Most people have a desk as a place of work. I’m lucky enough to have three workspaces as a chemist: my desk, my lab bench, and my fume hood, all for different aspects of chemistry research. Today I’m going to give you a tour around my lab bench! My lab bench is used to carry …
What do the numbers on the periodic table mean?
2019 marks the UN’s International Year of the Periodic Table or #IYPT. It’s 150 years since Dmitri Mendeleev presented his organisation of chemical elements to the world. The periodic table is used daily by chemists and other scientists as reference resource for the ingredients of the universe. Ancient Greeks defined “elements” as one of the …
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My Placement Year in Switzerland
Increasingly, universities are offering integrated masters science degrees over bachelor degrees. These normally include an additional year of study and/or a placement year in industry or an academic research group. In this post I’ll tell you about the science I did on my placement in Switzerland and how it is linked to a major drug approval that happened a few months ago.
Chemistry PhD: A Day in the Life
I find people’s routines really interesting. Everybody’s different. Some people are early birds while others are night owls. Some people work long hours and others manage to fit a lot of work into a short period of time. In this post I chat about what a typical day looks like for me and the various …
How do I know I’ve made the right molecule?
I spend my days in a chemistry lab making drug-like molecules. A lot of these end up being small quantities (less than 0.1 g!) and usually have the appearance of a white/off-white powder. Occasionally I get a colour which is very exciting. The question a non-chemist might ask is “how do you know you’ve made …
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