College of Chemistry

New research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been published in "Chemistry: a Europena Journal" about two elements discovered at Berkeley: Berkelium and Californium. Researchers show that berkelium and californium, two elements in the actinide series (elements 89 to 103), have a surprisingly stable +5 oxidation state.

College Factual, a website offering advice to prospective college students and their families, has released its 2019 national and state rankings for Best Chemistry Programs for Veterans. UC Berkeley’s Chemistry program was ranked #12 out of 435 for veteran friendliness of all colleges and universities reviewed by College Factual. This puts UC Berkeley in the top 5% of all schools in the nation when it comes to offering a quality education to veterans studying Chemistry.

Now, researchers from the Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), Berkeley Lab, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability at Technical University of Denmark (DTU Biosustain) have found a way to engineer the fatty membranes of cells. The researchers boosted the cells' ability to produce high amounts of fluid fats, so-called unsaturated lipids. This increased the membrane respiration as well as the cellular growth rate.

Richmond Sarpong, Professor of Chemistry and Executive Associate Dean, has been recognized with the 2019 Mukaiyama award from the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan (SSOCJ) along with Professor Shunsuke of Chiba Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The award is intended to recognize and encourage outstanding contributions to synthetic organic chemistry. Professor Sarpong will deliver an award lecture at the SSOCJ headquarters in Tokyo next year.