College of 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.

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering alumna Professor Frances Arnold (Ph.D. ChemE, '85) gave the commencement speech for the College of Chemistry in the spring of 2018. Professor Arnold was announced as a 2018 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in October, 2018. She is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology.

Life is a tornado, and I am a leaf,” Frances Arnold says. As the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering & Biochemistry at California Institute of Technology, Arnold’s schedule was already packed. Now she’s trying to figure out how to juggle her teaching responsibilities and the lectures she promised to give with writing her Nobel address, preparing for the trip to Stockholm, and tending to the massive influx of press interviews, invitations, congratulatory emails, and Twitter shout-outs that have come with winning the Nobel Prize.