Is, say, a molecular virologist a one-trick pony who has worked on one project, or a person who can contribute to many different groups?
I was surprised to learn that Simons' interest in food chemistry runs deeper than the simple parlor tricks of molecular gastronomy, which he describes as "the showiest and quickest" way to talk about food chemistry.
"The thing about molecular biology is, it's like a magic trick," Lipkin told me when I went to speak to him one day this summer in his office, in upper Manhattan.
The discovery of this remarkably simple trick should accelerate the development of tiny molecular pipelines, cables, and girders, scientists report in the 8 March issue of Nature.
But this trick is currently possible only for simple circuits.With molecular circuits becoming steadily more complex, new software tools are being developed to design, model and debug them.
One of those licenses went to Michael Hackett, a UNC doctoral student who got an idea 2 years ago for a potential commercial drug: to trick tumors into absorbing chemotherapy drugs by designing a molecular Trojan horse.
The interaction between the Bim BH3 peptide and the viral protein BHRF1 is pivotal to understanding the fundamental molecular details of the mechanism used by the Epstein-Barr virus to trick the mammalian immune system.
The trick is an instrument Shell is perfecting that can sniff molecular signatures of trapped hydrocarbons floating in the air at concentrations of just 10 parts per trillion.
A barman (or "molecular mixologist/ close-up magician" as his website describes him) doing a trick for me, before getting back to making me another free cocktail, which is what I really wanted.
