Bringing Chemistry to Life
Thermo Fisher Scientific
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Top 10 Bringing Chemistry to Life Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Bringing Chemistry to Life episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Bringing Chemistry to Life for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Bringing Chemistry to Life episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Batteries unplugged: past, present and the electrifying future
Bringing Chemistry to Life
11/29/23 • 34 min
Electricity undeniably changed the world and enabled countless other technologies. Now, via storage and mobile access to electrical energy, batteries are positioned to further enable us as a species. So, it is the perfect time to get to know battery technology innovator and entrepreneur, Dr. Simon Engelke, Founder and Chair of Battery Associates, as he shares his passion for sustainable battery innovation. Any battery enthusiast will feel recharged by this electrifying conversation about the past, present, and future of battery technology.
As a child, Simon was fascinated with energy sources and storage and recalls playing with the fuel cell toy car from his father. In his teens, he indulged his entrepreneurial spirit by starting his first small company. Fast forward through his globally sourced academic training, always focused on electrochemistry and battery-related research, to find Simon leading a company at the forefront of the battery community and technology.
In our conversation, Simon touches on battery fundamentals; how they work, how they’re produced, the various types, and the work involved in optimizing various components, as well as the geopolitical aspects of batteries. We got this insider to school us on how they’ve evolved, what’s next in battery technology and what’s needed from the global community to responsibly realize the potential that battery technology represents.
Season 5 of Bringing Chemistry to Life starts now!
Related episodes:
- S1 : E6 One person’s waste is another's treasure
- S2 : E8 Sustainability as an entrepreneurial choice
- S3 : E10 On solid state materials, electrochemistry and the importance of roots
- S4 : E2 The Father of Green Chemistry
- S4 : E8 The electrifying chemistry of the nitrogen cycle
Bonus content!
- Access bonus content curated by this episode’s guest by visiting www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast for links to recent publications, podcasts, books, videos and more.
- View the video version of this episode on www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast.
A free thank you gift for our listeners!
- Visit the episode website and request your free Bringing Chemistry to Life t shirt.
- Use Podcast Code: AlwysL3rning in November 2023, 2023wrap in December 2023.
About Your Host
Paolo Braiuca grew up in the North-East of Italy and holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from nearby esteemed University of Trieste, Italy. He developed expertise in biocatalysis during his years of post-doctoral research in Italy and the UK, where he co-founded a startup company. With this new venture, Paolo’s career shifted from R&D to business development, taking on roles in commercial, product management, and marketing. He has worked in the specialty chemicals, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical markets in Germany and the UK, where he presently resides.
He is currently the Director of Global Market Development in the Laboratory Chemicals Division at Thermo Fisher ScientificTM which put him in the host chair of the Bringing Chemistry to Life podcast.
A busy father of four, in what little free time he has, you’ll find him inventing electronic devices with the help of his loyal 3D-printer and soldering iron. And if you ask him, he’ll call himself a “maker” at heart.
We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us!
- Email [email protected]
Fresh urban water
Bringing Chemistry to Life
08/25/21 • 33 min
Great scientists look at the world around them, identify problems and think about how their area of expertise can provide a solution. This is what Jessica Ray does. In her native St. Louis, she experienced regular urban flooding and grew up familiar with the problem of managing urban wastewater. When, later in life, her studies took her to California, she experienced the opposite problem of severe droughts. This is how she became interested in urban water and started applying her chemical engineering skills to deal with the problem of contaminants, such as PFAS, in urban waste waters.
The theme of the unsustainability of our linear economy – where things are made, used and discarded - returns to the podcast. This episode explores Jessica’s disruptive work on the development of cost-efficient methods for the treatment of storm water and other urban water wastes. It’s a surprising discovery of a smart combination of everyday materials and clever chemistry that promises to bring us one step closer to a more sustainable circular economy.
We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us!
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Human milk - it's a matter of chemistry
Bringing Chemistry to Life
10/11/20 • 30 min
Human milk provides both nutritional and non-nutritional components tailored to the specific need of the infant at all phases of growth. It is a wonderful example of personalised medicine and diet and its complexity is only partially understood. The oligosaccharides contained in breastmilk have only recently emerged as potent pro- and anti-biotics and they are proven to have effects on several other physiological mechanisms and biological pathways, such as the immune system.
