School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Queen’s University, Belfast BT9 5AG, Northern Ireland.
Although the acronym PET stands for several different phrases, in this instance it stands for photoinduced electron transfer, the life-giving phenomenon which kick-starts photosynthesis in plants. Getting PET to compete with the emission of light from molecules (the building blocks of life) allowed us to establish a general tool by which scientists and medical practitioners can track key players within living cells and in the blood of patients.
Many chemistry students discover the flame test for metal ions in high school. Here, the introduction of a metal salt into a nearly colourless flame produce a rush of bright colour. While I was helping to care for my grandmother, her medical doctor told me about the importance of sodium ions in holding water within the body and how it leads to congestive heart conditions. ‘Wouldn’t it be useful to have a flame-free and liquid version of the flame test?’ was a question that I thought about. After a while, fluorescent PET sensors \cite{Daly_2015,de_Silva_1997,Bissell_1992} turned out to be a satisfactory answer. My co-workers and I were able to establish them as general design tools with a modular construction in an engineering sense \cite{Bissell1992}. Over 350 laboratories have applied this design tool for their own purposes (Figure \ref{885455}).