Your Kitchen is a Secret Chemistry Lab with Professor Don Spratt

Challenge. Change.

In chemistry and biochemistry Professor Don Spratt’s lab, students make ice cream in the name of science.

Spratt’s Kitchen Chemistry course has become a popular selection for students who aren’t science majors. In the lab, students experiment with ingredients under Spratt’s guidance. While making butter, ice cream, root beer, and pickles, they discover how pH, elements, and molecules interact with food.

“This course was spawned from trying to help students not be so scared of chemistry, but also appreciate science around us and improve scientific literacy,” says Spratt. “Food is chemistry, and if students can see that, they’ll become better cooks, and that could be a good life lesson.”

On this episode of Challenge. Change., Spratt gives us a taste of the science behind making ultra-creamy ice cream and a history lesson on pickles. Outside the kitchen, Spratt studies enzymes responsible for cancers and other diseases, neurodegenerative and immune disorders, and congenital defects. His research focuses on the structural and mechanistic studies of the HECT E3 ubiquitin ligases and homeodomain transcription factors using biophysical approaches.

Challenge. Change. is produced by Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.