He said combinatorial chemistry allows scientists to quickly produce every possible permutation of a catalyst with many interrelated components. The compounds form on microscopic "beads" and can be studied individually under a microscope.

"Combinatorial chemistry is a technique for studying molecules that completely changes the rules," Jacobsen says. He says he believes that the techniques of combinatorial chemistry hold great potential for organic chemists although he says they are still too immature for applied research.

Background

Jacobsen accepted a tenured position at Harvard in 1993, only seven years after receiving his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley.

From 1986 to 1988, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health at MIT, before joining the faculty of the University of Illinois.

There, he won a number of awards for teaching and research, including the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award. He has also worked as a consultant for the Exxon Corporation, Sepracor and Ethyl Corporation.

Future

Jacobsen says he is also working on designing reaction which produce as little waste byproduct as possible.

"Traditionally, waste hasn't been a big issue in organic chemistry," he says. "A big question now is how to design reactions with as little waste as possible."

He points to environmental and economic considerations which have forced the elimination of waste to the forefront of chemistry.

Jacobsen says scientists must now be aware of the environmental consequences of disposing waste byproducts, as well as the rising costs associated with this disposal.

He recently designed a reaction in which salt water is the only byproduct, and he is currently developing a reaction in which 100 percent of the product is useful and no byproduct is produced.

Jacobsen says he foresees learning more about chemical relativity and selectivity during the rest of his career. He says he hopes that lifetime scientists will be able to understand chemical systems and predict whether a reaction or catalyst will work.

"There is still a tremendous element of luck associated with discovering reaction in organic chemistry," he says. "We're at an information gathering period. We've advanced to the point [in organic chemistry] where we know how much more there is to learn."