News
10/23/2012
World University ranks UCSD 13th in Chemistry
The Academic World Rankings from the Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University lists UC San Diego 13th in Chemistry. Other rankings are Natural Sciences and Mathematics (20th), Mathematics (23rd), Physics (32nd), Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences (12th). and Life and Agricultural Sciences (9th). More than 1200 universities were ranked and the best 500 published in this list.
08/24/2012
New Drug Effective Against MRSA
A team led by Drs. Eric Oldfield of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Andrew McCammon of the University of California, San Diego, have identified an effective new drug for mice with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a bacterial infection that is very hard to treat. <a class='pirobox_gall mylinks' rel='iframe-900-700' href='_images/mccammon-andy.html'><strong>[image]</strong></a> This research may point the way to more effective antibacterial drugs for people infected with the resistant bacteria. Antibiotic resistance is a worldwide public health problem. It occurs when bacteria in the human body become resistant to antibiotic treatment. The problem is caused largely by misuse of these drugs. Many infections that were once easy to treat, including tuberculosis, gonorrhea and S. aureus ( Staph ), have become more resistant to antibiotics. Recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that antibiotic resistance costs an estimated $20 billion a year in excess health care costs.
08/23/2012
2012/13 GAANN FELLOWS SELECTED
It is with pleasure that we announce our selections for the 2012/13 GAANN Fellowship Program: Brandon Barnett, Mark Boerneke, Nicole Campbell, Tavina Claiborne, Jennifer Daluz, Samantha Doyle, Leandro Gallo, Charles Mokhtarzadeh, Amelia Ray, and Jamie Schiffer.
08/22/2012
Dean's Undergraduate Awards for Excellence Recipients, 2012
It is a pleasure to announce the following students in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department as winners of the 2012 Dean's Undergraduate Award for Excellence; Christopher Ahles, Jake Boissonnault, Melody Cao, Chao-i Hung, Pek Ieong, Rachel Kim, Russell Lewis, Timothy Pollock and Charles Wang. They will be honored at a reception on Friday, April 5, 2013. Congratulations to all for this stellar achievement.
08/21/2012
Professor Joseph Noel elected as AAAS Fellow
Joseph Noel has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is among 702 new members to be honored during the 2013 AAAS annual meeting in Boston on February 16. Election as an AAAS Fellow is among the highest honors in American science. Noel was selected by his peers for his distinguished contributions to the understanding of plant metabolism, especially the evolution, biochemistry and structures underlying the biosynthesis of specialized metabolites. Noel, who is a Professor at the Salk Institute, Director of Salk's Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical Biology and Proteomics, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and the inaugural holder of the Arthur and Julie Woodrow Chair, is an Adjunct Professor at UCSD's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
08/20/2012
NEW GAANN Program in the Chemical Sciences
In Fall 2012, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego was awarded a total of $1.3 million in fellowships over a 3-year period from the U.S. Department of Education's Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Program. (These total funds include university cost-sharing; Program PI and co-PI are Robert Continetti and Stacey Brydges, respectively). It is intended that our new GAANN program will help us to attract and retain talented graduate students, particularly those from underrepresented groups, as we prepare them to engage in innovative research and teaching careers in the chemical sciences. Nine GAANN fellowships per year will be awarded to entering and continuing doctoral-level students who meet the program eligibility criteria. For additional information, including application deadlines, please see: <a target="_blank"href=http://chemistry.ucsd.edu/graduate-program/doctoral-program/gaann.html>http://chemistry.ucsd.edu/graduate-program/doctoral-program/gaann.html</a>
08/19/2012
UCSD American Chemical Society Student Chapter Honorable Mention Award
The UCSD Student Chapter of the American Chemical Society has been selected to receive an Honorable Mention Award for activities conducted during the 2011-12 academic year. The Committee on Education reviewed over 362 reports and presented 46 outstanding, 81 commendable and 114 honorable mention awards. Lists of award winning chapters will be published in Chemical & Engineering News and in the November/December issue of inChemistry, the student member magazine. Award winning chapters will be honored at the 245th ACS National Meeting in New Orleans on April 7, 2013. The award letter commends the chapters faculty advisors, Associate Professor Judy Kim and Lecturer PSOE Stacey Brydges, for making the great commitment of time and energy that a successful chapter requires.
