An Astronomer's View of Molecules in Protoplanetary Disks

Our view of planet formation has been transformed by state-of-the-art telescopes like ALMA and JWST. This talk will provide an overview of how recent molecular line observations of protoplanetary disks have advanced our understanding of disk chemistry and dynamics. Highlights include measurements of elemental and isotopic abundance ratios enabling us to trace the chemical evolution of disks, possible molecular signposts of hidden protoplanets, detections of increasingly complex and sometimes surprising molecules in disks, and maps unveiling how disks interact with their environments. These observations have also raised a number of new questions that can best be answered through collaborations between observers, theorists, and experimentalists.