Question: What sort of chemistry do you do?

Matthew Kitching answered on 10 Nov 2016:

Hi 595newg52

Im an organic chemist – which means i work with all the elements and molecules that are in living systems – and i try and make useful materials and drugs!

But at the moment – I’m trying something new – I want to make chemicals control what they are doing themselves. So imaging you have sugar dissolved in a cup of tea – the sugar is evenly spread throughout the whole cup (if you stir it properly – rather than getting a tasty sugar goo at the bottom of the cup). But what if we could get all the sugar to move to the left hand side of the cup. The tea would taste sweet on the left and not on the right hand side of the cup! This patterning is common place in nature – look at your hands – with your palms facing upwards your thumb is on the left hand side of your left hand, and the right hand side of your right hand. How did this happen? well biology can cause the chemical signals that tell your cells to become a thumb to only be present in certain places – and so a pattern is formed.

I want to make patterns in a similar way – can we make a tin of paint that can make a flag pattern? can we make tartan paint? can we have an ink – thats programmed to produce text when its poured out on to a piece of paper!

does that answer your question? let me know if you want to know more! 🙂