A healthy paradigm shift in the analytical science community

In 1998 your i-section Editor and David Stone of the University of Toronto published a guest Editorial entitled ‘Reflections on analytical chemistry and interdisciplinary research’ (Analyst, 1998, 123, 95N). We argued here that research activities in analytical chemistry offer unique opportunities to scientists because of the intrinsic inter-and multi-disciplinary nature of the sub-discipline. Such efforts may require the analytical chemist to work a bit harder to assimilate the necessary knowledge than others, but the rewards are great. In this article your Editor expands on this theme and in this connection describes an interesting phenomenon occurring currently in his own Institute.

The past two or three years have seen a very significant shift in the educational background of applicants wishing to undertake either graduate student or postdoctoral studies in analytical chemistry. Firm decisions have been taken by individuals with training in biomedical engineering, materials science and electrical engineering to formally join our bioanalytical chemistry research group centered in the Department of Chemistry. This change in the background of individuals making up my own group is so profound that it is becoming increasingly clear that within a relatively short period of time the majority of our members will have originated from non-chemical backgrounds. Of course, in the past, we have collaborated extensively with groups from the various engineering communities, but we did not witness this desire for more formal entrance to our group. Not surprisingly, such requests have placed our Departmental and University academic administrators under some duress. As one of my colleagues pointed out succinctly, ‘how can you admit this person here if he/she does not even have one chemistry course in their training?’ The solution has been to have the new graduate students allowed formal entrance under the auspices of broader umbrellas such as that of the Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering. The situation is naturally somewhat easier to deal with at the PDF level, but even here our Department recommends some background in chemistry.

This recent enthusiasm of young members of the engineering community for ‘permanent’ entrance to our bioanalytical research group begs the question as to why. Discussion with the progenitors and my own observations has led to several connected reasons. One answer undoubtedly lies in the movement in the engineering world to broader, interdisciplinary perspectives. This is certainly occurring in chemistry, but not perhaps at the same rate or level. It is abundantly clear that sub-disciplinary barriers are breaking down between the electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering sectors much as is occurring for analogous areas in chemistry and physics. Hence, the genesis of such officially-recognized entities such as Biomedical Engineering and Nanoengineering. A second, subtler trend is the apparent desire of a number of young engineers to engage in research activities at a more rigorous level. This is not to say that the engineering community does not involve sophisticated research but that modern students from that sector seem to be attracted to the more fundamental aspects offered by research in chemistry and physics. A third and overriding consideration is the clear modern drive towards research and development in the nanotechnology and nanomedicine fields. These areas are of recent burgeoning interest and, accordingly, the contemporary engineer is very attracted to a research career, which combines their particular knowledge with the future possibilities that abound in the bio-nanotechnology sector. Here there are activities in materials science, microfluidics, surface chemistry, electronics, medical engineering, protein and nucleic acid chemistry and sensor technology. These are often the very same research pursuits as that of the modern bioanalytical chemist, so given the above-mentioned factors it is perhaps not surprising that we see the trend to increased participation by formally-trained engineers in instrumental analytical chemistry.

In 1998 we pointed out that ‘—analytical chemists are uniquely qualified to contribute in arenas that require a wide variety of knowledge and expertise—’. It is evident that this notion has become increasingly apparent to our colleagues in the engineering community.

Scientific Editor, i-section

Michael Thompson

---