08/18/2012
At the edge of the Muir College parking lot sits a structure shaped like an enormous tan igloo encircled by a chain-link fence. This is a very specialized facility, says Stanley Opella, University of California, San Diego Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Director of the Center for NMR Spectroscopy and Imaging of Proteins, the organization that operates this building. The purpose of the facility is to create high-resolution images of proteins that represent their shape and arrangement, atom-by-atom. It's critical information, Opella says, with a direct link to human health. I spent 40 years developing the technology to look at a protein in its lipid bilayer, Opella said. I accomplished my goal.
08/17/2012
Continetti And Krylov Are Physical Chemistry Awardees
Robert E. Continetti, Professor and former Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, is the recipient of the 2012 ACS Physical Chemistry Division Award in Experimental Chemistry. His research focuses on measuring and understanding the dynamics and energetics of transient species in the gas phase using photoelectron, photofragmentation, and translational spectroscopies. He was honored during the fall ACS national meeting in Philadelphia. Anna I. Krylov, professor of chemistry at the University of Southern California, is the winner of the 2012 Physical Chemistry Division Award in Theoretical Chemistry, cosponsored by the Telluride School on Theoretical Chemistry, a summer school program held every other year in Telluride, Colo. Krylov's research focuses on the development of electronic structure methods for electronically excited and open-shell species in both the gas and condensed phases. She will receive the award during the Telluride School on Theoretical Chemistry in July 2013.
08/16/2012
Bioengineers Lead NIH Center to Map the Gene Activities of Individual Cells in Human Cortex
Wei Wang, UC San Diego professor of chemistry and biochemistry and professor-in-residence in cellular and molecular medicine is among the bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego receiving a $9.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to establish a single-cell genomics center and develop a three-dimensional map of gene activities in individual cells in the human cortex. Kun Zhang, a professor of bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, is the principal investigator of this five-year, interdisciplinary project. Professor Zhangs team also includes co-investigators Dr. Jerold Chun, professor of molecular biology at The Scripps Research Institute; Jian-Bing Fan and Mostafa Ronaghi with San Diego-based Illumina; and George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard University. They will develop a novel technology for identifying and quantifying all RNA molecules a proxy for gene activity in 10,000 individual cells from human brains. The researchers will then use a novel high-resolution imaging technology to anchor the information collected from each cell to the three-dimensional anatomy of the human brain. This reference map of gene activity of the human brain will facilitate the identification of genes responsible for brain disorders. Researchers believe understanding variations between individual cells within the same tissue may be critical to understanding the origins of diseases, including brain disorders. The cerebral cortex is the outer layer of neural tissue responsible for cognitive functions including memory, attention and decision making.
08/15/2012
UCSD Chemists Develop Reversible Method of Tagging Proteins
Researchers in the laboratory of UCSD Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Michael Burkart have developed a method that provides scientists with the ability to attach chemical probes onto proteins and subsequently remove them in a repeatable cycle. The breakthrough rewards ten years of effort and is detailed in a paper appearing online in the journal Nature Methods the week of September 17, 2012. A video is available on YouTube.com <a target="_blank" href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lUgvpCQX_b0#t=0s>YouTube</a> The method of tagging and removing chemical probes from proteins should have wide application as a general laboratory tool to visualize and track proteins on living cells, as well as manipulate them outside of the cell. It was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.
08/15/2012
Million dollar Keck grant for UCSD Professors Steven Dowdy and Yitzhak Tor
UCSD Professors Yitzhak Tor (Teddy Traylor Scholar in Organic Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry) and Stephen F. Dowdy (Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine) have been awarded a million dollar grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation. The purpose is to build a paradigm shifting RNAi technology that radically shrinks the delivery size to the smallest possible, self delivering monomeric RNAi-inducing molecule via synthesis of neutral, bioreversible phosphotriester RiboNucleic Neutrals. Although the technology has broad applicability, the team will establish efficacy of this delivery system in mouse models of cancer.
08/14/2012
Roger Tsien Honored with First Golden Goose Award
Roger Tsien, PhD (Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator) who shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his role in helping develop and expand the use of green fluorescent proteins (GFP) was recently honored with one of the first Golden Goose Awards. Eight inaugural Golden Goose recipients were honored at a Capitol Hill ceremony in Washington, D.C. The award was conceived by U.S. Representative Jim Cooper (D-Tenn) to celebrate scientists whose research was funded by the federal government and benefited society in some important way, such as a new technology or an advance in health, but which seemed odd or obscure at the time it was conducted, or led to that benefit unexpectedly or serendipitously. It is supported by several notable scientific and educational organizations, among them the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association of American Universities and the Progressive Policy Institute.
