
Katrina Krämer
After finishing my A-levels, I wanted to study arts or languages, but then decided that being a chemist in a white coat was definitely cooler.
So I went on and spent ten years studying chemistry in Germany, Spain and the UK, before realising that not working in a lab can also be fun. After one year in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s graduate trainee scheme, I joined Chemistry World first as editorial assistant and now as science correspondent.
My favourite CAS number is 102-54-5.
- Research
AI identifies molecules from their featureless visible spectrum
Forget about trying to interpret peaks and let machine learning identify organic compounds from their entirely smooth visible spectrum
- Opinion
Dan Shechtman: ‘Cyrus Smith was my idol’
The Israeli Nobel prizewinner shares how his career was inspired by Jules Verne and the unexpected fortune of failing to find a job
- Opinion
Richard Schrock: ‘It’s not my catalyst, it’s nature’s’
The Nobel laureate discusses the art of woodwork and what it feels like to have a catalyst named after him
- Opinion
Donna Strickland: ‘My career goal was to get a PhD’
The Nobel prize-winning physicist on the joys of doing nothing, meeting the Pope and how her PhD completed her life’s goals
- Research
Mystery surrounding metalation reaction’s reagent excess solved
Multiple ‘base-eating’ aggregates discovered in classic directed ortho lithiation
- Research
Unprecedented simultaneous quantum tunnelling reaction discovered
Isomers of the same molecule undergo different tunnelling rearrangement at the same time – a process that ‘is completely breaking the classic transition state rules’
- News
SI units get new prefixes for huge and tiny numbers
Ronna, quetta, ronto and quecto are the first new prefixes for the metric system in 30 years
- News
UK government upholds £20 billion commitment to research and development
But a longer-term pledge of £22 billion has quietly disappeared in Jeremy Hunt’s first autumn statement as chancellor
- Research
A recipe for biodegradable mushroom batteries
Mycelium skin from wood fungus makes sustainable material for flexible electronics
- News
Explainer: why are curly arrows used in organic chemistry?
How organic chemists became arrow pushers and what quantum chemists have to say about this
- News
9 out of 10 scientists hate their lab coat
Genius Lab Gear wants to replace the boxy garment with tailored apparel that fits different body shapes and sizes
- News
Materials science journal withdraws 500 papers from fake conferences
Off-topic and nonsense articles in Materials Today: Proceedings may have come from conferences that never happened, created by paper mills to ‘launder’ publications
- Research
AI discovers the best general conditions yet for cross couplings, doubling yields
Algorithm works with robotic experimenter on tricky Suzuki–Miyaura reactions
- Opinion
Martin Chalfie: ‘I decided I wasn’t going to be a scientist’
The Nobel prizewinner on breaking a promise to himself and the test he had to pass to receive his medal
- Research
Chemical Turing machine reads molecular tape
Crown ether ratchet reads out molecular strand’s chirality
- News
Bangor University will demolish closed-down chemistry tower
Chemistry building will be removed three years after the Welsh university decided to close the 135-year-old department to save money
- Feature
How click conquered chemistry
Katrina Krämer tells the story of how click and bioorthogonal chemistry came to win the 2022 Nobel prize
- News
Nobel prize rewards click chemistry and bioorthogonal reactions
Barry Sharpless, Morten Meldal and Carolyn Bertozzi have been awarded the 2022 chemistry Nobel prize
- Opinion
David MacMillan: ‘The medal is the real celebrity’
The Nobel prize-winner on the joys of handing out his medal to everyone, chatting with William Shatner and Alex Ferguson, and the pain of being a Scottish football fan
- News
Quantum technology pioneers win physics Nobel
Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger are honoured for establishing quantum information science