College of Chemistry

In 2017, radiochemistry graduate student Mark Straub left the comfortable academic environs of UC Berkeley and moved to the middle of New Mexico, where he spent his summer working full time at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the birthplace of the Manhattan Project. There, Mark teamed up with LANL scientists Jaqueline Kiplinger and Julianna Fessenden to study the impact and evolution of nuclear forensics, a process in which nuclear material can be examined to determine its source and history.

Mark’s interest...

Imagine a future where chemists could restructure the morphine molecule to have the opiate pain management value but not the addictive side effect. That is one possible outcome of an exciting new process being reported in Science magazine from the chemistry lab of Richmond Sarpong at UC Berkeley.

UC Berkeley researchers have discovered a compound that promotes bacterial adhesion on teeth, which can lead to dental plaque and cavities. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Borba (Unsplash)

Oral diseases pose a major health burden to people in many countries. A...