PRIESTLEY MEDAL ADDRESS
The Joy of Research and Teaching The Priestley Medal Address is my track record as a graduate scheduled to be presented by Harstudent and postdoc. (Somery B. Gray on April 16 at the thing like the Presidential awards ceremony during the Young Investigators program American Chemical Society's 201st now.) I'm glad they did. national meeting this week in AtI tell this story because I belanta. Gray is Arnold O. Beckman lieve we are forcing young Professor of Chemistry at Califorpeople to be too sophisticated nia Institute of Technology as well in proposal w r i t i n g these as director of Caltech's Beckman days. We should put more emInstitute. Gray received the Priestphasis on track record and ley Medal ACS's highest award, promise, not on slick proposal in recognition of his important acwriting. Then we should retivities in research as well as for ward accomplishment. We his work in education. Tor ins h o u l d n ' t ask p r o m i s i n g stance, his research in inorganic young investigators to revise photochemistry has helped point and re-revise and re-re-revise the way toward artificial phototheir first proposals to NSF, synthetic systems; and his pioneerthe National Institutes of ing bioinorganic studies, which foHealth, the Petroleum Recused on long-range electron search Fund, and other agentransfer in proteins, have provided cies. Let's put more bets down details of some of the most imporat the beginning and see who tant reactions in biology. As an eddelivers the goods. ucator, Gray continues to teach I've always loved chemicals. chemistry courses at all levels at Caltech. He is author or coau-When I was 12 years old, I found a place in Chicago thor of about 14 books, some of which have become standard that would sell me chemicals and glassware and other texts. He has also served the chemical community at large, par-apparatus. I was fascinated with the colors of the comticipating in various National Science Foundation, National pounds containing transition-metal ions. I wanted to know what caused these colors. And the formulas were Academy of Sciences, and ACS activities. weird. Why do ferric and ferrous ions bind six cyanides? Why do these complex ions have different colShortly after I arrived at Columbia University to take ors? Why does nickel ion bind four cyanides? Why does up my first faculty appointment, a man by the name of cuprous ion bind only two? Oren Williams called me from the National Science Foundation in Washington. Oren, who was the proI finally found out about the colors and formulas as a gram officer for inorganic chemistry at NSF, said that graduate student at Northwestern. Fred Basolo was the he had heard about my work and he hoped I would first person who explained the formulas to me in a lansend him a proposal. Imagine that! He actually invited guage I could understand. Ralph Pearson helped with me to submit a proposal. It was reviewed and, thankfulthe colors, and aroused my interest in ligand field thely, funded. (Very quickly, I might add.) So, NSF, which ory. Then I went to Copenhagen to postdoc with Carl had provided me with fellowship support at NorthBallhausen to learn about inorganic electronic structure western and in Copenhagen, was there when I needed and spectroscopy. I had the enormous good fortune to them in the first few months of my first academic job. have these three great teachers at a critical time in my career: Basolo, who showed by his example how much The point I want to make is that I was lucky. I started you can accomplish if you really love your work; Pearat the right time, just after Sputnik. (You might say I son, who taught me how important it is to speak and was a Sputnik Fellow.) The proposal I sent to Oren write clearly; and Ballhausen, who embedded in me Williams probably wouldn't be funded today. It was too forever the idea that you should go out of your way to derivative of my earlier work. I wrote what I knew be critical of your own work. All three of my teachers something about. I proposed logical extensions of what taught me that the compounds and data you report are I had done before. I didn't come up with anything more important than any particular interpretation you wildly original. It was pretty straightforward. might publish. I have found over the years that interMy students and I did manage to discover some new pretations come and go (mine certainly do), but valid chemistry with the funds I received from NSF. Chemresults have a way of hanging around. istry that I couldn't possibly have predicted at the time Another lucky break—meeting Martin Karplus in I wrote the proposal. Oren and NSF were betting on April 15, 1991 C&EN
17
Priestley Medal
Address
Copenhagen—led to my job at Columbia. Columbia and I were just right for each other. The students actu ally enjoyed the cornball stuff I did. It was at Columbia that I learned how much fun it is to teach freshman chemistry. (It must have been fun—I'm still doing it!) The students were great—extremely sharp, and ex tremely fun loving! Now I know that there are many researchers who think teaching is something that one should do only if forced to. That's too bad. Teaching can be an exhilarating experience. It can also help you in your research! If you think you understand some thing you are working on in your research, try to teach it to somebody. You will find out very quickly whether you understand it or not. And during all those times you worry about how to teach some sub ject you will get ideas about new directions to go in your research. Good researchers are good teachers. No doubt about it! I can give you a concrete example of how teaching directly influences research. While I was at Columbia, Ted Shedlovsky asked me to give a course in organic chemistry to the graduate students at Rockefeller Uni versity. The students, who were mainly biologists, were eager to learn some inorganic chemistry, because many inorganic substances are found in living systems. Dur ing the course they convinced me that my background in inorganic spectroscopy would allow me to probe the
