Work harder and smarter ... and greener
Global COVID-19 pandemic turned our attention to scientific solutions. This saved milions of lives and will continue to save many. As the societies went into multiple lockdowns, economy got hurt. There is a saying "What does not kill you, will make you stronger". Well, it seems that EU countries more or less survived and their economies are to be built back again within next few years. What can I do about it as a chemist? Work harder and smarter! Many had been taking "time-off" and misusing this time. As an organic chemist, I spent 2.5 months of spring 2020 lockdown doing extensive literature search for my project. I was reviewing plethora of synthetic papers. On top of that, I participated in biotechnology learning platform Lifbee academy in order to learn new skills. Honestly, I worked harder than before. Sure, I missed lab bench, performing manual synthesis ... nevertheless ... those days were not wasted, but invested in, as I see it. Prior to pandemic, we had