Philippe Mésini, from the Institut Charles Sadron and the International Center for Frontier Research in Chemistry in Strasbourg, France, synthesizes and studies organogelators and self-assembled nanotubes. 

What inspired you to become a scientist? 

Very early, in primary school, I was interested in scientific topics, thanks to excellent teachers who were able to stimulate my curiosity for these subjects. In my first college year I discovered synthetic chemistry which immediately fascinated me, and so I decided to become a scientist in this field. 

What was your motivation behind the work described in your ChemComm article? 

My group has a general interest in fibrillar self-assembled objects like organogels and self-assembled nanotubes. We were interested in developing functional materials from these objects. We wanted to combine the shapes of the self-assemblies to benefit from their physical properties and additional chemical functions. So we explored the possibility to functionalize self-assemblies directly. 

Why did you choose ChemComm to publish your work? 

ChemComm has a broad readership and articles are quickly reviewed for timely publications. We wanted our research work to have a wide visibility not only in the community of organic chemists but beyond. 

Where do you see your research heading next? 

We plan to implement these reactions to graft functional moieties onto self-assembled nanotubes. These new tubes will be used as templates to form mesoporous polymeric materials for catalysis. We also continue structural studies of these nanotubes to understand the mechanism of their formation. 

What do enjoy doing in your spare time? 

I enjoy mountain hiking and biking, and I also like reading books about history. But above all, I love playing with my kids. 

If you could not be a scientist, but could be anything else, what would you be? 

I would be a historian or an archeologist. 

Interviewed by Mary Badcock