The Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition (CSC 2025) is proud to highlight Dr. Barbara Imperiali as one of its plenary speakers. The Chemical Institute of Canada (CIC) sat down with Dr. Imperiali to explore the origins of her interest in chemistry and the chemistry interface with the life sciences.

Introducing Dr. Imperiali

Dr. Barbara Imperiali is the Class of 1922, Professor of Biology and Chemistry at MIT. At the University College London, Dr. Imperiali received her B. Sc. In Medicinal Chemistry.

While she has found a successful career in the sciences, Dr. Imperiali’s family did not come from a background in academia. Dr. Imperiali’s parents were in active service in World War II and did not attend university. “My father was in the Italian naval academy and then became a submarine captain and my mother went straight into the WRENs, which is the British Women’s Royal Enlisted Navy,” Dr. Imperiali explained.

Dr. Imperiali’s brother and sister were also not as interested in the sciences as much she was. Her brother pursued mathematics in university and her sister did not go to university. Yet to her family’s astonishment, Dr. Imperiali decided to make chemistry her career.

As Dr. Imperiali pursued her PhD studies in the US, she set a goal to study the interface between organic and biological chemistry: “I realized there was just an enormous scope for chemistry in biology, biochemistry, and medicine.” This interest propelled Dr. Imperiali into life in academia.

Balancing it all

Life as a young academic was far from easy for Dr. Imperiali. She describes it as always having a never-ending list of tasks. One of the most difficult parts for Dr. Imperiali was creating a lab, a research group where everyone is in sync with the goals of the team. The way Dr. Imperiali ensured her team remained on task was by nurturing her team. She made sure that they were aware of the goals and tasks that needed to be completed while at the same time being a support system.

As her career progressed, she founded AssayQuant Technologies. AQT commercializes fluorescence-based technologies for investigating important classes of enzymes that are critical targets in human disease. Fifteen years ago, when she co-founded her business, the technology to assay many important enzymes was poor and there were great opportunities. “I had this great technology that was patented through the MIT licensing office, and it evolved. In 2015, I co-founded a company to develop that technology,”

In addition to running her business, Dr. Imperiali is also a professor of biology and chemistry at MIT. It is there she teaches many young professionals just entering the field. “My fundamental advice is to do what really excites you. Don’t try to chase a moving target, such as, ‘Where will I get a job? What job will I get?’ Chemists are much better off finding the area of chemistry that they are passionate about and going after that target. Even if things get tough, the results don’t happen, and you don’t get the data you want. You’re still very motivated because your underlying passion is in a field, and you know where the field is going.”

You have to enjoy the small victories,” she says.

Looking toward the CSC Conference

At CSC 2025 in Ottawa, Dr. Imperiali hopes to reconnect with the community in Canada. Regarding choosing a topic for her talk at the conference, it becomes a little difficult when you have so many years of experience under your belt. In the end, she decided that the topic of her talk will gear toward the study of biosynthetic pathways in bacterial pathogens. “These pathways are very interesting because of the crisis in antibiotic discovery. The way that we look at these pathways gives people actionable targets.”

For the younger members of the chemistry community, Dr. Imperiali hopes that her talk will teach them some new technologies that will give them insight on how to pick apart a complicated system.

Dr. Imperiali advocates for members of the chemistry community to go out of their comfort zone and attend talks that they might not know much in relation to the content. “I always advocate finding communities that you can talk to, to get new inspiration. You’ll go to the meeting, and you’ll make connections that will have a real impactful difference.”

Attend CSC 2025 to learn more from Dr. Imperiali. Register today!