ACS Projects Boost Chemistry Education In Developing Countries

Even in a time of pinched budgets for research and instrumentation, access to high-technology analytical tools used to educate new generations of chemistry professionals are items that nations of the developed world almost take for granted, says John Malin, head of the American Chemical Society's Office of International Activities. In developing countries, on the other hand, scarce resources often mean a desperate scramble for research instruments, textbooks, and journals, Malin points out. To help meet some of the demand for research instruments at needy institutions in the U.S. and in impoverished countries, this summer the International Activities Office has launched Project Instrumentshare, a program in which chemical companies can donate used research instruments to educational and nonprofit institutions. Already, Malin and Frank D. Popp, a former professor of organic chemistry at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, have begun contacting companies about donations—including C&EN's Top 100 chemical producers—and several have stepped forward with offers of ...