08/14/2012
Nathan Gianneschi to receive 2012 NIH Director's Transformative Research Projects awar'
The Common Fund's NIH Director's Transformative Research Award initiative was created specifically to support exceptionally innovative and/or unconventional research projects that have the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms. The primary emphasis is to support research on bold, paradigm-shifting, but untested ideas. The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is proud to announce that faculty member Nathan Gianneschi is among the winners selected for 2012. His Award was made together with Prof. Karen Christman (UCSD, Bioengineering), to explore a novel nanotechnological approach to healing heart tissue post myocardial infarction.
08/13/2012
Color-Coded Markers May Help Doctors Diagnose Neural Diseases Through the Eyes
UC San Diego professors Jerry Yang and Emmanuel Theodorakis (Chemistry and Biochemistry Department) and Christina Sigurdson (Department of Pathology at the UCSD School of Medicine) have devised several new fluorescent probes that change color depending on what type of amyloid (sticky plaques of proteins) they encounter.
08/07/2012
Akif Tezcan Awarded Frasch Foundation Grant
The American Chemical Society has announced that Associate Professor F. Akif Tezcan of the University of California, San Diego Chemistry and Biochemistry Department is one of eight 2012 recipients of a Frasch Foundation Grant. Grantees will receive $50,000 per year for five years. The Herman Frasch Foundation for Chemical Research is a small research grant program with emphasis on projects that promise practical benefit to agricultural development in the U.S. Supported research is primarily chemical or biochemical in nature. Proposals must provide opportunities for training students at the graduate, undergraduate, and/or postdoctoral levels. ACS provides administrative and programmatic support for this program.
08/02/2012
Paesani's research highlighted in Chemical & Engineering News and Science
Chemical and Engineering News <a target="_blank" href=http://paesanigroup.ucsd.edu/Home_files/cenews.pdf>C&EN</a> and Science have highlighted research conducted by Francesco Paesani and Volodymyr Babin of the University of California, San Diego and their colleagues Yimin Wang and Joel M. Bowman of Emory University that was recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society <a target="_blank" href=http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja304528m>JACS</a> See also <a target="_blank" href=http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressreleases/researchers_reveal_behaviors_of_the_tiniest_water_droplets#.UC1udaAXgcs>UCSD News</a> and <a target="_blank" href=http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6099/twil.full>Science</a>
07/24/2012
Congratulations to three-time Olympian Kayaker Carrie Johnson
The UC San Diego Chemistry & Biochemistry Department wishes undergraduate biochemistry major and three-time Olympian Kayaker Carrie Johnson the best of luck in the 2012 Olympic Games in London! Growing up in Clairemont California, she trained as a gymnast until she broke her arm in 1997. She signed up for San Diego's Junior Lifeguard Program and this is where she discovered her love for kayaking. She instantly became an elite class kayaker training in the Chula Vista Olympic Training Center, where she became the youngest member of the 2004 Olympic Kayaking Team and is now on her way to the 2012 Olympics in London! Biochemistry Professor Patricia Jennings writes, She is the best example of a student-scholar that I have encountered in my 20 years of academics. Jennings further notes, Through numerous interactions Carrie has always been very courteous and socially aware which, coupled with her intelligence, her determination and will surely propel her to succeed in the career path that she chooses to focus on. After the Olympics, Carrie will begin Veterinary School at UC Davis. We wish you all the best Carrie! Good luck at the 2012 Olympics and GO TEAM USA! Sources: <a target="_blank" href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOPrsE5sfBA >Carrie's perseverance</a> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/videos/olympic-preview-carrie-johnson-kayaker/1701139607001">USA Today video</a> <a target="_blank" href="http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/general/07-08OlympicGold.asp">UCSD News</a> <a target="_blank" href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/29/sports/la-sp-oly-canoe-kayak-johnson-20120430">Los Angeles Times article</a> <a target="_blank" href=http://ucsdolympickayaker.blogspot.com/>Return after 2008 Olympics</a>
07/23/2012
Prof. Figueroa Receives White House Science Award
