The Mark Foundation has announced $3.4 million in ASPIRE Awards to support high risk, high reward approaches to solving complex problems in cancer research. Associate Professor Daniel Nomura has received an ASPIRE award for his project Chemoproteomics-Enabled Covalent Ligand Discovery Platforms for Accessing Novel Druggable Modalities.
February 21, 2019
A team at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has designed a new kind of nano scale electron detector that captures all of the information in these interactions. This new tool, a superfast detector was installed on Feb. 12 at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry, a nanoscale science user facility where College of Chemistry faculty regularly carry out experiments. The new device will capture more images at a faster rate, revealing atomic-scale details across much larger areas than was possible before.
February 19, 2019
Professors Stephen Leone and Norman Yao have been awarded a $1m science and engineering research grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation. The two scientists will utilize a new technique, ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy, to address important unanswered questions about the formation of non-equilibrium topological phases.
February 15, 2019
Effective January 1, 2019, Peidong Yang assumes the role of Director of the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute (ENSI). “Peidong is a pioneer in nanomaterials and energy related science,” said Kevin Moses, Vice President of Science Programs at The Kavli Foundation. “The Kavli Foundation looks forward to many years of continued excellence in basic nanoscience research at Kavli ENSI and is delighted that Peidong will lead the institute’s impressive membership of world-class scientists.”
February 13, 2019
In this engaging article, meet Markita Landry, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, who runs the Landry Lab at UC Berkeley. Her lab works on developing nanomaterials to assist in the delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 systems in plants.
February 11, 2019
Douglas Clark, Dean of the College of Chemistry, and professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UC Berkeley has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineer for advances in biocatalyst and bioreaction engineering for drug discovery, drug screening, and bioprocessing.
February 5, 2019
According to a newly published study in Nature, CasX is a potent and efficient gene editor in both bacteria and human cells. Its design is similar to Cas9 and its well-studied cousin, Cas12, but is different enough that it appears to have evolved in bacteria independently of the other Cas proteins. It can cut double-stranded DNA like Cas9, can bind to DNA to regulate genes, and it can be targeted to specific DNA sequences like other Cas proteins.
February 4, 2019
The Chemistry Graduate Life Committee and the Graduate Student Advisory Committee have jointly launched a new crowdfunding campaign to support diversity, equity, wellness, and inclusion initiatives for graduate students at the College of Chemistry. The program's purpose is to help combat some of the issues that underlie underrepresentation, as well as support overall equity and wellness within the College's graduate community. They plan to do this through sponsoring social hours, educational events, seminars and speaker programs. But, in order to be able to make these events a reality they need your financial help.
February 1, 2019
Christopher Chang, Professor of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley has been awarded the Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Chemistry from Tel Aviv University. The prize recognizes distinguished scientists under age 45 who have made outstanding and fundamental contributions in their fields. Chang’s research interests include inorganic, organic, and biological chemistry. His research laboratory pursues new concepts in sensing and catalysis to study metals in biology and energy.
January 25, 2019
UC Berkeley College of Chemistry professors Jeffrey Long and Daniel Neumark have been announced as 2019 American Chemical Society (ACS) awardees for their pioneering chemical research. They will be honored at a ceremony at the spring ACS national meeting in Orlando, Florida, March 31–April 4, 2019.
January 24, 2019
Jennifer Doudna was awarded the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize in October 2018, established by Nobel Laureate Paul Greengard and his wife, the artist Ursula von Rydingsvard, to give recognition to women scientists. The New York Review spoke with her before the award ceremony. “That there even is a prize like this one,” Doudna said, “is a sign that people are really beginning to value the contributions of women to science.”
The new edition of "Chemical Engineering Design and Analysis" written by T. Michael Duncan, Cornell University, New York and Jeffrey A. Reimer, University of California, Berkeley will be available in February from Cambridge University Press. "Chemical Engineering Design and Analysis" puts design at the center of introducing students to the course in mass and energy balances in chemical engineering. Employers and accreditations increasingly stress the importance of design in the engineering curriculum, and design-driven analysis will motivate students to dig deeply into the key concepts of the field.
January 18, 2019
Professor Balsara discusses ways to make better batteries through development, education and listening to students in this portrait for the Clean Energy Project produced by renowned photographer Rick Chapman whose work has been seen at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
January 16, 2019
It was announced today that the 2019 Wolf Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to professors John F. Hartwig from University of California at Berkeley and Stephen L. Buchwald from MIT, for the development of efficient transition-metal catalysts that have revolutionized drug manufacturing, leading to breakthrough in molecule and synthetics design.
Zinc-zinc bonds are rare in chemistry. So are linear four-metal compounds. Nevertheless, Trevor D. Lohrey, a member of John Arnold’s group at the University of California, Berkeley, has made the first molecule with a Re-Zn-Zn-Re core. Lohrey used a rhenium(I) salt to reduce ZnCl2 and make a zinc cation to which anionic rhenium compounds coordinated.
January 15, 2019
Professor Enrique Iglesia of the University of California at Berkeley is the recipient of the 2019 Michel Boudart Award for the Advancement of Catalysis. The award is presented jointly by the North American Catalysis Society and the European Federation of Catalysis Societies.
January 13, 2019
The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation announced its new class of fellows for 2018 in the spring, naming alumna Alexandra Brown (B.S. Chem, ’17) one of ten newly minted graduate students as a recipient. As an undergraduate at Berkeley, Brown worked in the research group of Professor John Arnold studying titanium-aluminum heterobimetallics supported by bridging hydride ligands.
January 9, 2019
With the help of sponges inserted in the bloodstream to absorb excess drugs, doctors and scientists are hoping to prevent the dangerous side effects of toxic chemotherapy agents or even deliver higher doses to knock back tumors, like liver cancer, that don’t respond to more benign treatments.
Dimitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist who in 1869 wrote out the known elements (of which there were 63 at the time) on cards and then arranged them in columns and rows according to their chemical and physical properties is considered the father of the Periodic Table. In celebration of the 150th anniversary of this pivotal moment in science, the UN has proclaimed 2019 the International year of the Periodic Table. Seen here is the element 104 discovery team in 1969.
January 2, 2019
In celebration of Andersen's research and teaching at Berkeley, the Royal Society of Landon has published a special web issue on the contributions of Richard Andersen to inorganic and organometallic chemistry in honor of his 75th birthday.