electronic structures of metal ions in proteins in new and different ways. Slowly but surely their message to me sunk in. (The activation barrier was not too high, because I had been intrigued by the beautiful colors of metalloproteins for many years.) It was at this time that a Columbia postdoc, Harvey Schugar (now a professor at Rutgers), and I start ed to work on problems relating to the structures of iron ions in proteins. My current research on the mechanisms of electron-transfer reactions of metalloproteins can be traced back to the seed that was planted by my students at Rockefeller. Teaching has paid off for me. Jack Roberts and George Hammond convinced me to sign up with Cal tech in 1966. Hammond kept telling me that I should look at excited-state inorganic reac tions; that is, that I should do something useful with all the work I had done on excited-state inorganic struc ture. I resisted. It took a graduate student, Mark Wrighton (now the provost of Massachusetts Institute of Technology), to get me into inorganic photochemistry in collaboration with Hammond. The work my group and I are now doing in this area grew out of the collab oration with Wrighton and Hammond. We can do so much more today than we could when I started 30 years ago. We now have high-speed com puters in place of the mechanical calculators I used in my work in Copenhagen. Theoretical chemists can now
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calculate the electronic structures of large molecules and in some cases even their reaction pathways. Theory has reached the point where chemists can actually predict many aspects of molecular structure and reactivity. During the course of my career I have seen theoretical chemistry emerge as a major subfield of chemistry. Experimental chemical physics has been revolutionized by lasers. Lasers allow us to examine chemical reactions that occur very rapidly, reactions that only take trillionths or even fractions of trillionths of seconds. Thanks to lasers, it is now possible literally to see the primary events of chemical reactions, the very first movements of atoms as they separate from molecules. This sort of fundamental understanding of the reactions of molecules is truly phenomenal. The work of inorganic and organic chemists has been changed completely by advances in synthesis technology. Our ability to design and synthesize whole new classes of molecules will lead to dramatic breakthroughs in medical science. This ability also will provide the materials that will be required for molecular memory. In discussing this area, Richard Feynman predicted that molecular memory will allow us to increase the speed of today's supercomputers a millionfold or even more! I like the idea that chemistry will provide the super-supercomputers of the future. The importance of fundamental research in chemis-
try will be highlighted in the 1990s by responses to a multitude of environmental issues. Chemists will be called upon time and time again to replace dangerous chemicals with safer ones. Research that may lead to the replacement of hydrofluoric acid by less toxic acids (solid superacids?) and chlorofluorocarbons by molecules that are less threatening to stratospheric ozone is being done because of very real concerns about the environment. And more and more energy research will be directed toward the production of fuels that can reduce the risk of global warming. We will see renewed research initiatives in artificial photosynthesis. It is our hope that we can make molecules that will affect the direct conversion of sunlight and very abundant raw materials directly into high-energy chemicals, directly into fuels that we can use to heat homes, make electricity, run cars, and so forth. Those of us who work in this field hope that by the end of the decade some of this research will have reached an advanced stage of development and will have begun to have some impact. A main goal of artificial photosynthesis is to use solar photons to split water to hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is very energy-rich; and it is a clean-burning fuel, giving only water as the product. Pollution problems would be reduced tremendously if we burned hyContinued on page 39
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ter fiscal 1985. This data will help bolster ACS's arguments regarding the need for increased federal funding of chemical research. • The ACS report, "Education Policies for National Survival," was distributed to all members of Congress, to numerous federal officials, and to more than 7400 state legislators. Seventy visits were made to state officials around the country to discuss the recommendations contained in the report. The response from state officials has been encouraging. In Virginia, for example, the governor's assistant for education asked the Virginia Section to form a task force and make suggestions on how the "Education Report" recommendations could be implemented in that state. • ACS urged Congress to clarify language in a bill to provide that an invention made, used, or sold on a space vehicle under U.S. jurisdiction shall be covered by U.S. patent laws. The society's concerns were incorporated in the final bill, which was passed and signed into law by President Bush in November. • With regard to