College of Chemistry

Frontier Medicines has announced the launch of a new startup to actively develop medical treatments for currently "undruggable" diseases. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 1,762,000 new cancer cases and approximately 607,000 deaths from cancer are expected to occur in the US in 2019.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a new separation method that is vastly more efficient than conventional processes, opening the door to faster discovery of new elements, easier nuclear fuel reprocessing, and, most tantalizing, a better way to attain actinium-225, a promising therapeutic isotope for cancer treatment.

A team of researchers from the lab of Peidong Yang have received a phase one grant for their project to develop an integrated system to synthesize sugars from CO2. NASA is preparing to land humans on the Moon in 2024, the agency is keeping a keen eye on technologies needed for Mars missions that will follow. New technologies will be needed to sustain human life as we move out into the stars.

Following a huge manhunt to capture three train robbers, authorities called in an up-and-coming forensic scientist Edward Oscar Heinrich (BS, 1908, Chem), a UC Berkeley lecturer and alumnus, to help solve what became known as the "Last Great Train Robbery." He didn’t know that the case would put him on the map as a pioneer in modern American criminology .