SOME SAY CHEMISTRY is a Cinderella slaving away neglected in science's cellar. But these critics are undoubtedly kin to the envious ugly sisters. Chemistry is the central science. Drawing on basic principles of physics, it feeds into the biological, Earth and materials sciences, and even underlies a whole branch of engineering.

As such, chemistry departments are increasingly emphasising specialist subjects. And we can now regard some key disciplines, such as biochemistry and molecular biology, as the successful grown-up offspring of chemistry. The Manchester chemistry graduate Michael Smith, for example, won a Nobel prize for his contribution to gene technology.

The strength of chemistry lies in the breadth and diversity of its applications, but perhaps its importance is overlooked because the most exciting progress is now being made at the interface with other subjects. And more than this, chemistry is creative. As I write, chemists are designing molecules that exhibit all kinds of intriguing shapes, or that will assemble themselves into fascinating and complex structures. What could be more creative than that?

As with all vital fields of endeavour, chemistry is changing. And as some aspects mature, exciting topics develop. Among these are two different but important growth areas. The first lucidly explained in Nicholas Terrett's Combinatorial Chemistry, and the second covered in Frank Jensen's Introduction to Computational Chemistry.

Combinatorial chemistry is essentially jazzed-up synthetic chemistry. Traditionally, a synthetic chemist will spend a lot of time and effort making a single pure compound. Along the way, intermediates need to be isolated and purified. This is all too slow for the pharmaceuticals industry, for example, which demands rapid ways of testing large numbers of compounds as potential drugs. So the new approach of combinatorial chemistry is to make a whole "library" of molecules at the same time, using relatively few but efficient steps.

I would have found the techniques a godsend when I started out as research student. I wanted to make an oligopeptide that was like a soap molecule, with a water-hating tail and a water-loving head. I tried to make it by solid-phase peptide synthesis, a technique which won Bruce Merrifield a Nobel prize. But my product was a hopeless mixture. I turned my attention to other things. Since then, however, the technique has improved, so that not only can a particular peptide be reliably constructed from its constituent amino acids, but reactions can be carried out in parallel to give every possible combination of a particular set of amino acids.

While some chemists devise ever more efficient ways of making molecules in the lab, others prefer to work with virtual molecules. Computational chemists use computers to answer questions that would be impossible or too time consuming to answer in real life, such as what sorts of molecule are stable, and which could never be made, how quickly can one molecule transform into anothe, and what properties will a particular molecule have, and how do they change with time.

As Jensen points out in his book, a newcomer in the field faces three main problems. The first is understanding the language--an aspect Jensen addresses by explaining the most important procedures and acronyms. The second is running the programs. A textbook cannot help much with this, as the continual development of hardware and software would quickly make it out of date. The final problem is assessing whether the results are meaningful. Here, the operator's understanding, insight and experience come into play.

Chemistry is a challenging science, demanding a wide range of skills and flexibility of approach. But it's immensely rewarding. We can, in fact, be sure it will go to the ball and live happily ever after.

Peter Budd is a senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Manchester