As a child in Hamburg, Germany, Cornell research associate Frank Schroeder had a chemistry laboratory in his grandmother's basement. There, he built rockets that he fired from her backyard and made such corrosive, volatile and toxic chemicals as elemental bromine.

"I was obsessed with making new chemicals and devices. I basically spent all my afternoons and evenings in that basement, which I probably poisoned irrevocably," says the 6-foot, 10-inch Schroeder, who has since channeled that curiosity into work that is making him an emerging leader in the nascent field of chemical ecology, the study of chemicals involved in the interactions of organisms.

The son of a German television cameraman and a hearing-aid sales rep, Schroeder split his youth between his parents' modest home and his grandmother's house. His grandmother, now 93, is "the one who encouraged me to pursue an academic career," he said.

Since earning his undergraduate (1992) and Ph.D. degrees (1998) from the University of Hamburg, Schroeder has been working with Jerrold Meinwald, Cornell's Goldwin Smith Professor of Chemistry, and Jon Clardy, professor at Harvard Medical School, formerly of Cornell.

In his brief career, Schroeder has already made numerous important discoveries -- with more than 50 academic publications in such prestigious publications as Science, Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences to his credit -- about small molecules in plants, animals and microorganisms that play big roles in sending signals within and between organisms and that may lead to useful drugs.

"Frank Schroeder is a real dynamo," says Thomas Eisner, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Chemical Ecology, one of chemical ecology's pioneers and a co-author with Schroeder on many of his publications. "He's the perfect scientist, driven by curiosity and guided by good judgment and technical skill."

While many scientists seeking to uncover how life works have focused on proteins, RNA and DNA in the past few decades, Schroeder is among a handful of chemists who focuses on so-called "small molecules" -- for example terpenoids, lipids, alkaloids and steroids -- all compounds whose structures and functions have been widely ignored, despite their significant roles in biological systems.

"Small molecules play important roles as signaling molecules that regulate protein function in all life forms," said Schroeder. "Their analysis has been neglected tremendously, especially in higher animals (including humans) and in important model organisms, such as the nematode C. elegans."

Among his major accomplishments is the development of a breakthrough nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technique for identifying the structures of previously unknown small molecules in complex mixtures. Prior to Schroeder's technique, the identification of structurally novel small molecules from mixtures was largely deemed impossible.

"He's a master chemist; he improves techniques over the standard ones in practice, making it easier to identify chemicals in smaller and smaller amounts," said Eisner.

Schroeder splits his time between Cornell and Harvard Medical School, where he directs the Natural Products Initiative, which seeks to find new small molecules and understand their makeup and functions. His two positions provide him with the right mix of resources: Cornell provides the tools for identifying small molecules, which he then takes to Harvard to explore the molecules' biological properties and how they function.

Among other work, Schroeder has uncovered a natural antibiotic produced by Bacillus subtilis, ubiquitous soil bacteria that are widely used as a model organism in laboratories. The bacterium may use the antibiotic to fend off other bacteria (it devotes a full 2 percent of its genome to the antibiotic's creation).

He also has identified a new human signaling molecule that regulates the excretion of sodium through the kidneys but does not induce loss of water or potassium, unlike many synthetic diuretics. He has also used his NMR technique to identify new small molecules in spider venom whose nucleoside-derived structure binds to and inhibits specific neurotransmitter receptors.

All of these findings, Eisner and Schroeder believe, could lead to new drugs that fight infection, treat hypertension or help understand disease-relevant biological pathways.