Feeling the chemistry:

An OSU chemistry professor is chairing a international symposium this weekend featuring 120 lectures and exhibitions.

Ziad El Rassi has orchestrated an exhibition that chemists from all over the world will attend.

As chairman of the 17th Annual Liquid Phase Separations and Capillary Electroseparation Techniques Conference, Rassi will open the program with a welcome speech.

"I have spent the last three months contacting scientists from all over world to come and lecture on electro-phoresis in liquid phase seperation," Rassi said.

Electro-phoresis is the process of using electrical current to separate chemicals in the solution.

Sam Karenga, a Ph.D. candidate in chemistry, will participate in the conference.

"I will give five poster presentations based on my former research as a graduate student under the supervision of Rassi," Karenga said.

"It will be on the application of different neutral  polymeric organic-based monolithic columns to the chromatographic analysis of neutral and charged species in capillary electrochromatography."

He goes on to explain not only does the process affect chemistry, but is also performed in pharmacology, biotechnology, complex mixture separations and food technologies.

"It relates to people in all of science," Rassi said.             It is also important to further research in relevant fields.

"The separated products could differ in ion charge, chemical property, physical state or overall size," said Aaron Lowe, a biochemistry and molecular biology senior. "It's important in science because dealing with simple components is more manageable than dealing with mixtures."  

"The compounds can be so different within a mixture, it's important to isolate them so you know which chemical is reacting with what component and to know that chemical A won't have an effect on chemical B," Lowe said.

The conference is being held in Baltimore, Md., at the Tremont Plaza Hotel Sunday through Wednesday.