the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, the society endorsed a requirement that the National Academy of Sciences conduct a study of risk assessment, and that a commission be appointed to recommend changes to the federal risk assessment/management process. These recommendations were adopted in the final measure. These achievements attest to the worthwhile aim of directing resources to specific priority areas. As a consequence, at its December 1990 meeting, the ACS Board of Directors issued the Federal Policy Agenda 1991. This agenda contains the following priorities: • Competitiveness —ACS will promote legislation to lengthen the term of patents for all inventions by the period of time lost to regulatory review. Special attention will be devoted to new emerging patentable areas such as biotechnology. The society will encourage international negotiations to strengthen U.S. patent rights at home and abroad. • Education — Attention will be devoted to implementation of the ACS "Education Report," especially
establishment of alternative certification requirements for math and science teachers; the coupling of teacher training programs with the introduction of new curricula into the schools; and the improvement of science literacy among the general population. The society also will promote coordination among federal science education programs. • Environment — The society will advocate increased funding for environmental research, improving environmental monitoring techniques, and promoting consistency in risk assessments. Special attention will be devoted to Congressional reauthorization of the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act as it relates to laboratories. • Federal R & D - T h e society plans to continue its efforts to increase funding for the National Science Foundation with special emphasis on individual investigators. ACS also will develop a position on the NIH budget and will explore ways to articulate the need for increased NIH funding of chemical research. The 1991 agenda provides a blueprint for building a strong partnership between scientists and policymakers. How can you help? If you
are planning to visit Washington, D.C., you can meet with your Congressman. You can join the ACS National Science Funding Network. You can volunteer to serve on ACS committees or task forces that examine public policy issues. If these ideas appeal to you, contact GRASP, the focal point within the society for getting members involved in public policy activities. GRASP brings the resources of ACS to the legislative and executive branches of federal government. For example, GRASP can help you arrange a meeting with your Congressman if you are planning a visit to Washington. Through meetings and/or roundtable discussions, federal officials are made aware of the extensive resources of the society and become better informed through the ACS network of experts who can provide information on various topical issues. GRASP can provide you with resource materials, such as the Federal Policy Agenda 1991—the blueprint for building a partnership between the scientific and policy-making committees. I invite you to join this partnership and share your knowledge with your elected representatives. Contact GRASP and make a difference! D
Priestley Medal Address Continued from page 19 drogen instead of hydrocarbons. Of course, splitting water with sunlight is much harder to do in the laboratory than it is on paper! But our understanding of the fundamental electron-transfer processes that occur in photosynthesis improved so greatly in the 1980s that it is not unreasonable to speculate that we may find ways to couple solar-driven electron-transfer events with catalysts to achieve efficient water splitting in man-made systems in a few years. Let us hope chemists reach this goal. With all that's h a p p e n i n g in chemistry these days, it troubles me that the gap between the chemistry research and education communities is so wide. The period of spirited interchange we enjoyed for several years after Sputnik is now a distant memory. It seems that the young
people who have the talent to make major contributions to chemistry education are too busy raising money and engaging in other activities that they believe will advance their research careers. It is a sad fact that contributions to chemistry education are given negative weight in many evaluations of the scholarly impact of an academic investigator. The good news is that there are signs that the situation is turning around. Just in the last year I have heard about new chemistry courses being tried by young faculty members at several institutions. And some very prominent (usually slightly older!) researchers are joining in as well. I urge you to look at the exciting course being developed by Dick Zare and Jim Collman at Stanford. It is worthy of special note because it puts much emphasis on what is happening now in chemistry. It could beApril 15, 1991 C&EN 39
