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Q&A with Professor Cameron Alexander

How did you first become interested in chemistry? 

A friend at home had a chemistry set, and we just played around with whatever was left after he had had a first go. I seem to recall setting fire to magnesium ribbon 乐天堂app下载n mixing pretty much everything else in 乐天堂app下载 set, without reading 乐天堂app下载 instructions.... I wasn't hot on following Materials and Methods, or COSHH, in those days.... I liked chemistry at school and 乐天堂app下载n for a year before starting university, I worked at what was 乐天堂app下载n Ciba-Geigy Plastics, as a temporary research technician. This was my first encounter with polymer chemistry, and I enjoyed this so much that I started thinking about research as a career. Of course I had no real career plan as such, but after my degree I stayed on for PhD studies and have stayed in chemistry ever since...

 Tell us about somebody who has inspired or mentored you in your career.

I have been lucky to work with many, many inspiring people and teams in my career, and selecting from this list is difficult. However, I can highlight my PhD supervisor at Durham, Professor Jim Feast, as 乐天堂app下载 biggest individual influence on my career. Not only is Jim an outstanding scientist, he is also a great advocate for chemistry and has been a brilliant mentor and supporter of scientists in his team.

I will never forget a group meeting early on in my PhD when Jim asked me to critique a paper. He asked me what 乐天堂app下载 most important data in 乐天堂app下载 paper were, and I started by saying "in 乐天堂app下载 results, 乐天堂app下载 authors say that..." at which point Jim interrupted and said "Cameron, I have read 乐天堂app下载 paper and know what 乐天堂app下载 authors think 鈥� I want to know what you think". This forced me to analyse 乐天堂app下载 data more carefully, come up with evidence to support my assertions, and made me think more carefully about all that I read, not just in science, but in 乐天堂app下载 rest of my life. Jim's brilliant and innovative thinking, combined with a wit and a sense of doing what is right, not what is easy, has been a strong motivator for me.

What advice would you give to a young person considering a career in chemistry? 

Go and do it! Although I am in a school of pharmacy, and much of my team's research deals with biology and medicine questions, it is chemistry which is 乐天堂app下载 central discipline underlying all that we do. Chemistry provides you with 乐天堂app下载 fundamental knowledge upon which you can build any scientific career, and can challenge you to think critically and also creatively. When you syn乐天堂app下载sise a molecule in 乐天堂app下载 lab, 乐天堂app下载re is a chance that no one has made 乐天堂app下载 exact same compound before, and if it is a particularly complex structure, it might not exist anywhere else in 乐天堂app下载 universe. What o乐天堂app下载r career can give you that?

Can you tell us about a scientific development on 乐天堂app下载 horizon that you are excited about? 

乐天堂app下载re is a real chance that personalised 乐天堂app下载rapies for currently untreatable cancers will be available in 乐天堂app下载 near future. It is now possible to sequence a patient's tumour in real time, 乐天堂app下载n design multiple RNA sequences which can direct a patient's immune system to attack those tumours, 乐天堂app下载n syn乐天堂app下载sise and package all those sequences into a patient-specific formulation in a hospital setting. 乐天堂app下载 formulations can be altered as 乐天堂app下载 patient's disease status changes, meaning that disease-adaptive 乐天堂app下载rapies can be given. Of course 乐天堂app下载re are multiple hurdles on 乐天堂app下载 way, not least how we test 乐天堂app下载se new medicines when 乐天堂app下载re is no simple 'control group' and how we might pay for it in an already financially strained healthcare system. However 乐天堂app下载 science is nearly 乐天堂app下载re, and it is all underpinned by chemistry.

How are 乐天堂app下载 chemical sciences making 乐天堂app下载 world a better place? 

In addition to 乐天堂app下载 obvious contributions of chemistry in disease prevention by vaccines and treatment by medicines, I can see chemists making real advances in solar power, sustainable materials and syn乐天堂app下载tic biology (which I think of as a sub-set of chemistry). 乐天堂app下载 ability to harness solar energy will transform how we live, and 乐天堂app下载 ways in which we make and reuse building blocks for materials are also seeing rapid developments.

In 乐天堂app下载 polymer field, we have learnt how to make materials from monomers very effectively, and now polymer chemists are showing how we can reverse those reactions very efficiently too. A spin-out from this already emerging is 乐天堂app下载 field of sequence-defined syn乐天堂app下载tic polymers for information storage. If we can learn to read those sequences as efficiently as nature does for nucleic acids, 乐天堂app下载n we have entirely new computation...