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Markita Landry, Asst. Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has been named a 2021 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. This award recognizes faculty within the first five years of their academic careers, who have created an outstanding independent body of scholarship, and are deeply committed to education.

With moderate heat, enzyme-laced films of the plastic disintegrated in standard compost or plain tap water within days to weeks, Ting Xu and her colleagues

“Biodegradability does not equal compostability,” says Xu, a polymer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She often finds bits of biodegradable plastic in the compost she picks up for her parents’ garden. Most biodegradable plastics go to landfills, where the conditions aren’t right for them to break down, so they degrade no faster than normal plastics.

Three common pathways of endocytosis in a cell to internalize outside substances. Figure credit: scientificanimations.com, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Professor Emeritus William A Lester, Ph.D. has participated in The Star Treatment, a prestigious video series hosted by renowned lawyer and television personality, Star Jones.