We discuss with Dr. Townsend, a leading scientist in this field, about these special carbohydrates’ properties, about their chemistry and the challenges of running ambitious multidisciplinary research at the interface between chemistry and biology.
Dr. Townsend takes us on a surprising journey of personal development and scientific progress that could lead to a revolution in nutrition, the design of novel antimicrobial and antifungal drugs and even re-think contraception.
We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us!
- Email [email protected]
From an F in chemistry to 40 years in chemicals
Bringing Chemistry to Life
06/07/23 • 33 min
Visit https://www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast/ to access the extended video version of this episode and the episode summary sheet, which contains links to recent publications and additional content recommendations for our guest. You can also access the extended video version of this episode via our YouTube channel to hear, and see, more of the conversation!
Visit https://thermofisher.com/bctl and use the code CoolCh3mShirt in June to register for your free Bringing Chemistry to Life T-shirt.
We embrace this rare opportunity to sit and chat freely with someone who has lived and breathed the technical and business sides of the chemicals market for the last 40 years. Simon Pearce is a Senior Product Manager in Thermo Fisher Scientific and a man of a thousand stories.
Join us for this entertaining and eye-opening journey into the origins of chemical diversity, a bit of history on the British chemicals market, and a first-hand account of changes and constants in the work over time. We cover a lot of ground in this interview, from the early days of compound screening libraries, to the mindset of managing a complex product portfolio. We speak about serendipity, the power of making the most of opportunities, and how chemistry looks different when framed by business requirements. As it’s often the case, it’s about humans interacting with each other, the people behind science, and the people behind the market. It doesn’t get more “Bringing Chemistry to Life” than that.
We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us!
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Materials of tomorrow to recycle materials of today
Bringing Chemistry to Life
09/22/21 • 32 min
Visit https://thermofisher.com/bctl to register for your free Bringing Chemistry to Life T-shirt and https://www.alfa.com/en/chemistry-podcasts/ to access our episode summary sheet, which contains links to recent publications and additional content recommendations for our guest.
Every day, tons of potentially valuable materials are discarded in various waste streams simply because recycling them is more expensive than their recoverable value. Considering that finite resources such as precious metals are among these wastes, the opportunity appears obvious.
Wendy Lee Queen, and American expat and passionate baseball player, leads the Laboratory for Functional Inorganic Materials at the EPFL in Lausanne, and has a potential solution. She is one of the leading experts of metal organic frameworks (MOF) and a pioneer of novel composite materials where MOFs and polymers in bead form provide an innovative way to fine tune affinity and selectivity for various chemical species of interest. These can be used to efficiently capture pollutants such as carbon dioxide, but also to recover valuable resources from water waste streams, such as precious metals.
Wendy’s research is a beautiful story of chemical innovation, where ground-breaking chemistry makes new things possible. And when these new things have the potential to change the way we look at our urban and industrial wastes, this is a moment chemistry is brought to life.
We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us!
- Email [email protected]
Rethinking catalysis
Bringing Chemistry to Life
06/30/21 • 31 min
Visit https://thermofisher.com/bctl to register for your free Bringing Chemistry to Life T-shirt and https://www.alfa.com/en/chemistry-podcasts/ to access our episode summary sheet, which contains links to recent publications and additional content recommendations for our guest.
Modern synthetic chemistry relies on a rich toolbox of chemical transformations, among which catalytic reactions play a prominent role. Yet, despite all the many successes, innovation in the field has seemingly slowed down, the focus moving to exploring variations and application scope of well-established catalysts based on a limited number of reliable transition metals.
Josep Cornella, from the Max Planck Institute in Mülheim an der Ruhr, is an innovator. He is not loyal to a specific element or a specific catalyzed reaction. He has a non-discriminatory approach to catalysis, where the key is choosing the catalytic approach to do what he wants/needs rather than figuring out what he can do with his catalyst of choice.
This episode is a declaration of love for catalysis as a driver for innovation in organic synthesis. Paolo and Josep discuss using the elements the Earth has given us in creative new ways, from making air-stable nickel zero (Ni(0)) complexes to the unexpected use of bismuth as a completely novel catalyst, opening the box of possibilities by removing the biases from overreliance on well established – and old – concepts.
