College of Chemistry

Ashok Ajoy announced as a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar

June 7, 2022
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Ashok Ajoy

CIFAR, a leading international research organization which funds outstanding early-career researchers and provides opportunities for mentorship and collaboration, has named Assistant Professor of Chemistry Ashok Ajoy a 2022...

New $115 Million Quantum Systems Accelerator to Pioneer Quantum Technologies for Discovery Science

August 26, 2020
by Dan Krotz | Berkeley Lab

dilution refrigerator

The Quantum Systems Accelerator will optimize a wide range of advanced qubit technologies available today. Berkeley Lab uses sophisticated dilution refrigerators to cool and operate superconducting quantum processor circuits. (Credit: Thor Swift/Berkeley Lab)

The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $115 million over five years to the Quantum Systems Accelerator (QSA), a new...

How water helps the substrate into the enzyme

December 15, 2020
Press Release | Ruhr-Universität Bochum

eyedropper with liquid

When water is present in tiny quantities – much less than in this droplet – it develops special properties. (photo: Roger Ashford, Adobe Stock)

An international research team has investigated water molecules in a tiny cage – and discovered previously unknown properties.

Researchers from Bochum and UC Berkeley have investigated why cages can increase the catalytic...

Impacts of virtual mentoring on STEM students

June 30, 2020
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Person using laptop

Photo: Lawrence Berkeley Lab

The innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) has awarded a new research project in the College of Chemistry that is looking at the effects of COVID-19 on STEM mentoring. Headed by Laleh Coté, and including fellow PIs Anne M. Baranger, and Colette Flood, the funding is part of...

W.M. Keck Foundation awards Ziyang Zhang, Robert Saxton grant to control how immune cells communicate

July 23, 2024
By Veronica Bartell | College of Chemistry
Ziyang Zhang and Robert Saxton were recently awarded a $1M grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation’s Research Program.

Jennifer Doudna awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry

October 7, 2020
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Portrait of Jennifer Doudna

Jennifer Doudna, 2020 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. photo: Keegan Houser

For immediate release

The College of Chemistry is delighted to announce that biochemist Jennifer Doudna was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry today, sharing it with colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier...

Drop in CO2 emissions during pandemic previews world of electric vehicles

November 10, 2020
By Robert Sanders | UC Berkeley media relations

In the six weeks after the San Francisco Bay Area instituted the nation’s first shelter-in-place mandate in response to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, regional carbon dioxide emissions dropped by 25%, almost all of it due to a nearly 50% drop in road traffic, according to new study from the University of California, Berkeley.

Though emissions have steadily increased since then, the dramatic response to a sharp cut-off in vehicular fossil fuel burning shows how effectively a move toward broad use of electric-powered vehicles would reduce the major greenhouse gas responsible for...

Undergraduate students compete in national L'Oréal Brandstorm competition

May 24, 2019
by Marge d'Wylde | College of Chemistry

Two talented undergraduate teams, with members from the College of Chemistry and Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR), competed in this year's USA national L'Oréal Brandstorm competition in New York City in April. Both teams made it to the final round, with a third place tie out of approximately 150 teams nationwide. The first and second place winners will go onto France to compete in the finals later this year.

Jeffrey Reimer, Professor and Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE) commented, “I am not surprised to see our students do so...

Kristie Boering and Whendee Silver elected American Geophysical Union Fellows

September 28, 2021
UC Berkeley, College of Chemistry Press Release

Headshots of Kristie Boering and Whendee Silver

Professors Kristie Boering and Whendee Silver. Photos courtesy UC Berkeley.

The College of Chemistry is delighted to announce that UC Berkeley faculty members Kristie A. Boering (Professor of Chemistry and of Earth and Planetary Science) and...

Retooling the translation machine could expand the chemical repertoire of cells

June 16, 2023
By Robert Sanders | UC Berkeley media relations

How proteins are made

Ribosomes (blue, upper left) are nanomachines that read mRNA (coming in from left) to assemble a chain of amino acids (magenta balls) that folds into a compact 3D protein (lower right, pink). (Graphic adapted from the National Science Foundation (NSF) image)

Synthetic biologists have become increasingly creative in engineering yeast or bacteria to churn out...