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PhD Katarzyna Dziubińska: Chemistry seemed fascinating from the perspective of a few-year-old child

How did your adventure with science begin?
One of my childhood memories is my mother tutoring my older sister’s friends in chemistry. I remember that after coming home from school, I had to pretend to be an oxygen molecule; my mother was a hydrogen model, and we held hands to explain the formation of chemical bonds. At that time, I had no idea what chemistry was, but I decided I wanted to find out because, from a child’s perspective, it was fascinating.

What factors prompted you to decide to go abroad? What were the biggest challenges related to this decision?
Honestly, I left for personal reasons, not scientific ones. It was only after I left that I started looking into educational and career-building opportunities outside Poland. Until I had to leave, I didn’t consider it. I think the biggest challenge is fluency in English, especially the specialized vocabulary for a particular field of science. Learning new things and the language simultaneously can be a very intense process at first. Later on, the consequence is that some terms are known only in Polish and others only in English. For example, during my Ph.D., I was asked to give a tour of our research laboratory in Switzerland to Polish high school students, and I had to spend a few days translating the terminology we use into Polish because none of our guests would understand it otherwise.

Do you maintain contact with Polish scientific communities?
Yes, I am very keen on maintaining contact with both Polish scientists working abroad and those who stayed in Poland. I can only speak about my field of science, but I believe we have really good specialists who are also recognized internationally.

What are you currently working on, and what is the main subject of your scientific research?
I specialize in the development of new research methods based on nuclear magnetic resonance. Currently, I am a member of an international team building a prototype spectrometer for imaging using a method based on the phenomenon of magnetic resonance with low magnetic fields and radioactive xenon isotopes. We are the second team in the world attempting to perform measurements using this technique and the first to plan in vivo measurements.

What are the latest achievements in your field of research that particularly interest you? 

In my opinion, the most interesting development in the field of magnetic resonance is the increasing achievement of high-resolution results using low magnetic fields. You could say there is a trend in research to lower the magnetic field to eliminate the need for superconducting magnets while maintaining the good resolution of spectra or images typical of high magnetic fields. This can facilitate many types of research where the cost of owning (dedicated room) and cooling superconducting magnets can be a problem for a research team, analytical laboratory, or even a hospital.

What scientific problems in your discipline do you most look forward to being solved, and why?
I personally look forward to the development of methods for hyperpolarizing the spins of nuclei of new isotopes. Currently, the best results in research using magnetic resonance are obtained for proton spectra and images, which directly results from the composition of hydrogen as an element. However, there are many other elements that are very important in nature or medicine, but obtaining their spectra using nuclear magnetic resonance requires very complicated methodologies, such as very high magnetic fields or extremely long measurements (I can give an example from my current work: measuring the diffusion coefficient of carbon-13 in ionic liquids takes 9 hours). I am currently working on hyperpolarizing the spins of nuclei of radioactive xenon isotopes. During my Ph.D., I worked on hyperpolarizing the spins of nuclei of radioactive sodium and potassium isotopes. Many scientists choose research dedicated to carbon-13 or fluorine-19. Perhaps many other nuclei are also susceptible to hyperpolarization methods, but we do not know this yet. This would provide the opportunity to obtain information in situations where, for example, it is impossible to perform measurements based on hydrogen and protons.

What are the biggest challenges you face in your scientific work?
I’ll answer with a touch of humor: encouraging students to go beyond the “cram-pass-forget” scheme. On a serious note, I think most scientists face similar challenges: science is unpredictable (which is why we love and hate it simultaneously). It requires much more time than initially assumed. The most stressful for me are time constraints, which are also partly linked to financial limitations. The physical phenomenon or chemical reaction we want to study existed, exists, and will exist, regardless of whether we manage to measure something, quantify it, or understand its mechanism. Science does not limit us, but practically, we are blocked by access to and quality of equipment, primarily time limits, and the fact that the number of questions and things to understand never ends. So sometimes, one faces the dilemma of where to work today.

What are the most important research questions you plan to address in the near future? What directions for development do you see in your field?
Having spent the last few years focusing on prototyping, in the future, I would like to stay in the area of developing new research techniques but focus more on testing their applications. So, building fewer new machines and checking if they work, and more on testing their practical use. Currently, we are planning a new project where I will be responsible for the compatibility of biological samples (blood, saliva, urine, etc.) with existing spin hyperpolarization methods.

Are there practical consequences or potential applications of your research results? How do you see their impact on society or the economy?
I think this is a very biased question. Theoretically, several projects I am or have been involved in have a direct impact on society. For example, building a prototype imaging spectrometer that is smaller and cheaper than existing superconducting magnet-based spectrometers could potentially introduce an attractive product to the medical diagnostics market. On the other hand, during my Ph.D., I spent a lot of time on a project measuring the magnetic moment of a radioactive sodium isotope with a half-life of one second. Does knowing this magnetic moment have direct applications? Currently, no. Can we rule out that the knowledge gained in basic research will never be useful to anyone? Also no. Everything we now use in practice was once basic research. Therefore, I believe that all scientific research in chemistry, biology, or physics will have potential applications sooner or later. We simply cannot predict them.

What advice would you give to young scientists at the beginning of their scientific careers?
The fact that your application was rejected does not mean that your project is bad or that you should not do what you are doing. It simply means that on that particular day, that particular person did not choose your application. Not you, not your idea, but your application.

Fot. Unsplash

Katarzyna Dziubinska-Kuehn
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