We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us!
- Email [email protected]
The life-altering impact of one chemist’s sabbatical
Bringing Chemistry to Life
04/03/24 • 31 min
Anyone that’s followed this podcast will know that Paolo’s final question to each guest is, “What advice would you like to share with younger scientists just starting their career?” Here, our guest, Dr. Monte Helm, professor of chemistry at Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City, shares advice that he clearly lives by, which is, “... be flexible ii your career and follow what you think you’ll be passionate about.”
While Monte’s academic training is in inorganic chemistry, he’ll tell you he’s always cared about teaching as much as the subject itself. Join us to meet this lifelong learner and teacher, that’s parlayed his passion for phosphine chemistry and teaching into roles as a postdoctoral researcher, a professor at an undergraduate research institution, a deputy director at a national laboratory, and now a teaching-focused role at a community college. A set of roles that definitely demonstrates flexibility!
In addition to learning about the fundamental research Dr. Helm has done in crown-phosphine and phosphine ligand synthesis, we learn about his unconventional career path and the key role that mentors and sabbatical opportunities played in its development. He talks openly about the joys and challenges of each role, about his motivations for each career change, and his current love of teaching at a community college where he’s able to focus solely on teaching to students that may not have had positive primary educational experiences in science.
Related episodes:
- Season 2, Ep. 3: Rethinking Catalysis
- Season 2, Ep. 6: The charm of the forgotten elements
- Season 3, Ep. 3: Imagination and the chemistry of the things around us
- Season 5, Ep. 4: Shining a photochemical light on undergraduate research
Bonus content!
- Access bonus content curated by this episode’s guest by visiting www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast for links to recent publications, podcasts, books, videos and more.
- View the video of this episode on www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast.
A free thank you gift for our listeners!
- Visit the episode website and request your free Bringing Chemistry to Life t-shirt.
- Use Podcast Code: laBcheM in March or sc13nc3 in April
We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us!
- Email [email protected]
Flip the script. Meet your host, Paolo.
Bringing Chemistry to Life
02/21/24 • 33 min
Bringing Chemistry to Life is as much about the people behind the science as it is about the science itself. We’ve been remiss in sharing a bit more about the creator and host! In this unique episode we flip the script and move Paolo from the host chair to the guest chair to hear his story.
From Paolo’s childhood memories watching his father fix electronics and his dreams of being in the NBA, he chats about developing into a skilled bioorganic chemist, working in biocatalysis and his contributions to international study programs. He describes the “God-like” powers that organic chemistry gave him, manipulating matter and creating things that didn’t exist before and how this led to becoming an R&D leader in a startup.
Our protagonist’s story takes a turn when he discovers and becomes enamored with the “dark side” of science finding success in sales, product management, and product marketing roles, where we find him today. The origin story of Bringing Chemistry to Life is uncovered, fulfilling his aspiration of being a podcast host while keeping him connected to great science and market trends. Join us to meet Paolo, your host, learn what he gets from hosting the podcast, and what he hopes listeners get from it!
Related episodes:
- Season 1, Ep.1: Human milk — its a matter of chemistry (aka The Start of it All)
- Season 4, Ep.2: Paul Anastas — The father of green chemistry (aka A Dream Come True)
Bonus content!
- Access bonus content curated by this episode’s guest by visiting www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast for links to recent publications, podcasts, books, videos and more.
- View the video of this episode on www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast.
A free thank you gift for our listeners!
- Visit the episode website and request your free Bringing Chemistry to Life t shirt.
- Use Podcast Code: liV4chem in February or laBcheM in March
We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us!
- Email [email protected]
Shining a photochemical light on undergraduate research
Bringing Chemistry to Life
01/31/24 • 33 min
With four seasons under our belt, we’ve heard some amazing stories about how our guests have found, or often “stumbled” into, their careers in science. We’ve also had many conversations where past guests have passionately discussed the importance of their early career teachers as well as what teaching does for them in their current careers. This conversation is squarely centered on these two topics, with a good dose of photochemistry mixed in too.
