The Berries and the Branch
Dr. Rita R. Colwell
Director
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Symposium on Chemistry and the National Agenda: The
Contribution of Research to the Nation
American Chemical Society
National Meeting
Sunday August 23, 1998
Thank you, Paul Barkan and Doug Raber for inviting
me to share the limelight with such illustrious company.
Feeling so young in my new job, it's
a special honor to be so close to so much Nobel history.
It reminds me of an observation that should be ascribed
to Yogi Berra, even though he didn't actually say
it "Sometimes you have to look really close to get
the big picture." It strikes me as a perception apropos
of chemistry as a discipline.
Not to name names, but I understand one of our Nobelists
cashed in on his fame to get up close and personal
in quite a different way and at quite a different
kind of award ceremony. I'm referring not to the Nobel
but to the infamous "Ig Nobel Awards." Again, I won't
betray his privacy, but I understand one of you was
given away at the Ig Nobel Awards in a contest called
"Win a Date with a Nobel Laureate." (Your secret is
safe with me.)
I'm delighted to be up close and personal with all
of you today, to hear your personal and professional
stories, and to reflect on what they mean to our collective
future as a nation. Looking closely, yet embracing
the larger context -- in many ways chemistry embodies
that dual perspective. It reaches from the molecular
to the keenly practical. On the one hand, chemistry
-- probably the oldest of the sciences -- has a venerable,
worthy, and extremely utilitarian history as a very
fundamental science. Yet, chemistry is so broad that
it underpins virtually all other scientific disciplines.
We also know that interdisciplinary research will
be increasingly important in the years ahead. The
interface of biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics,
and chemistry... and the social and behavioral sciences
are where the excitement will be most intense. As
history has shown us, the ground work will be set
in chemistry.
As a microbiologist I know well the convergence of
chemistry with my own discipline and also the intertwining
of the practical with the most basic. The famous microbiologist,
Louis Pasteur, was, in fact, a chemist by training.
I've begun thinking very seriously about how chemical,
biological, and social interactions between our planet's
systems form a network of biocomplexity, an approach
to understanding our world. Chemistry is key to this
effort to understand and sustain our planet.
Although fundamental, chemistry is -- if I may use
the term -- elementally down to earth. It is a superb
example of Louis Pasteur's dictum that "There are
science and the applications of science, bound together
as the fruit to the tree which bears it."
The membership of this impressive society reflects
Pasteur's link between the fruit and the tree, the
berry and the branch. The fact that almost 60% of
ACS's membership comes from industry allows for tremendous
cross-fertilization, the natural form of technology
transfer... in both directions.
The chemical industry in the U.S. -- worth $400 billion
annually -- relies, directly and indirectly, on the
brainpower and creativity of all gathered here and
beyond, those in industry and academia
and government.
These facts and figures illustrate the wonderful gradient
of chemistry research. It asks not only: What is the
fundamental structure and function of the molecule?
But also: How can we use these resources to harvest
these discoveries?
The yields from Nobel-caliber research rely on --
I hesitate to use the term in such company -- the
organic connection between the commercial
enterprise of chemistry and federal support for chemistry
research. Americans have dominated the Nobel Prize
in chemistry since World War II.
I am very pleased that NSF and our partner federal
agencies have had a role in supporting all of these
Nobelists' research. Sometimes we were clairvoyant
enough to support you before your prize
was bestowed. In other cases we were astute enough
to make up for our lack of foresight with some support
afterwards!
In any case, out of 38 Nobelists in chemistry, NSF
supported 20 -- or more than half -- before their
prizes. (You could say that gives us pretty good 50-50
hindsight.) The statistics for NSF support of physics
and economics Nobelists are roughly similar.
All of you have had far-reaching impact on your respective
sub-fields in terms of ideas. There are scores of
students and post-docs you have reached, and later
generations will continue to enjoy the impact and
the benefits of your efforts.
This is living testimony to how the federal investment,
in what may seem very esoteric research, actually
replicates itself many-fold in diverse facets of our
lives. The work commemorated by the Nobel Prizes has
given us insight about the atmosphere surrounding
the earth, assisted in developing environmentally
friendly technologies, and enriched our lives in many
other ways.
In closing, let me also commend the entire ACS for
its dynamic programs to get out the message about
the value of research to society. I hope that all
of us -- and this is a special hope for the students
here today so early on a Sunday morning -- will see
it as an integral part of our professional careers
to communicate to the public how chemistry and fundamental
research touch our lives.
We are all anxious to hear your stories and to reflect
on your achievements, in the context of how vital
all of science is to our shared future. So let us
begin.
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