Credit:
Courtesy of Young-Shin Jun
Chemistry never stands still. Neither does the committee that not only keeps pace with it but stays a step ahead. The American Chemical Society Committee on Science (ComSci) exists to find the frontiers of chemistry before they become obvious. We then catalyze and rally the ACS community around those frontiers, turning raw discovery into applications, policy, and public trust in science. In the society’s 150th year, that restless energy has a new audience.
As ACS marks its sesquicentennial under the banner “Chemistry is Everything,” the milestone has been framed less as a victory lap than as a planning inflection point. Of all the society’s governance bodies, ComSci is arguably the one built for exactly that job: its charter makes it a standing mechanism for renewal, not a one-time celebration.
The clearest evidence is ComSci’s Innovative Programming (IP) initiative, which draws on data-driven signals and input from ACS divisions and committees, journal editors, and industry to select emerging symposium topics each season. ComSci also works closely with the Committee on Divisional Activities (DAC) and Meetings and Expositions (M&E) to ensure programming success. Since 2024, ComSci has run workshops at the annual ACS Leadership Institute connecting division and committee program chairs early, so cross-cutting topics get built in from the start rather than stitched together later.
Multiyear IP initiative threads run through the resulting slate. Artificial intelligence and quantum computing have appeared almost every cycle: AI-driven drug discovery and quantum-computing sessions at Spring 2025 gave way to AI-powered biofoundries and near-term quantum applications by 2026, and AI for structural biology is slated for 2027. Energy programming has followed a similar arc: sustainability sessions in 2025 evolved into energy storage and energy security symposia by 2026, building toward next-generation battery and electrolyte sessions planned for 2027. ComSci’s formal designation of energy chemistry as its 2027 IP topic is the culmination of that 2-year buildup, not a sudden pivot. Water and circular economy chemistry have moved from sessions on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) removal to a series of symposia focusing on water and the sustainable recovery of minerals and materials; synthetic biology shifted from “emerging frontiers” language to “engineered living systems” framing over the same span.
The format has kept pace with the content. ComSci has run programming experiments with government agencies, academic institutions, and industry partners to test new meeting shapes: panel discussions, interactive posters, debates, hands-on workshops, flash talks, and start-up and investor engagement. Whatever format opens new ground, ComSci has shown it is willing to try it with the ACS community.
“If ACS’s sesquicentennial theme is “Chemistry Is Everything,” ComSci’s answer for the next 150 is just as direct: find, fuel, and champion the communities that will inspire, build, and sustain our next bright chapter for everything.”
ComSci’s efforts have aligned with the anniversary keynote lineup, too. The ACS Spring 2026 meeting in Atlanta featured Nobel laureates Jennifer Doudna (2020), David MacMillan (2021), Moungi Bawendi (2023), and Omar Yaghi (2025); the ACS150 JACS Symposium Series at ACS Fall 2026 in Chicago gathered four more—Carolyn Bertozzi (2022), Stefan Hell (2014), Jack Szostak (2009), and M. Stanley Whittingham (2019). Eight laureates across two meetings reflect the same frontier-identification instinct pointed at recognition. Their work spans bioorthogonal chemistry, asymmetric organocatalysis, superresolution microscopy, genome editing, telomere biology, reticular chemistry, battery chemistry, and quantum-dot synthesis, mirroring the multidisciplinary spread ComSci pursues in its IP symposia.
That scale peaked at ACS Fall 2026, where ComSci helped coordinate roughly 25 IP sessions built with more than 40 industry partners (e.g., Procter & Gamble, IBM, Amazon, Pfizer, Shell, and DuPont), 7 federal agencies, 6 national laboratories, 13 ACS divisions, and 3 ACS committees. ComSci’s reach has extended into publishing too, with 4 ACS Publications special issues in progress. Chicago read less like a conference and more like a celebration and working demonstration of ACS leadership and its committees and divisions operating at full scale.
What’s new matters as much as what is reoccurring. Complexomics, neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s disease–related science, and Safer Materials for All will debut in the 2027 slate. The Fall 2027 Women’s Health symposium also belongs to that forward slate but does double duty, organized with the Women Chemists Committee to mark the committee’s 100th anniversary.
None of this happens in isolation. In collaboration with ACS Government Affairs, ComSci’s Public Policy Subcommittee worked on five 2025 statements: A Competitive US Business Climate; Science and Technology in the Budget; Critical Materials; Sustainability and the Chemistry Enterprise; and Visas for Immigration, Scientific Collaboration, and Academic Study. Its Awards Subcommittee recommended colleagues for honors including the Kavli Innovations in Chemistry and Kavli Emerging Leader in Chemistry Lectures, the Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences award, and the Grand Prix de la Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie. ComSci members also sit inside ACS leadership’s own advisory structures, having contributed to the ACS Presidential Task Force on Engagement, Advisory, and Advocacy under 2026 President Rigoberto Hernandez and the Science Advisory Board of 2026 president-elect Christina Bodurow, amplifying frontier signals upward through direct participation.
As ACS looks beyond 150 years, the durable asset is not any single technology: AI, energy innovation, and synthetic biology will each have their moment and recede. The asset is the process that scientific communities build to keep finding what comes next—turning science into beneficial technologies or solutions or informing policy that can ensure safer and sustainable practices, while honoring the people behind it. If ACS’s sesquicentennial theme is “Chemistry Is Everything,” ComSci’s answer for the next 150 years is just as direct: find, fuel, and champion the communities that will inspire, build, and sustain our next bright chapter for everything.
Views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of C&EN or ACS.
ACS publishes C&EN but is not involved in editorial decisions.
