Nowadays, there perhaps doesn’t seem to be anything too remarkable about IVF (in vitro fertilization). With around 4 million babies so far born as a result of the technique, it has become a familiar and, for many, easily-accessible option to turn to when problems are encountered in conceiving a child. The idea of giving new…

The undisputed master of chemistry is Nature, and the variety of substances it routinely creates has long been a source of inspiration and perspiration for chemists. Investigating and recreating the natural substances essential for life is a painstaking process; their size and complexity makes anything other than the simplest compounds almost impossible to reproduce under…

Like a successful dinner party, productive chemical reactions depend upon getting the right components to mingle in the right surroundings, and often the best environment for chemistry turns out to be a solid surface. From the cleaning of exhaust fumes in factory chimneys to the reduction of ozone on the outside of ice crystals in…

In biological terms the processes that aid digestion, create vitamins and manufacture plant poisons affecting the heart might seem like being worlds apart, but in terms of their chemistry they show a remarkable degree of similarity. Establishing the chemical connections that lie at the heart of these biological processes can be said to be the…

To artificially create carbon-based compounds relies on outside help to facilitate the many ways in which carbon atoms can join onto each other and other atoms. The tools of the trade are a host of chemicals, or reagents, which take part in reactions that piece together the correct molecules in the correct manner in a…

Building complex chemicals from their simplest components in the laboratory relies on the tools available for the task, and for chemists these tools are the repertoire of reactions they have at hand. Using these reactions, synthetic organic chemists act as chemical construction engineers, gradually piecing together the correct molecules in the correct manner until the…

In chemistry, shape matters. For chemicals to function properly in the body it is not only important that the molecular components are connected in their correct order but also that these components occupy their correct three-dimensional positions in space. A wrongly positioned atom or structural element creates either an ineffective chemical, much like using the…

The two methods awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry changed the way in which chemists artificially created carbon-containing, or organic, compounds in the laboratory. Building such compounds is limited by the reactions that chemists have at their disposal to piece together or manipulate a series of carbon atoms to form more complex products. The…

Two of the most fundamental processes in life, the transport of oxygen by blood in animals and the absorption of light during photosynthesis in plants, rely on pigments to carry out their highly important missions. Hans Fischer received the 1930 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for showing how Nature constructs these different coloured pigments from the…

Creating the proteins that perform the host of tasks necessary to support life is not unlike creating a chain, link by link. In this case, the links, or amino acids, are attached sequentially to the growing chain, or peptide. Once the peptide is made, the chain folds up, either on its own or with others,…