College of Chemistry

ExxonMobil collaborates on discovery of new material to enhance carbon capture technology

August 2, 2021

Researching the development of a sustainable energy future

Scientists from ExxonMobil, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered a new material that could capture more than 90 percent of CO2 emitted from industrial sources, such as natural gas-fired power plants, using low-temperature steam,...

Alumna Susan Solomon joins Pontifical Academy of Science

August 2, 2021

Susan Solomon

Photo of Professor Solomon courtesy MIT.

The Holy Father has appointed as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) Susan Solomon (Ph.D. '81, Chem), the Lee and Geraldine...

Berkeley startup aims to be a game changer in autoimmune disease therapy

July 22, 2021

chemistry alumni Geo Guillen, left, and Marco Lobba, middle, launched Catena Biosciences with Berkeley chemistry professor Matthew Francis.
UC Berkeley business and chemistry alumni Geo Guillen, left, and Marco Lobba, middle, launched Catena Biosciences with Berkeley...

Atom computing raises $15M and launches first-generation quantum computer

July 22, 2021

Illustration of quantum computer

Atom Computing announced its first-generation 100-atom quantum computer on July 21, 2021. (Image courtesty Atom Computing.)

Quantum computing company Atom Computing, co-founded by Jonathan King (Ph.D. '12, ChemE), will base...

At Last: Separated and Freshly Bound

July 19, 2021

carbon and hydrogen on the periodic table

The carbon–hydrogen bonds in alkanes—particularly those at the ends of the molecules, where each carbon has three hydrogen atoms bound to it—are very hard to “crack” if you want to replace the hydrogen atoms with other atoms. Methane (CH4) and ethane (CH3CH3) are made up, exclusively, of such tightly bound hydrogen atoms. In the...

Enrique Iglesia appointed to the Royal Academy of Sciences

July 16, 2021

Enrique Iglesia

The College of Chemistry is pleased to announce that Enrique Iglesia, Theodore Vermeulen Professor in Chemical Engineering, and been appointed as a Foreign Academic member of the Real Academia de Ciencias of Spain (Academy), during a meeting in Plenary...

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

July 15, 2021

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...

Omar Yaghi receives the Gerhard Ertl Lecture Award

July 13, 2021

Omar Yaghi

The 14th Gerhard Ertl Lecture Award goes to Omar M. Yaghi, Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences. The Award Committee, comprised of jurors Prof. Dr. Joachim Sauer (...

They call it a ‘women’s disease.’ Alumna Linda Griffith wants to redefine it.

July 9, 2021

Linda Griffith

Alumna Linda G. Griffith is a professor of biological and mechanical engineering at M.I.T., and its director of the Center for Gynepathology Research. “I don’t want to make endometriosis a women’s issue,” she said in 2014. “I want to make it an M.I.T. issue.” Photo credit Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times.

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Most labs devoted...

One-of-a-kind course aims to build the bioeconomy workforce

July 7, 2021

Tiffany Chen, a UC Berkeley chemical engineering student,

Tiffany Chen, a UC Berkeley chemical engineering student, loads a sample into the AMBR 250 device as part of UC Berkeley’s “Advanced Bioprocess Engineering Laboratory” class, which introduces advanced concepts of bioprocessing to chemical engineering students, at Berkeley Lab’s...