News

The Welch Foundation, one of the nation’s largest sources of private funding for basic chemical research, has announced that Drs. Armand Paul Alivisatos and Charles M. Lieber are the 2019 recipients of the prestigious Robert A. Welch Award in Chemistry. Highly-respected and influential leaders in the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology, Drs. Alivisatos and Lieber are being recognized for their important research contributions which have had a significant, positive impact on humankind.

When chemist Rebecca Abergel (Ph.D. '06, Chem) and her team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory successfully developed an anti-radiation-poisoning pill in 2014, they hoped it would never have to be used. Now the researchers are studying how that very same pill could help protect people from the potential toxicity of something else – the long-term retention of gadolinium, a critical ingredient in widely used contrast dyes for MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans.

It is with great sadness that the College announces the passing of Chemistry Professor Richard Andersen. Over the span of forty years, Andersen made foundational contributions to many areas of inorganic and organometallic chemistry.

The Center for Computer Assisted Synthesis (C-CAS) has been chosen as a new Center of Chemical Innovation nationally this year by the National Science Foundation. Richmond Sarpong of UC Berkeley joins Olaf Wiest (center director) and Nitesh Chawla of Notre Dame, Abigail Doyle (Princeton University), Robert Paton (Colorado State University) and Matthew Sigman (University of Utah) as principal investigators to collaboratively direct research and experimentation at the C-CAS.

This year, there will be three new lab groups forming under three new professors. Alanna Schepartz and Michael Zuerch are joining the Department of Chemistry; Karthik Shekhar will be in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. In the fall, new professors are often still in the process of moving in and awaiting new lab space setups.

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of Professor Norman Phillips, distinguished scientist and outstanding mentor and educator. He passed away on July 25 at the age of 90. Norm's research focused on materials and solid state chemistry. His many contributions are reflected in over 200 publications and numerous awards and honors, including his induction as a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

So here we are, at the edge of chemistry: atomic No. 118, oganesson, the coda of the periodic table as it stands and the spot where questions of science shade into those of philosophy. Is an element really an element if it exists nowhere in nature—if it can be engineered only in a lab for a fraction of a second before it blinks out of existence? Is “discovery” the right word for such a feat? How far can scientists extend the table by mashing lighter elements into each other to create heavier ones? Is it even worth the time and trouble to do it just to add a square?

When scientists use superresolution microscopy methods on cells, they usually get just structural information like the sizes and shapes of cellular compartments. By using a new derivative of a conventional dye, researchers can now get specific nanoscale information about the chemical environment of cell plasma membranes. Such information could tell scientists about the order and disorder of the cell membranes, including about highly ordered “lipid rafts.”

President Donald J. Trump has announced the newest recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The PECASE is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government to outstanding scientists and engineers who are beginning their independent research careers and who show exceptional promise for leadership in science and technology.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today issued a patent to the University of California (UC), the University of Vienna and French biologist Emmanuelle Charpentier that covers methods of modulating DNA transcription using the CRISPR-Cas9 system.

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 “switch” mechanism that could keep the Cas9 enzyme turned off until it reaches its target site.

In a recent study co-authored by CRIPSR pioneer Jennifer Doudna and published in the journal Cell, the UC Berkeley team described how they used an engineering technique called circular permutation to create Cas9 variants, "ProCas9s," that allow CRISPR to be turned on only in the targeted cells.

Kwabena Bediako has been named a recipient of The Office of Naval Research (ONR) 2019 Young Investigator Award for his research in Van der Waals engineering for electrochemically tunable quantum materials.

At this year's induction ceremony for the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame, Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies founder Richard Houghten and optometry pioneer Herbert Wertheim — two individuals of unquestionable genius — shared a surprising fact about themselves: Growing up, they each struggled with severe learning challenges that easily could have sent them on a different path.

Dr. Jennifer Doudna has issued a statement in response to claims that the world's first genetically edited babies have been born in China.

IGI researchers, including Bruce Conklin of UCSF and Jennifer Doudna of UC Berkeley, discuss the promise of CRIRSP-Cas9 'genome surgery.'

An ancient group of microbes that contains some of the smallest life forms on Earth also has the smallest CRISPR gene-editing machinery discovered to date.