Green Chemistry

Frances Arnold turns microbes into living factories

May 28, 2019

Frances Arnold. Photo by Erika Gerdemark for The New York Times.Instead of synthesizing new biochemicals from scratch, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist puts nature to the task — with astonishing results.

PASADENA, Calif. — The engineer’s mantra, said Frances Arnold, a professor of chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, is: “Keep it simple, stupid.” But Dr. Arnold, who last year became just the fifth woman in history to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is the opposite of stupid, and her stories sometimes turn rococo.

Scientists use DNA origami to alter gene expression in plants

April 4, 2019

DNA origami could change the way we alter plants

new research reported from the lab of Markita Landry, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UC Berkeley, a team of scientists has taken an original approach of using DNA origami nanotechnology to slip through plant cell walls and graft small interfering RNA (siRNA) directly onto plant cells. Their research shows it is possible to directly silence genes in plants without damaging plant tissues, and without making any alterations to the plant’s genome.

Omar Yaghi wins BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences

January 23, 2018

Omar YaghiThe BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences category goes, in this tenth edition, to Jordanian-American chemist Omar Yaghi, “for his pioneering work in the conception and synthesis of new...

UC Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry recipient of an award for novel green preservatives

August 6, 2018

Green suppliesThe Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) and InnoCentive have announced the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry as one of seven winners in the global GC3 Challenge: Developing New Preservatives for Personal Care & Household Products. Launched in April 2017, the challenge aims to identify and support innovators developing preservative technologies with improved environmental,...

Sewage sludge leads to biofuels breakthrough

March 26, 2018

Jewel Lake, Tilden Park Berkeley. Photo ChickMarkley.JBEI enzyme discovery enables first-time microbial production of an aromatic biofuel.

The study was led by Harry Beller, Berkeley Lab senior scientist and scientific...

Researchers create a protein ‘mat’ that can soak up pollution

March 16, 2018

Ting XuIn a breakthrough that could lead to a new class of materials with functions found only in living systems, Ting Xu and fellow researchers have figured out a way to keep certain proteins active outside of the cell. The researchers used this technology to create mats...

Artificial leaves to produce fuel on Earth and, one day, Mars

January 24, 2018

Matt Damon, Mars movieWith the right technology, the gas station of the future will make its own fuel directly from sunlight, in the process sucking up carbon and producing oxygen. Decades into the future, the same technology could provide fuel and oxygen for the first Martians, and could even be tweaked to produce fertilizer....

Chemists create tinted windows that also generate electricity

January 23, 2018

Peidong YangPeidong Yang, a professor of chemistry and faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab, and his colleagues have tweaked the chemical structure of perovskite — a versatile material that already rivals silicon-based solar cells — so that the material turns from transparent...