Assistant Professor Joshua Figueroa of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego is among 96 researchers named by President Obama today as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. The award will be bestowed by the President at a White House Ceremony. " Discoveries in science and technology not only strengthen our economy, they inspire us as a people. President Obama said. The impressive accomplishments of todays awardees so early in their careers promise even greater advances in the years ahead. " Established in 1996, the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers recognizes outstanding scientists and engineers who, early in their careers, show exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of knowledge. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. Nine federal departments and agencies annually nominate scientists and engineers who are at the start of their independent careers and whose work shows exceptional promise. Figueroa, who studies small-molecule activation and catalysis by organotransition metal compounds, was nominated for the award by the National Science Foundation. He was informed of the award by John P. Holdren, President Obama's science advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/23/president-obama-honors-outstanding-early-career- scientists">White House press release</a>
07/19/2012
Timothy S. Baker to receive Microscopy Society of America 2012 Distinguished Scientist Award
Timothy S. Baker, Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Section of Molecular Biology, has been selected by the Microscopy Society of America to receive its 2012 Distinguished Scientist Award for the Biological Sciences. The award is in recognition of his internationally acclaimed research and distinguished contributions in the field of microscopy. Given annually since 1975, it is the highest award bestowed by the Society. It is accompanied by an Honorary Membership in MSA as well as election to the status of MSA Fellow. The award is listed on the Societys website <a href=http://www.microscopy.org/>http://www.microscopy.org/</a>
07/19/2012
Kim Albizati joins our chemical education division in the fall of 2012. Until recently, he was Chief Scientific Officer for Strategic Enzyme Applications and a part-time non-Senate Lecturer in our department. Dr. Albizati earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1983.
07/18/2012
Clifford P. Kubiak named 2012 American Chemical Society Fellow
Distinguished Professor and Harold Clayton Urey Chair in Chemistry Clifford P. Kubiak has been selected as a member of the 2012 class of Fellows of the American Chemical Society. The Fellows Program was approved in 2008 by the ACS Board of Directors to honor members who have made significant contributions to the sciences and provided excellent service to the ACS community. The full list of 2012 Fellows will appear in the July 23, 2012 issue of Chemical & Engineering News. The 2012 ACS Fellows will be honored at a special ceremony during the ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia on August 20, 2012.
07/12/2012
06/19/2012
Roy Wollman joins our biochemistry division in the fall of 2012. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University. Dr. Wollman earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, in 2008
06/04/2012
Roger Tsien Honored with First Golden Goose Award
Roger Tsien, PhD (Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator) who shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his role in helping develop and expand the use of green fluorescent proteins (GFP) was recently honored with one of the first Golden Goose Awards. Eight inaugural Golden Goose recipients were honored at a Capitol Hill ceremony in Washington, D.C. The award was conceived by U.S. Representative Jim Cooper (D-Tenn) to celebrate scientists whose research was funded by the federal government and benefited society in some important way, such as a new technology or an advance in health, but which seemed odd or obscure at the time it was conducted, or led to that benefit unexpectedly or serendipitously. It is supported by several notable scientific and educational organizations, among them the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association of American Universities and the Progressive Policy Institute.
06/04/2012
Guy Bertrand joins our organic and inorganic divisions in the fall of 2012. He is currently Professor, Above Scale (Distinguished Professor) at the University of California, Riverside. He also holds the title of Directeur de Recherche CNRS, Class Exceptionelle at the Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse and leads the UCR/CNRS Joint Research Chemistry Laboratory at UC Riverside. Dr. Bertrand earned the degree Docteur ès-Sciences Physiques from the Université Paul Sabatier in 1979.
05/29/2012
Professor Emeritus Joseph Kraut
Professor Emeritus Joseph " Joe" Kraut, one of Americas premier protein crystallographers, died Friday, May 25th, at the age of 85. He was one of the first practitioners of what was in the 1950s the new science of protein crystallography. Hired at UCSD in 1962 he retired in 1994 but was recalled as a Research Professor through 1996. Memorial information will be posted as it becomes available.
