Meet EPA Researcher Toby Sanan, Ph.D.
Tell us about your background.
My background is as a physical organic chemist, but my work has touched a wide breadth of chemistry. In college I performed research on organic synthetic techniques to influence the chirality and three-dimensional shape of molecules. In graduate school, I switched gears toward a more mechanistic approach, looking into ways to simulate and understand reactions in both abiotic and biological/enzymatic systems. I used computational modeling to investigate the electronic structure of molecules and how enzymes influence chemistry through their active sites. I originally joined EPA as an extension of this work, looking into understanding pesticide and small molecule degradation in drinking water treatment, which also involved developing analytical methods to directly measure these molecules using mass spectrometric techniques. Now my work is primarily in analytical chemistry, working on identifying, detecting, measuring, and better understanding contaminants in the environment.
How does your science matter?
There are few things more important to human health than ensuring safe access to drinking water. Meanwhile, climate change, agriculture, aging infrastructure and an ever-expanding breadth of potential chemical contaminants mean that there are more challenges to that safe supply than ever. My work at the EPA is related primarily to improving our tools to identify and measure contaminants in our drinking and wastewater supplies (and in other environmental areas), which is also important for evaluating our tools we use to treat those contaminants. In collaboration with other researchers in ORD, I am working on methods to, for example, identify how cyanobacterial toxins are impacting a reservoir, including questions like whether the fish in that reservoir might be safe to eat and if toxins are entering the water supply. I’m also working on research efforts related to measuring how effective drinking water treatment is at removing chemicals which are resistant to typical chemical degradation techniques, and what changes might be made to improve their degradation and reduce the risks posed to those who drink that water. The unifying theme is improving our understanding of what chemicals are in our environment through improved analytical techniques and identifying what risks they pose to human and ecological health.
When did you first know you wanted to be a researcher?
I first fell in love with chemistry in high school, when I studied it with a wonderful teacher. My interest in research, though, really began in college, when I first had the opportunity to get in the lab and do experiments as part of my regular coursework. Probably the most formative experiences for me were in physical chemistry lab. The experiments were incredibly fundamental and frequently incredibly basic, for example measuring the heat produced by combustion reactions, by effectively burning them in a water bath and measuring the temperature change produced. The challenge came from identifying the real-world variables complicating the system and capturing them mathematically, which came about in long hours spent in the library poring over texts and discussing things with my classmates. It opened my eyes to real experimentation and research, which don’t have neat answers and frequently require you to challenge your assumptions and models when they don’t fit what you observe.
What impact do you see your research having?
My research these days primarily impacts our ability to understand our exposure to contaminants in the environment. Ideally, I hope that I’ll be able to help better identify and understand how chemicals and toxins are produced, transported, degraded or accumulate in the world, and especially in ways that can potentially impact human health.
If you weren’t a scientist, what would you be doing?
That’s a difficult question. For a long time I thought about pursuing a career in law, and some of my close friends from college ended up in careers focused at the interface of law and science, in fields like patent law. I’m not sure if that’s where I would have ended up, though. These days, data analysis and science are exploding and that might have also been a path for me.
Any advice for students considering a career in science?
To not neglect as broad a foundation of classwork and activities as possible. It’s very easy for researchers to become too focused on their particular area of interest and neglect a broader understanding. Part of research is collaboration and communication, and that part is only becoming more important as time passes. Writing, being able to express ideas coherently, and identify the broader implications of research are all crucial as well.
What do you think the coolest scientific discovery was and why?
For me, some of the coolest scientific equipment are those that give researchers tools to directly observe things that are otherwise unobservable. Things like electron microscopes are really cool, which allow direct visualization of atoms and molecules. But I’ve never used those directly myself, so there’s a bit of bias here. One of the most amazing things I experienced in the lab was synthesizing molecules that might never have before been produced before. Then I used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to unravel the structure of the molecule in a way that let me turn what appeared as crystals indistinguishable from sugar or table salt into fully identified chemical structures, all in my own laboratory. I think that’s really hands on and cool. There are definitely more fundamental discoveries, but for me NMR is probably one of the most interesting things I was able to directly do myself in the lab.
What do you think will be our biggest scientific challenge in the next 20/50/100 years?
I think a huge challenge we face moving forward is related to the explosion of information and knowledge out in the world. It’s already very challenging to stay abreast of new scientific developments even within a particular area of expertise. A hundred years ago it was possible for someone dedicated to be able to understand the cutting edge in multiple fields, even as broadly as physics or chemistry. Nowadays the depth of knowledge required is only growing, and I think it’s going to become even harder to productively coordinate research across fields and maintain cohesive research efforts. I think scientists in the future are going to need to specialize more while also have better tools to collaborate, pool knowledge, and identify research gaps than we have today.
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the researcher alone. EPA does not endorse the opinions or positions expressed.