• Question: What kind of experiments do you do?

    Asked by Zaz? to Steven on 8 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Steven Street

      Steven Street answered on 8 Nov 2016:

      Hi Zaz,

      I do quite a lot of different experiments! They can be split into two categories:

      1) Making new molecules (synthetic organic chemistry)
      2) analysing the molecules that I’ve made

      1) I spend most of my time doing reactions to make new molecules, this is what most people think of when they think of chemists! (think breaking bad, except in a proper lab with proper equipment!) Normally I do several reactions a day, then purify the new molecules. I then have to ‘characterize’ them, which means doing things like NMR spectroscopy, IR, Mass spectrometry and more to fully understand that the moelcule I’ve made is what i think it is.

      2) Once these compounds have been made, I can test them! I do an experiment to see if they bind to DNA, and more experiments to understand how strongly they bind to DNA and what changes they make to the DNA’s structure. I also use computers to model the binding of the molecule to the DNA. Finally I can test them on cancer cells, to see if they are toxic! So as you can see, this part of my work is very varied!

      Every day is different!

      Steve

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