News

One big challenge facing the development of CRISPR gene editing for use in humans is the fear that the Cas9 "scissors" used in the technology could cause unintended off-target effects. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have come up with a potential solution: a “...Read more about Adding a 'switch' to Cas9 to make CRISPR gene editing safer

A research team from UCSF, UC Berkeley and 3D Printer Carbon, Inc. have created a drug sponge to absorb excess chemotherapy medication. The sponge is being designed so that after the chemotherapy has gone through the tumor, the part that hasn't treated the tumor could bind to the device,...Read more about Researchers team up to create a drug sponge to absorb excess chemotherapy medication

UC Berkeley researchers, led by Professor of Chemistry Michelle Chang, have discovered a biosynthetic pathway that makes amino acids containing terminal alkynes. Because such functional groups are rare in natural products, they provide a handle for chemistry that’s not generally found in...Read more about Discovery of a pathway for terminal-alkyne amino acid biosynthesis

Tiny, easy-to-produce particles, called quantum dots, may soon take the place of more expensive single crystal semiconductors in advanced electronics found in solar panels, camera sensors and medical imaging tools. Although quantum dots have begun to break into the consumer market – in the form...Read more about Scientists measure near-perfect performance in low-cost semiconductors

Graduates of the College’s Chemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering departments are making news as they become market innovators with their recent startups and products. News stories about Lygos, Chemistry and Ripple look at the latest chemistry innovations and funding for these...Read more about Alumni innovation in the news

This year's grand prize in campus lab safety was awarded to the Arnold lab group in Chemistry, headed by Professor of Chemistry and Undergraduate Dean John Arnold. Lab safety coordinators and chemistry graduate students Michael Boreen and Trevor Lohrey were also aknowledged and on hand to...Read more about Arnold Lab wins top Berkeley safety award

In a press release issued in January by the Wolf Foundation in Israel, it was announced that Professors John Hartwig and Stephen Buchwald (MIT) had been jointly awarded the 2019 Wolf Prize in Chemistry for independently harnessing cross coupling for the making of carbon-heteroatom bonds. The...Read more about John Hartwig: The 2019 Wolf Prize and the importance of fundamental research in the discovery of synthetic catalysts

Frances Arnold admits it will be an emotional moment Friday when, as winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, she’ll be the featured attraction at UC Berkeley for a Dean’s Dinner and reception at the College of Chemistry.Read more about Celebrating International Women's Day: Frances Arnold is honored at UC Berkeley

New research led by Professor emeritus Jean M.J. Fréchet, a leading American chemist, has led to the development of innovative polymeric carriers for transportation of drugs and vaccines inside the human body, and the design of electroactive polymers used for organic transistors and solar cells...Read more about Jean Fréchet: From self-healing phone screens to self-driving cars

As alumna Emily Derbyshire was wrapping up her PhD in 2008 at UC Berkeley's College of Chemistry and considering where to do her postdoc, Derbyshire gravitated toward malaria. “It was a problem that was not getting a lot of attention at the time,” despite its large human impact, she says. That’...Read more about Alumna Emily Derbyshire looks for malaria’s vulnerabilities