The experience of synthesizing Aspirin in a lab setting this Wednesday left me with an altered impression of pharmaceuticals and a greater confidence. Dr. Greer had provided us with detailed instructions pertaining to the design of the experiment, measurements, procedure, everything we needed to know. I had pored over these instructions the day before and felt that even with figures given they were too vague for a liberal arts major to execute successfully. Surely such ventures are better left to precise machinery and experts. My attitude changed when Dr. Greer announced that those teams which were able to synthesize a purer form of aspirin would receive an extra five points for their lab work! Felix and I realized that failure is not an option, we wanted those five points and badly. The we understood was to be as precise as possible in measurements, timing, and execution of the experiment. We were the last in our class to finish separating the crystals and I nervously dropped a crystal in three separate test tubes as the optimistic Felix looked on. When one of the test tubes turned a bright orange color we celebrated as a pure form of aspirin had been synthesized before our very eyes. This lab experiment reminded me that one doesn’t need to live in a lab to use it in creating something that is still used and was once a revolutionary healthcare innovation. The fact that relatively simple chemical compounds were combined to create something as important as aspirin suggests to me that a great many seemingly simple but groundbreaking healthcare innovations could be just around the corner.