How do we transform lives?

“Chemistry makes the world work. It really is the core science.”
Russell W. Johnson, Corporate Fellow, Honeywell International, Inc., Des Plaines, Ill. He is a 36-year ACS member.

“The transforming power of chemistry is evident everywhere, particularly if one considers the biological world. Advances in the treatment of numerous diseases are based in part on the design and synthesis of molecules that selectively target key receptors or enzymes. Chemists at the interface of biology and chemistry are becoming more sophisticated in this endeavor.”
Philip Portoghese, Distinguished Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Editor, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. He is a 48-year ACS member.

“Norman Borlaug was an agricultural chemist. Somewhere between 7 percent and 15 percent of the world’s population is alive today because of the work he did. He received the Nobel Prize for it, yet people generally don’t know who he is. That’s always been surprising to me because he is a very important person in science history. He gave us the green revolution. Starvation was just rampant in the world during the early 1960s. He was able to give us different strains of rice, different kinds of plants and different ways of fertilizing. These are the kinds of things that are within the grasp of a person who has proper chemistry background. It’s hard to find things that have happened in world history that are as important as the work of Norman Borlaug.”
Allen Ford, former Director of Monsanto’s Environmental Sciences Center, Gulf Breeze, Fla. He is a 42-year ACS member.

“My own life was transformed by chemistry in a very direct way. Around 1990 I fell victim to the symptoms of depression. Over the course of a couple of years, I changed from high-functioning to low-functioning. It is exceeding frustrating and humbling, I can tell you. Despite countless efforts to just 'fix myself', I was finally made high-functioning again because of a breakthrough drug ─ Prozac. I now retain that function via a second generation drug ─ Cymbalta. As it happens, my good University of Illinois friend David Robertson championed the group at Lilly that developed Cymbalta. David passed several years ago, before I realized he was the project leader and therefore before I had the opportunity to thank him.”
Anthony Czarnik, Visiting Professor of Chemistry, University of Nevada, Reno; Editor, Journal of Combinatorial Chemistry. He is a 33-year ACS member.

“I don’t know of many disciplines that open up the world the way chemistry does because it touches everything. I would be hard pressed to think of something where chemistry isn’t playing a role in the advances that we benefit from today ─ from breakthroughs in medicine, to nutrition, to more sustainable energy sources, to personal care products, to biodegradable packaging, and so on.”
Mary Carmen Gasco-Buisson, former ACS Scholar; Brand Manager, Olay Global Design, Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, Ohio. She is a 12-year ACS member.

“Chemistry is always trying to improve what is already known and is constantly trying to find new knowledge, new discoveries that improve and transform the quality of live. Through new discoveries and a better understanding of what is affecting our quality of life, including health, the environment and energy, chemists have sought and will continue to produce solutions all these problems.”
Ingrid Montes, Professor of Chemistry, University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras, San Juan; 28-year ACS member.

“There are so many ways that chemistry transforms people’s lives ─ plastics, drugs, fuels, materials, foods, etc. My current focus is on environmental protection and the development of alternate energies. The fun is that there is probably not going to be a single solution to these issues but multiples solutions and I feel that I am on the forefront of helping to guide the process.”
Frankie Wood-Black, Senior Air Professional, Trihydro Corporation, Ponca City, Okla.; 21-year ACS member.

“Chemistry is all about new materials, new reactions, new catalysts, new structures. Anything that leads to a dramatic transformation in how we live depends on chemistry to at least some extent.”
George Schatz, Morrison Professor of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., and Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Physical Chemistry. He is a 40-year ACS member.