Priestley Medal Address come a model for an integrated inorganic-organic-analytical introductory chemistry course (with lots of handson work). Even if we all agree it's needed, curriculum change will not come overnight. I speak from experience. In the late 1960s, I worked with Hammond on a new curriculum in which chemical structure and chemical dynamics were the main courses, to be followed by chemical synthesis as an advanced topic. For whatever reason, this approach didn't fly. Perhaps it is too much to ask a student to study structure for a year without seeing a reaction. Or maybe synthesis should be the first course, not the last. Anyway, the big two—organic and physical—held their ground. It wasn't a total loss for us, because we had a lot of fun trying our new courses. And the integrated inorganic-organicanalytical laboratory courses that we started have lasted at Caltech and some other places. Once again, I am thinking about total curricular overhaul. What we are doing these days in chemistry could be taught in courses in chemical synthesis and analysis (a field that includes organic, inorganic, and materials chemistry), chemical biology, theoretical chemistry, and experimental chemical physics. We could start with a version of the Zare-Collman course and then move to chemical biology. Theoretical chemistry and experimental chemical physics could be taught as separate courses. Big changes are needed in the first two years and there should be much more hands-on work. John Bercaw, Nate Lewis, Jackie Barton, and I have been experimenting with a modern inorganic chemistry course for the freshmen at Caltech. It appears to be going well. But the course that really excites us is one (called Chem 10) in which all of our faculty are involved with the students. Each week in Chem 10 a faculty member gives a seminar on his or her research. Following a discussion of the research, the students go on a laboratory tour. The students love the lab visits, because they have a chance to see the latest instruments as well as talk shop with grad students and postdocs. In the third quarter of the three-quarter Chem 10 sequence, each student chooses a labo40
April 15, 1991 C&EN
ratory to work in, and this research work takes the place of the thirdquarter lecture. Lab instead of lecture—a real incentive to a budding young chemist! We have turned around our undergraduate student recruiting with Chem 10. For the first time in many years, we are signing up some of the best students to do chemistry. I believe the early undergraduate research experience is the key. I don't
think we can overemphasize its importance. I have been extremely fortunate in having had wonderful people to work with during the 30 years I have been in the chemistry business. I owe my students and postdocs a lot—they have taught me even more than my teachers did. It is truly remarkable that I have been able to make a living doing something that is so much fun. D
Letters Continued from page 3 as diet affects crime. Identifying and willing to agree that all questions of right (hopefully) correcting criminal behavior and wrong are relative and situational is thought to be the most cost-effective may risk being labeled narrow-minded approach to the crime problem. The or unsophisticated. same logic should be applied to autoAn ethical standard with no solutions mobile pollution. and no undergirding moral principles Donald H. Stedman can hardly be used to judge behavior as Brainerd Phillipson Professor of Chemisty appropriate or not. The justifiable outcry University of Denver in professional journals, at professional meetings, and in the lay literature for a return to high ethical standards cannot be addressed unless we are willing to Environmental regulation agree that rights, wrongs, and solutions This is not written in defense of Jim Sibbison's book review (C&EN, Nov. 12, do exist. Mark D. Foster 1990, page 43) but rather as a rebuttal to the letter from A. Alan Moghissi (C&EN, Assistant Professor, Polymer Science University of Akron Feb. 18, page 2) attacking Sibbison's bias in the interpretation of critical events at the Environmental Protection Agency in the 1970s and 1980s. I believe Moghissi's Auto emissions criticisms of Sibbison's review apply There is no doubt that diet affects crime. equally well to his letter. Well-fed individuals are less likely to Moghissi divides all environmental commit crimes. For the next major anti- advocates within EPA during his tenure crime legislation, perhaps our elected of- into two groups: scientific environmenficials should force us all to consume a talists and political environmentalists. government-prescribed menu. The former could be distinguished by The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments their objectivity and their reliance on are forcing us to do just this with our good science in the development of enautomotive fuels. Faced with the pros- vironmental regulations. The latter were pect of government-formulated fuels, distinguished by their selective use of the oil and automobile industries pre- scientific concepts and experimental redictably reacted by proposing their own sults to support their environmental reformulation. As noted in your article, philosophies and politics and their ten"Engine Emissions Prove Hard To Low- dency to cloak the subjective nature of er" (C&EN, Jan. 7, page 21), fuel refor- their recommendations with excuses mulation is a complex issue. This is be- such as the need for prudence in the abcause dirty fuel is not the problem. Dirty sence of scientific consensus or suffi(badly maintained) vehicles are where cient empirical data. As a former EPA* employee myself, I would label this a the problem really lies. According to an Environmental Pro- simplistic caricature of the realpolitik tection Agency study of 85 1983 and within EPA. If Moghissi's faith in science is pure newer vehicles, the cleanest five vehicles emitted 0.8 to 1.3 g per mile of and unshakable, then given sufficient carbon monoxide. The dirtiest three empirical data, his science can presently emitted 107, 108, and 128 g per mile on resolve issues of critical regulatory imgasoline. Using gasohol, they changed portance to any degree of reliability, acto 42,106, and 144, respectively. The me- curacy, and precision required for indian vehicle emitted 3.43 and dropped formed regulatory decision-making. This Continued on page 47 to 3.14 on gasohol. Fuel affects emissions
