College of Chemistry

Professor Jennifer Doudna speaks at UH Hilo about her CRISPR discovery

September 22, 2018

Jennifer Doudna gives lecture in Hilo, Hawaii.

Professor Jennifer Doudna ( seen here with (left) UH Hilo Interim Chancelor Marcia Sakai and (right) UH Hilo Chancelor Emerita Rose Tseng presented the inaugural UH Hilo Rose and Raymond Tseng Distinguished Lecture. view video here

John Hartwig awarded 2018 Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry

September 27, 2018

image: John Hartwig and Stephen BuchwaldJohn Hartwig and Stephen Buchwald

Elsevier and the Board of Executive Editors of Elsevier’s Tetrahedron journal series have announced that the 2018 Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry has been awarded to Professors Stephen L....

Atom Computing receives VC funding to create a radical new paradigm in quantum computing

September 27, 2018

JAtom Computers acquires VC funding for development

The promise of Quantum Computers will unlock a new dimension of computing capabilities that are not possible today with classical computers, regardless of the size, compute power, or parallelization.

ACS awards alum Paul VerNooy and DuPont colleagues with Heroes of Chemistry award

September 21, 2018

MOFS float above the desert. Photo courtesy California Magazine.

Paul VerNooy (Ph.D. Chem 1991) and five fellow scientists from DuPont (including Alan Carroll, Kenneth Hang, Brian Laughlin, Kurt Mikeska, and Charlie Torardi) have received the 2018 Heroes award from the American Chemical Society (ACS). The DuPont scientists are honored for inventing Solamet® PV17x, the metallization paste that pioneered the use of lead tellurite chemistry, a game changer in the solar energy industry.

Meet Metal-Organic Frameworks, Chemistry’s New Miracle Materials

September 20, 2018

MOFS float above the desert. Photo courtesy California Magazine.

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a revolutionary new class of crystalline solids that can be designed to trap myriad kinds of matter, including greenhouse gases, or to be used as nanosized drug carriers. They can also pull water from desert air.

Professors Omar Yaghi and Michael O’Keeffe receive award from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

September 19, 2018

Array of Lithium Ion batteries stacked side by side.The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2019 Gregori Aminoff Prize in Crystallography to Michael O’Keeffe, Arizona State University, and Omar M. Yaghi, University of California, “for their fundamental contributions to the development of reticular chemistry”.

Aduro Biotech creates new postdoc diversity fellowship at Berkeley

September 16, 2018

Jennifer DoudnaProfessor of Chemistry Richmond Sarpong, and Chairman, President and CEO of Aduro Biotech, Stephen Isaacs, discuss the Aduro-UC Berkeley Underrepresented Postdoctoral Fellowship Program which was launched in 2018. Sarpong is seen here with the first fellowship recipient Alex Rovira.

What kind of person donates a kidney to a stranger?

September 12, 2018

Katherine Welsh

Just about every few months since she was 16, Katherine Welsh, a fundraiser in the College of Chemistry, has given blood. The act of service was second nature to her, as regular as getting her car's oil changed or setting the clocks back for daylight savings.

Dr. William Lester Jr selected as Top Chemist Educator of the Year by the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP)

September 10, 2018

William LesterDr. William Alexander Lester, Jr, Chemist & Educator for University of California, Berkeley was selected as Top Chemist Educator of the Year for 2018 by the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) for his outstanding leadership and commitment to the field.

While inclusion with the International Association of Top Professionals is an honor in itself, only a...

Jennifer Doudna honored at Kavli Prize ceremonies in Norway

September 4, 2018


Virginijus Šikšnys, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle CharpentierCRISPR-Cas9 inventor Jennifer Doudna, a UC Berkeley professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology, was awarded the 2018 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience today in Norway during a gala ceremony hosted by King Harald V. She shared the prestigious honor with her colleague Emmanuelle Charpentier, now at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, Germany, and another early CRISPR researcher, Virginijus Šikšnys of Vilnius University in Lithuania.