What’s In Your Fridge?

Posted by Ivan Amato on September 30, 2009 in Chemistry is Everywhere

HOLD YOUR NOSE George Preti of Monell Chemical Senses Center has been collecting samples of human odor for a long time.

WAY COOL TOXIN LIBRARY The late chemical ecologist John Daly showing a visitor to his NIH lab in 2006 what probably is the world's most important collection of amphibian toxins.

Refrigerators tell you a lot about their owners. They also tell you a lot about a laboratory in which the appliances reside. That’s why I always love seeing what’s inside the fridge, or freezer, when I visit a laboratory for a story I am writing. My last raid on a scientist’s freezer was last month during a visit to Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia for an article that will appear in the October 12 issue of C&EN. During the visit, I had the pleasure, albeit a seriously malodorous one, of peering inside a freezer in the laboratory of George Preti, who studies the nature of human odor. One of his goals is to eke medically valuable information from people’s personal perfumes. The picture I took of Preti’s fridge reminded me of another fridge photo opp that I grabbed a few years ago, that one in the lab of the late chemical ecologist and amphibian toxin researcher John Daly of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/84/8426sci1.html). And now I invite you to send me your own photos of the contents of your laboratory fridges and freezers. Please send them my way (i_amato@acs.org) with a description of what’s inside and the scientific pursuits that those contents support. I’m betting I can eke a story out of what comes into my inbox.