because it connects other sciences, such as physics, biology, and geology. Most chemists work in a narrow area of this large scientific field, in areas like nanotechnology, mass spectrometry, organometallic chemistry, quantum mechanics, and supramolecular chemistry.

The Chemistry Department at ISU is a source of great pride for the university. Iowa State’s analytical chemistry program is ranked No. 9 in the United States. There are six distinguished professors of chemistry – more than in any other department at ISU. And Ames Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy facility run by Iowa State, has sought solutions to energy-related problems for more than 50 years.

Faculty researchers and graduates have discovered new ways to deliver insulin more efficiently to diabetic patients, detect biological weapons of mass destruction, invent cholesterol-lowering drugs, protect consumers from E. Coli, develop new vaccines, and re-engineer biodiesel. Their work could someday lead to cures for AIDS or mad cow disease, to improved detection of cancer or Alzheimer’s, or to alternative sources of energy.

And that is something to get excited about.

*Examples taken from The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry by Larry Gonick and Craig Criddle

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