The LCGC Blog: Communicating Science Across Language & Knowledge Barriers

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.

I challenge the readers of LCGC International to try and see if they can connect with someone they know about a topic in analytical chemistry. In my experience, chromatographers often rely on explaining the importance of separation science to quality control within the pharmaceutical industry, but what other ways can we describe the impact of our work? During this summer season, gardening and pool time can easily lead to brief conversations on soil and water chemistry with our neighbors, especially if you describe how measuring the chemical species in these systems and acting based on the results can lead to heartier crops or cleaner swimming water. When sharing a beer or glass of wine with friends, a brief note on how multidimensional chromatography is helping us better understand the flavors and aromas of these complex beverages can pique interest in the applications of separation science. And although chemiluminescence detection is rare in high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), there is no better time to bring up the topic then when looking at the related bioluminescence phenomenon on display in a field full of fireflies at dusk. I even had the opportunity to put these efforts into practice while in Greece: while drinking a can of local sparkling water, I was excited to see that the listed mineral content included a note that testing was performed by the chemical analysis laboratory of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Clearly, the impact of analytical chemistry is all around us, and we should all do our part to share our enthusiasm about the work we do!

Special Note

One additional way that I, along with Dwight Stoll, have been working on spreading the word about chromatography with the world is through the LCGC International “Analytically Speaking” podcast. The archives include a lot of great interviews with analytical chemists from a wide variety of backgrounds and new episodes are released regularly. Check it out today at https://www.chromatographyonline.com/analytically-speaking-podcast or on your preferred podcast platform.

About the Author