Question: What's the best thing you have ever made from experiments?

Matthew Kitching answered on 10 Nov 2016:

Hi Dugdigger,

Hmmm thats a difficult question – I’ve made drugs that treat prostate cancer (and make rats feel no pain) – Ive made powerful antibiotics that attack a bacteria’s DNA – in ways that haven’t been used to treat infections before. Ive made molecular knots (like the knot in your shoe laces but made from atoms) that can catalyse reactions in a selective way, and I’ve made an artificial nano machine that can make proteins in a similar way to how our cells make proteins (our cells use a machine called a ribosome).

But I think my favourite thing Ive ever made is compound that was a building block for one of the antibiotics i made – If was Bright purple and made huge crystals – it was light sensitive so i had to work in the dark when i made it otherwise it would go off. But if you held it under fluorescent light – I glowed bright green.

Chemists get to make amazing things! every thought about being a chemist?

Hope that answers your question 🙂