Making medicines in an energy-deprived world | The Royal Society

Join us for the Royal Society Rising Star Africa Prize Lecture given by 2023 winner Dr Wade F Petersen. Chemists have provided the world with an abundance of enabling synthesis methods for the construction of molecules significant to human life; specifically crucial medicines. Many of these methods utilise rare and expensive metals and/or require significant heating processes. In a world of rapidly declining resource, both in terms of energy and materials, a very sobering question emerges: ‘How will we make critical medicines if some resources are no longer available — say in the middle of a blackout?’ In this talk, Dr Petersen will share some of his experiences working under such conditions in Africa, as well as describe his research endeavours toward achieving sustainable and energy efficient syntheses of therapeutically relevant small molecules: mimicking photosynthesis and using light energy in pursuit of chemical synthesis perfection. The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many