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.
October 18, 2018
October 17, 2018
The American Cancer Society will bestow its highest honor – the Medal of Honor – to five individuals on Oct. 18 in Washington DC. The Medal of Honor is awarded to distinguished individuals who have made valuable contributions in the fight against cancer. The 2018 recipients include the Honorable Joseph R. Biden Jr., for Cancer Control; Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD, for Basic Research; Jennifer Doudna, PhD, for Basic Research; Charis Eng, MD, PhD, for Clinical Research; and Michael J. Thun MD, MS, for Cancer Control Science.
October 11, 2018
Nitash Balsara is one of a group of scientists who have received a U.S. Secretary of Energy Achievement Award in Scientific and Operational Leadership for his research work with the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research Strategic and Operations (JCESR). JCESR is a DOE project working on advancements in battery technology.
Sandia National Laboratories has named College of Chemistry alumna, Mercedes Taylor ( Ph.D., Chem, 2018) and Chen Wang its first Jill Hruby Fellows. The honorees have each been awarded a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in technical leadership, comprising national security-relevant research with an executive mentor.
October 10, 2018
Assistant professors Ke Xu of chemistry and Denis Titov of molecular and cell biology — were among 89 recipients of “high-risk, high-reward” grants announced last week by the National Institutes of Health.
October 5, 2018
M. thermoacetica first made its debut as the first non-photosensitive bacterium to carry out artificial photosynthesis in a study led by Peidong Yang, a professor in UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry. By attaching light-absorbing nanoparticles made of cadmium sulfide (CdS) to the bacterial membrane exterior, the researchers turned M. thermoacetica into a tiny photosynthesis machine, converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into useful chemicals.
October 4, 2018
As scientists march closer to using CRISPR gene editing to treat diseases, the U.S. Department of Defense is prepping for the possibility of a more nefarious use of CRISPR: its weaponization to harm humans, animals, or crops.
October 1, 2018
UC Berkeley's College of Chemistry was well represented among the winners of this year's ACS National Awards.
Daily Cal
Doctoral candidate Osowiecki is among 8 UC Berkeley graduate students named 2019 Siebel Scholars.
September 27, 2018
image: John Hartwig and Stephen Buchwald
The promise of Quantum Computers will unlock a new dimension of computing capabilities that are not possible today with classical computers, regardless of the size, compute power, or parallelization.
September 22, 2018
Professor Jennifer Doudna ( seen here with (left) UH Hilo Interim Chancelor Marcia Sakai and (right) UH Hilo Chancelor Emerita Rose Tseng presented the inaugural UH Hilo Rose and Raymond Tseng Distinguished Lecture. view video here
September 21, 2018
Paul VerNooy (Ph.D. Chem 1991) and five fellow scientists from DuPont (including Alan Carroll, Kenneth Hang, Brian Laughlin, Kurt Mikeska, and Charlie Torardi) have received the 2018 Heroes award from the American Chemical Society (ACS). The DuPont scientists are honored for inventing Solamet® PV17x, the metallization paste that pioneered the use of lead tellurite chemistry, a game changer in the solar energy industry.
September 20, 2018
Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a revolutionary new class of crystalline solids that can be designed to trap myriad kinds of matter, including greenhouse gases, or to be used as nanosized drug carriers. They can also pull water from desert air.
September 19, 2018
Two years after biochemist Jennifer Doudna helped introduce the world to the gene-editing tool known as Crispr, a 14-year-old from New Jersey turned it loose on a petri dish full of lung cancer cells, disrupting their ability to multiply.
Professor Matt Francis and associate professor Tom Maimone have been named 2019 Arthur C. Cope Scholars by the American Chemical Society. Established in 1984, these awards recognize excellence in organic chemistry.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2019 Gregori Aminoff Prize in Crystallography to Michael O’Keeffe, Arizona State University, and Omar M. Yaghi, University of California, “for their fundamental contributions to the development of reticular chemistry”.
September 18, 2018
Meet Berkeley's new faculty: Rebecca Abergel, nuclear engineering.
The three main components of a lithium-ion battery—anode, cathode, and electrolyte—must all be optimized to produce a safe, low-cost, and high-energy product. The cathode has traditionally been the most expensive piece; it stores energy in ordered crystal structures that are based on costly and rare metals, like cobalt. In contrast, manganese is inexpensive, earth abundant, and non-toxic, but substituting the disordered crystal structures of manganese for cobalt-based structures had long been thought to introduce an energy tradeoff. Now, researchers have delivered outstanding performance using two new manganese-based materials.
September 16, 2018
Professor of Chemistry Richmond Sarpong, and Chairman, President and CEO of Aduro Biotech, Stephen Isaacs, discuss the Aduro-UC Berkeley Underrepresented Postdoctoral Fellowship Program which was launched in 2018. Sarpong is seen here with the first fellowship recipient Alex Rovira.