Biochemistry

At the interface of quantum and classical behavior in enzyme catalysis

May 8, 2022
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Judith Klinman

Chancellor's Professor Judith Klinman was this year's G.N. Lewis guest lecturer at the College of Chemistry. Prof. Klinman discussed her remarkable career of over five decades of chemical research and some of her important discoveries. Prof. Klinman joins a group of honored scientists going back...

Genetically modified rice could emit fewer greenhouse gases

January 3, 2022
Eric Roston | Bloomberg

Rice planting

Photo: Worker planting rice. (Adobe Stock)

Fifteen years after their initial meeting to discuss what has become the CRISPR revolution, Professors Jill Banfield and Jennifer Doudna of UC Berkeley,...

"Self-destructing plastic" wins top Prize in Create the Future contest

October 7, 2021
SAE Media Group | Press Release

Example of film

Over 300 million tons of plastic are produced annually – equivalent to the entire weight of the human population. Less than 10% is recycled; most end up in landfills. A research team in the lab of Professor Ting Xu, Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and...

Dual-drug therapy shows promise for treating alcohol use disorder

August 3, 2021
By Robin Marks | UCSF

pouring liquor

(Photo: courtesy of UCSF)

UC San Francisco researchers have leveraged two new molecules, one of which is currently in clinical oncology trials, to devise a dual-drug therapy for alcohol use disorder (AUD), without the side effects or complications associated with current treatment regimens. The approach had highly successful results in mice and may be...

Using light-initiated radical reaction to break the carbon-heteroatom bond

August 26, 2021
Kira Welter | Chemistry World

Man with blue light

Image courtesy of Chemistry World.

A reaction that kicks out a single nitrogen, oxygen or sulfur atom from six-membered rings using only blue light has been developed by US scientists.

The method involves breaking the C–N, C–O or C–S bond in saturated heterocycles and reclosing the ring to create smaller cyclic structures. "This avoids having to...

Chris Chang discusses molecular iron electrocatalyst for the reduction of carbon dioxide

August 26, 2021
Berkeley Lab

Invention Interview with Chris Chang: Molecular Iron Electrocatalyst for the Reduction of Carbon Dioxide (2021)

Liquid Sunlight: The Evolution of Photosynthetic Biohybrids

August 23, 2021
Peidong Yang | College of Chemistry

Energy innovation utilizing carbon dioxide, air, and water

This is an excerpt of an article in Nano Letters by Peidong Yang, S.K. and Angela Chan Distinguished Professor of...

Newly-discovered 'Borg' DNA Is unlike anything scientists have ever seen

July 15, 2021
Becky Ferreira | Vice.com

DNA strand

Image: KTSDESIGN/ Science Photot Library via Getty Images. Photo courtesy vice.com.

"Borgs" are extrachromosomal elements, meaning that these DNA sequences are found outside the chromosomes that lie within the nucleus of most cells and that contain the majority of an organism’s genetic material. Examples of extrachromosomal elements include plasmids, which can...

Cannabinoids are the next big thing in the pot industry

July 5, 2021
Emma Betuel | Observer.com

marijuana leaf

It’s 2021 and regular THC isn’t going to cut it for the budding weed industry. Neither will CBD. Instead, a host of startups are betting that weed consumers will be clamoring for something that nature alone can’t provide.

In Berkeley, California, the startup Demetrix, is preparing to manufacture “metric tons” of...

CRISPR and the Code Breaker

March 8, 2021
CBS Sunday Morning news

Visionary biochemist Jennifer Doudna shared the Nobel Prize last year for the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), which has the potential to cure diseases caused by genetic mutations. Correspondent David Pogue talks with Doudna about the promises and perils of CRISPR; and with Walter Isaacson, author of the new book "The Code Breaker," about why the biotech revolution will dwarf the digital revolution in importance.

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