Key Points
- Jim Grinias reflected on communicating analytical chemistry to non-scientist family during a trip to Greece after attending HPLC 2025 in Bruges.
- Simple, relatable language helped him discuss complex topics, like capillary LC and drug analysis, to his relatives, despite his limited Greek fluency.
- This blog highlights the need for scientists to share their work with general audiences through everyday conversations and real-world examples.
- Grinias encourages using relatable topics—like beverages, gardening, or fireflies—to spark interest in chromatography and promote scientific enthusiasm.
With the plethora of outstanding chromatography conferences held in Europe each year, I am regularly provided the opportunity to visit my extended family in Greece on combined work-holiday trips. Recently, I went on one such journey to northern Greece, following the exceptional HPLC 2025 conference in Bruges. My Greek language skills are nominal at best, so trying to communicate my work as an analytical chemist can prove difficult when talking with my relatives. Over the years, I’ve so far been able to provide a basic description of chromatography and the general purpose of separations within chemical analysis using very simple language–and perhaps this has been easier because of the fact that chromatography is a Greek word! This year, my lecture at the HPLC Symposium focused on the use of compact capillary LC instrumentation for the analysis of complex clinical samples. When prompted about my “σεμινάριο στο Βέλγιο” (“seminar in Belgium”), I used my rudimentary Greek to explain that “we use a much smaller machine than the normal big machine to try and measure illicit drugs, like fentanyl, in urine”. I had to rely on Google Translate for the word “fentanyl” (it turns out it’s the same!) and unfortunately had to use the word “machine” to describe chemical instrumentation (a pet peeve of mine), but I was happy to get the general message across to my loved ones.
This experience got me thinking about the importance of communicating science to general audiences, and more specifically, to people that I know and interact with each day who aren’t necessarily scientists themselves. There are plenty of resources online about science communication to larger audiences, but I think it is just as crucial right now for the analytical chemistry community to be able to clearly articulate our contributions in everyday conversations with family, friends, neighbors, and others. Sometimes it can be relatively easy to talk about analytical chemistry in broader contexts. Examples include the increased interest in forensic science in the early 2000s due to the television series “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”, the news coverage of the start-up company Theranos in the late 2010s, at-home diagnostic testing during COVID-19, and the elevated importance of doping control every few years during the Olympics. However, the more ways we can articulate how chemical measurement science directly impacts people’s lives, the greater the opportunity we have to revive enthusiasm in science and scientific research throughout the world–a necessity today because of the frequent focus on negative aspects of scientific endeavors found throughout social media sites.
