Gum Guru Guest Blogger:
Mary Lou Cunningham, R&D Innovations Manager

One of my jobs at TIC Gums is to lead the group known as the Arabic Research Team, or ART for short. You might think this is an odd name for a group of mostly technical people who study gum arabic. But maybe not.

Just take a look at this picture:

Space alien? Pearls? A modern art sculpture? Nope. It’s gum arabic, magnified 1000 times. 

From a technical perspective, this picture shows us that this sample of gum arabic is a spray dried product. You can tell that by the slightly collapsed looking spheres. They look a little like droplets that have had the water pulled out, because that’s pretty much what they are.

But it’s also a beautiful image, and most people who see this up on the wall in my office assume it is a piece of artwork. I couldn’t agree with them more. Which is why it makes perfect sense to me for a group of mostly scientists who study gum arabic to take the name ART.