If Carolyn Bertozzi has a soft spot for those undergrads who see organic chemistry as the bear trap between them and getting into med school, that's because she once felt that way.
Bertozzi, who recently joined the Stanford faculty after two decades at UC-Berkeley, is regarded as one of the top chemists of her generation. Celebrated with a laundry list of major awards, she founded the field of bioorthogonal chemistry, which allows researchers to modify molecules within living cells.
But she certainly didn't start on that path. Indeed, if she'd had her druthers, she might have majored in music at Harvard. (A keyboardist, she played in a college band, Bored of Education, with future guitar god Tom Morello of rock's Rage Against the Machine.)
Biology, her original major, was partly an appeasement to pragmatic parents, she says—and chemistry was a necessary evil on the way to a career in medicine. But an organic chemistry class she took sophomore year turned her world upside down.
Soon she was waving off parties to work problems on Saturday nights, a zeal rooted in her epiphany of chemistry's grace, logic and universality. "It's the language where a lot of different fields become common, whether you're studying plant biology or the oceans or the atmosphere," she says. "I've always loved that about chemistry."
Bertozzi's continued excitement about chemistry's central role in science helps explain why she uprooted her 28-member lab to join Stanford ChEM-H, a new interdisciplinary institute that brings together students and faculty in biology, chemistry, engineering and medicine for research aimed at improving human health.
She knows, though, that some of the brightest future stars may come her way convinced, as she was, that chemistry is something to endure, not enjoy. She does her part to disabuse them, layering her teaching with stories.
To her, molecules aren't just abstractions, she tells students. With their own physical quirks, they're like people—some may have their hair pulled back in ponytails, quick to react, others lumber along with their hair in their faces, oblivious to those around them.
"Based on urban legends or inaccurate impressions from pop culture, they are thinking, 'I'm going to hate chemistry'—and I'm talking about tying hair back to keep it out of the molecule's eyes," she says. "I think the students are pleasantly surprised."
Her goal, she says, is to amaze them with how interesting and relevant chemistry is to whatever they pursue, be it medical school or a path not yet imagined. "I was that student," she says.
