Paul Bohn, University of Notre Dame, USA

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Abstract

The Analyst profiles the new Editor for the Americas, Paul Bohn from the University of Notre Dame.

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Biography

Dr Paul Bohn received the B.S. from Notre Dame in 1977 and the Ph.D. in Chemistry from Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. After a two-year stint at Bell Laboratories, he joined the faculty at the University of Illinois. In August 2006, he joined the faculty at the University of Notre Dame as the Arthur J. Schmitt Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Dr Bohn's research interests include: molecular transport on the nanometer length scale, developing new optical spectroscopic measurement strategies for surface and interfacial structure–function studies, optoelectronic materials and devices and chemical sensors, and molecular approaches to nanotechnology.

Tell us about your current projects and why you chose to research these areas

Our principal areas of research focus on the characterization of mass-limited samples and the development of novel chemical sensing architectures, primarily those based on porous optoelectronic materials. Our interest in mass-limited samples is motivated by the need to characterize a couple of different kinds of challenging samples: those in which the mass of the sample is inherently limited, such as proteomics implemented to mine proteins expressed at very low levels or the characterization of the contents of single sub-cellular organelles, or those in which some characteristic of the sample dictates that it be handled in very low amounts, such as potent biological or chemical toxins. The intellectual challenge associated with these efforts centers on the ability to manipulate and characterize fluids samples at exceedingly low volumes. The kinds of questions we have to address in order to understand these phenomena at an appropriate level range all the way from the creation of new electrokinetic transport phenomena at the nanoscale to understanding of the role of statistical fluctuations in chemical equilibrium. A component of this larger effort focuses on developing new kinds of chemical sensing strategies, in particular those that take advantage of novel properties such as the closely linked optical and electronic response in materials such as the gallium nitride family of optical semiconductors. Our challenge is to combine all these elements to create platforms for useful and practical analytical determinations which are based on a deep and fundamental understanding of the properties of small collections of molecules.

Where do you see the area of analytical chemistry on the nanometer scale progressing over the next 10 years?

These are exciting times for those of us interested in problems of chemistry on nanometer length scales. Some in our profession like to say that chemistry has always been a nanoscience, but in truth we chemists are just now learning how to manipulate structures on such large (large at least in this sense of being super molecular) length scales. In the foreseeable future we will likely begin to integrate different mesoscopic phenomena in order to the create architectures and devices capable of molecular manipulations which are not currently known. As an example, we are just beginning to characterize how macromolecular reactivity is altered in structures of nanometer scale dimensions, as an anlog to the type of molecular crowding characteristic of intracellular reactivity. One can imagine taking this knowledge and extrapolating to very exciting concepts for actively controlled, intelligent molecular processing, either to accomplish analytical determinations or to establish new types of molecular transformations.

What personal characteristics do you see as necessary for your position as Editor for the Americas in The Analyst?

First and foremost our baseline commitment to the community is to provide a careful and consistent evaluation of manuscripts in a timely fashion. Beyond that all of us as editors have a special obligation to attract the best and most exciting science within the portfolio that The Analyst has identified for itself, so that the visibility of all the papers in the journal is enhanced in a mutually supporting way.

About 40% of papers published in The Analyst originate from North America. What do you think publishing in The Analyst offers American and Canadian authors?

There are two fundamental elements which The Analyst can bring to the North American detection science community. First, we can offer enhanced exposure to the UK and European communities. In addition, it is important for the field to have a choice of high quality, high visibility venues for publication, and The Analyst can provide an effective counterpoint and competitor to other high visibility journals serving the international analytical chemistry community.

After nearly 20 years' absence you recently returned to the University of Notre Dame to take up the position of Arthur J. Schmitt Professor. How has the teaching at the university evolved since you were a student there?

A well-known cliche in the US has it that you can never go home again, and this is true, at least in the sense that the people and structures that you left behind 30 years ago have moved on and are inalterably changed. In the case of Notre Dame the most obvious differences focus on the university's self-proclaimed goal to establish itself as a premier non-secular research university and to do this in a way that is consonant with its own special character and unique mission. Those aspirations and the context in which success is judged are very different from how they would have been in my days as a student.

How has analytical chemistry changed in the last 20 years?

This is approximately the span of my independent professional career, and it has been an extraordinarily fascinating and exciting time to do chemistry. Developments in molecular detection strategies, ranging from single molecule manipulations to chemical imaging technologies to the rise of biotechnology as a laboratory tool have completely transformed the way in which we think about the questions it is possible to ask and the types of experiments that can be designed to ask them. I can hardly wait to see what the next 20 years are going to bring.

What motivates you in life?

As an academic, the most exciting thing in my life is watching students develop their own independent sense of intellectual discovery. Working with 18–25-year-olds not only keeps you young, it constantly reminds you of the thrill of your first discovery and the excitement we all remember from the time we made our first independent assessment of a difficult chemical problem and contributed, at least incrementally, to mankind's understanding the of the physical world.

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