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Karlin's excitement for his own current research was sparked when, as a senior undergraduate at Stanford, he attended seminars led by a well-known chemist who was working with oxygen and iron compounds. Although Karlin did not pursue this area of research in graduate school, he decided later to return to it after he secured an academic job with the opportunity for independent research.

"Scientists can be interested in so many different topics," Karlin said, "but it's when you find something that feels right, that you pursue it [in research]. It's kind of luck, based on what you're exposed to."

A possible implication of Karlin's current research may be the use of oxygen as a potential energy source. According to him, oxygen is the ultimate energy source since biological systems such as the body breathe in oxygen and convert it into chemical energy. If scientists could discover how to treat oxygen, copper and iron in exactly the right way, they would be able to convert the chemical reaction into electrical energy.

"It's not about creating energy," Karlin said. "It's about allowing it to be used. Air is plentiful, oxygen is cheap. If we can harness it more efficiently than we do now, that would be useful."

Although he is flattered to be awarded by the ACS and recognized by his peers, Karlin believes that much of his work will remain the same.

"The greatest pleasure is to be respected and recognized by your peers," Karlin said of the Cotton Award for which he was initially nominated and then voted for by members of the ACS. "It's a pat on the back from the people I care about getting a pat on the back from, but it won't change anything in terms of the research. It won't improve it, and it won't really give me any money."

Karlin will still be teaching undergraduates, for whom he had the following advice.

"It's a really good idea for people interested in physical sciences or medicine to do undergraduate research and to seek it out. There are many opportunities here at Hopkins, in many many departments. Some students don't realize [that] it doesn't cost you money to go to graduate school in physical sciences because you get a stipend. It's very easy to go on to higher education in chemistry. It takes individual assertiveness by students to meet professors and find out if there might be opportunities.

As an undergraduate, Karlin was generally more interested in chemistry than biology, a tendency that eventually became his life's work.

"My father was an academic and I was from the start leaning in that direction. Through college I tended to like chemistry more than biology. [I] went to graduate school in chemistry and happened to pick inorganic chemistry. It's kind of what you feel feels right, and luck or chance in terms of what you get exposed to. Because certainly scientists can be interested in many different topics, but if you find things exciting or interesting, once you learn, get into something deeply, you pursue that [and] you follow that," Karlin said.

When asked about what he plans to do with the $5,000 monetary prize that is part of the Cotton Award, Karlin said that he plans to use it to buy dinner for his colleagues at the ACS symposium in March.

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