Colpan, a chemical engineer of Tatar origin, wrote his doctoral thesis on DNA cleansing at the Darmstadt Institute of Technology in 1983.

FORBES: Gold digger

But there's also a natural way to get your hands on it--dig it out of the ground in Wyoming. (The natural origin may or may not endear this chemical to the greenies.) The primary use of soda ash is to make glass.

FORBES: Magazine Article

And this week George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, met successful businessmen of Hellenic origin from five countries (such as Andrew Liveris, chief executive of America's Dow Chemical company), in the hope that they could lend their struggling homeland some badly needed pizzazz.

ECONOMIST: Diasporas