College of Chemistry

Huge bacteria-eating viruses narrow gap between life and non-life

February 12, 2020
Robert Sanders | Berkeley News

Discovery of new class of phages

Scientists have discovered hundreds of unusually large, bacteria-killing viruses with capabilities normally associated with living organisms, blurring the line between living microbes and viral machines as reported in new research findings in Nature. These phages — short for bacteriophages, so-called because they “eat” bacteria — are of a size and complexity considered typical of life, carry numerous genes normally found in bacteria and use these genes against their bacterial hosts.

William Lester: Lifetime achievement award

February 5, 2020
Top Industry Professionals | Issue 43 2020

William Lester

Dr. William Alexander Lester, Jr, is a Chemist & Educator for the University of California, Berkeley. He was just recently selected for the Lifetime Achievement Award for 2019 and as Top Chemist Educator of the Year for 2018 by the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) for his outstanding leadership and commitment to the field. With close to 6 decades of professional experience as a seasoned and trusted Chemist and Educator, Dr. Lester has certainly proven himself as an accomplished professional and expert in the field.

Integrating green chemistry into general chemistry

February 3, 2020
Laura Howes | C&EN

green chemistry

An injection of cash helped the University of California, Berkeley, reform its general chemistry lab instruction. Back in 2012, the College of Chemistry received a gift of money from the Dow Chemical Company Foundation. Most of the funds were used to completely renovate the teaching labs, adding new equipment and modern instrumentation. But, says Anne M. Baranger, UC Berkeley’s director of undergraduate chemistry, $1 million was earmarked for developing a new teaching curriculum to match the labs. And the focus was on sustainability.

11 Catalysis Chemistry Pioneers Every Researcher Should Know About

February 3, 2020
Mia Fields-Hall | ACS Axial

Catalysis Pioneers

Alexis Bell, The Dow Professor of Sustainable Chemistry at Berkeley and Frances Arnold, Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry, and an alumna of the College were both cited on the list of catalysis pioneers listed in the ACS publication ACS Axial.

Carolyn Bertozzi’s glycorevolution

February 3, 2020
Lisa M. Jarvis | C&EN

Carolyn Bertozzi’

Carolyn Bertozzi, the glycoscience evangelist has spent her career illuminating the importance of the sugar structures coating our cells. As she turns from building biological tools to building biotech companies, will she see a new wave of converts?

Fossil Fuels are Dead, Long Live Fossil Fuels

January 7, 2020
Catherine Wolfram | Energy Institute at HAAS

fossil fuel

Electricity generation is projected to play a central role in global decarbonization efforts. On the one hand, electricity generation is supposed to scale up rapidly, as we use electricity to replace fossil fuels in everything from powering vehicles to heating buildings and cooking food. At the same time, decarbonization necessitates a radical transformation in the way we produce electricity, since worldwide, over 60% of electricity is currently produced using fossil fuel technologies.

New material design tops carbon-capture from wet flue gases

December 11, 2019
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

smokestacks

In new research reported in Nature, an international team of chemical engineers have designed a material that can capture carbon dioxide from wet flue gasses better than current commercial materials. One way to ameliorate the polluting impact of flue gases is to take the CO2 out of them and store it in geological formations or recycle it; there is, in fact, an enormous amount of research trying to find novel materials that can capture CO2 from these flue gasses.

Sixth Nano Research Award presented to Xinhe Bao and Omar M. Yaghi

June 27, 2019
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Omar Yaghi

This year’s Nano Research Award, which is sponsored by Tsinghua University Press (TUP) and Springer Nature, was presented to two celebrated researchers in Changsha, China on June 23rd. Omar M. Yaghi, the James and Neeltje Tretter Chair Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley received the award for pioneering a new field of research known as reticular chemistry. This chemistry has led to the discovery of several new classes of extended structures called metal-organic frameworks, covalent organic frameworks, zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, and molecular weaving.

The Element Named After Berkeley

September 17, 2019
By Barry Bergman | California Magazine

berkelium

Glenn Seaborg was born too late to have spawned Cal’s spirit cry. It’s coincidence, surely, that his name is an anagram for “Go Bears!” And, although he was definitely a Bears fan and was Chancellor when Cal last made it to the Rose Bowl in 1959, he was never in Oski’s league as a campus celebrity. While others led rallies, he had to settle for spearheading decades of trailblazing nuclear science, endowing UC Berkeley with bragging rights to the discovery of a record 16 new elements. Now, though, the 1951 Nobelist is making a bid to play in the social media space.

Meet CRISPR: Humanity’s shiny new tool

December 31, 2019
Taylor Beck | California Magazine

CRISPR Cas9

One of biology’s wilder facts is that we’re all family. You and me, sure, but also me and a mushroom. Triceratops shared genes with you. So does the virus that makes you cough, and a rosebush. Bacteria left us on the tree of life around 2.7 billion years ago, but the wet world they came from is still ours: One code runs all of life. The same proteins that imprint memories in your neurons, for example, do so in octopi, ravens, and sea slugs. This genetic conservation means tricks from one species can be hijacked. If you stick a jellyfish gene in a monkey, it’ll glow green.