We meet Dr. Izzy Lamb, Assistant Professor at Fort Lewis College, which is a small liberal arts school in Colorado with a primarily undergraduate student population. Izzy is entertainingly forthright in admitting that he’s often a bit surprised by his success in chemistry given that he was failing the topic in high school and was later accepted to only one of the six graduate programs he applied to. However, our conversation quickly uncovers why Izzy has been successful in what matters most to him—exploring photochemistry and training the next generation of chemists.
Join us for this engaging look at how Izzy has built a thriving career in chemistry through perseverance, passion, and knowing what matters most to him. We learn about his career in photocatalysis and how he’s now adapting his research to better fit the resources and undergraduate students where he’s now working. A passion for teaching students in a way that gets them thinking and equipped to solve real-world problems is his priority, and we learn how he’s using a passion for understanding quantum yields of photochemical reactions to help inform more sustainable ways of doing chemistry.
Related episodes:
- Season 1, Ep.2: Reinventing plastics, one reaction at a time
- Season 3, Ep.1: Fuel the world with light - the wonders of nano-magnesium
- Season 3, Ep.9: Energy harvesting and self-sustainable greenhouses
Bonus content!
- Access bonus content curated by this episode’s guest by visiting www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast for links to recent publications, podcasts, books, videos and more.
- View the video of this episode on www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast.
A free thank you gift for our listeners!
- Visit the episode website and request your free Bringing Chemistry to Life t shirt.
- Use Podcast Code: Ba++ery in January 2024 or liV4chem in February
We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us!
- Email [email protected]
Cross-coupling, catalysis and one chemist’s move to tech
Bringing Chemistry to Life
03/13/24 • 35 min
Most of us don’t grow up across the street from a chemistry building or know from an early age that we want to be a scientist, but Alan Dyke, VP of Business Development for ProChem, Inc. (CTO of Boulder Scientific Company at the time of the interview) did and became a chemist. Dr. Alan Dyke, former colleague, and friend of Paolo’s, shares his career path and discusses the history and current state of the field of catalysis.
With a father that taught university-level chemistry, and a brother in the field, it may not be surprising that Alan Dyke became a chemist, but it is surprising is that he’s considered to be the outcast of the family for choosing a commercial career instead of taking an academic route. But, as he’ll passionately reveal, there are upsides to choosing a non-academic career.
Join us for a wonderful conversation where Paolo and Alan recount their shared history and the evolution of the catalysis field over recent decades. They discuss the evolution of homogeneous cross-coupling, biocatalysis, metathesis, and metallocene chemistry. Application of catalysis to fields as varied as pharmaceuticals and polymers is discussed, along with sustainability and other trends and dynamics in the field. Overcome your activation energy and join us!
Related episodes:
- Season 1, Ep.2: Reinventing plastics, one reaction at a time
- Season 2, Ep.1: Chemistry: a modern American dream
- Season 2, Ep.6: The charm of the forgotten elements
Bonus content!
- Access bonus content curated by this episode’s guest by visiting www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast for links to recent publications, podcasts, books, videos and more.
- View the video of this episode on www.thermofisher.com/chemistry-podcast.
A free thank you gift for our listeners!
- Visit the episode website and request your free Bringing Chemistry to Life t-shirt.
- Use Podcast Code: laBcheM in March or sc13nc3 in April
We read every email so please share your questions and feedback with us!
- Email [email protected]
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FAQ
How many episodes does Bringing Chemistry to Life have?
Bringing Chemistry to Life currently has 57 episodes available.
What topics does Bringing Chemistry to Life cover?
The podcast is about Covid, Life Sciences, Coffee, International, Motivation, Gold, Cancer, Creativity, Outer Space, Environment, Chemistry, Energy, Immunology, Podcasts, Discovery, Science, Health, Industry, Artificial Intelligence, Innovation, Machine Learning, Sustainability, Ethics, Virus, Biology and Drugs.
What is the most popular episode on Bringing Chemistry to Life?
The episode title 'Cross-coupling, catalysis and one chemist’s move to tech' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Bringing Chemistry to Life?
The average episode length on Bringing Chemistry to Life is 31 minutes.
How often are episodes of Bringing Chemistry to Life released?
Episodes of Bringing Chemistry to Life are typically released every 20 days, 14 hours.
When was the first episode of Bringing Chemistry to Life?
The first episode of Bringing Chemistry to Life was released on Oct 11, 2020.
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