05/24/2012
Professor Emeritus Marjorie Caserio selected for 2012 Dickson Emeritus Professorship Award
Professor Emeritus Marjorie Caserio has been selected to receive the 2012 Dickson Emeritus Professorship Award. The award ($10,000 and a plaque) will be presented at a luncheon on Wednesday, June 13th. It is given to one or more emeriti professors to recognize continuing scholarship, teaching and service at UCSD since retirement. The late Edward A. Dickson, Regent of the University of California from 1913 to 1946, made the original gift that supports awards at each of the UC campuses. Information about the award is available on the <a target="_blank" href=http://emeriti.ucsd.edu/Awards/index.html>Emeriti Association website</a>
05/23/2012
Professor Joseph O'Connor wins 2012 Distinguished Teaching Award
Professor Joseph M. O'Connor has been selected by the Committee on Distinguished Teaching to receive a 2012 Distinguished Teaching Award. The award represents peer recognition that the recipient has achieved the highest level of teaching excellence. Professor O'Connor's name will bear the citation "Distinguished Teaching Award" in the UCSD General Catalog, and he will receive a $1500 cash award. Up to five members of the Academic Senate are selected each spring to receive this honor. Other winners from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry include Professors Katja Lindenberg, Andy Kummel and Charles Perrin, Lecturer (SOE) Haim Weizman, Non-Senate Faculty Lecturers Carl Hoeger and Christina Johnson and Senior Lecturer (SOE) Barbara Sawrey, who is Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education. A list of this year's winners is available online at <a href=http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/features/academic_senate_recognizes_ten_awardees_for_superlative_teaching_skills/ target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none">UCSD News</a>
05/22/2012
Graduate Diversity and Outreach Award Winners
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is proud to announce that graduate students Timia Crisp, Donald Johnson, Ignacio López-Peña, Gabriel Reyes-Rodríguez, and Andro Rios have won Graduate Diversity and Outreach Awards. Congratulations to all on this recognition of their efforts.
05/18/2012
Professors Amaro, Müller, Paesani and Toor selected as 2012-13 Hellman Fellows
Assistant Professors Rommie Amaro, Ulrich Müller, Francesco Paesani and Navtej Toor have been selected as 2012-2013 Hellman Fellows. Ulrich Müller was also selected in 2011-2012. The Hellman Fellowship Program was established at UCSD in 1995 through the generosity of Chris and Warren Hellman. The program is designed to provide financial support and encouragement to young faculty in the core disciplines who show capacity for great distinction in their research and creative activities.
05/16/2012
Joshua Figueroa selected to receive the 2012 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award
Professor Joshua S. Figueroa has been selected by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation to receive a 2012 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. The program supports the research and teaching careers of talented young faculty in the chemical sciences. Based on institutional nominations, the program provides discretionary funding to faculty members at an early stage in their careers. Criteria for selection include an independent body of scholarship attained within the first five years of their appointment as independent researchers and a demonstrated commitment to education, signaling the promise of continuing outstanding contributions to both research and teaching. The Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program provides an unrestricted research grant of $75,000. Figueroa earned the Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award in 2007.
05/09/2012
Prof. Joshua Figueroa wins 2012 DOE Early Career Research Program Award
Professor Joshua S. Figueroa's proposal "Bond Formation and Catalysis by Basemetal Unsaturated Isocyanides" has been selected by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences for a 2012 DOE Early Career Research Program Award. Figueroa has been a member of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego since 2007.
05/07/2012
Chancellor Fox to receive 2012 Othmer Gold Medal
Marye Anne Fox, Chancellor of the University of California, San Diego, and Professor in the UCSD Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been named the recipient of the 2012 Othmer Gold Medal. The Othmer Medal is given by the Chemical Heritage Foundation to honor individuals who have made multifaceted contributions to chemical and scientific heritage through outstanding activity in areas such as innovation, entrepreneurship, research education, public understanding, legislation, or philanthropy. The medal will be presented to Chancellor Fox on April 12 at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia. Chancellor Fox has served on the Foundation Board since 2002 and is Chair of the Scientific Affairs Committee.
03/15/2012
James R. Arnold Memorial Tribute
To honor our friend and colleague, Jim Arnold, a memorial tribute is to be held at the University of California, San Diego Skaggs Pharmaceutical Sciences Building HSEC Auditorium at 2 pm on Saturday, May 5, 2012 (his birthday). Please mark your calendar for this special event. Professor Emeritus James Arnold passed away Friday, January 6, following a long illness. He was an internationally renowned geophysical chemist, member of the National Academy of Sciences (elected 1964),a founding member of the Department of Chemistry and the University of California, San Diego, the first Chair of the Department, and the holder of the first Harold C. Urey Chair. He was a valued colleague and will be missed. For further information, such as a map to the building or information about hotels nearby offering a UCSD discount, please contact Virginia Perry (<a href="mailto:vperry@ucsd.edu?Subject=Arnold-Memorial">vperry@ucsd.edu</a>, tel: 858-534-0212, fax: 858-534-6693). This event is not sponsored by the Health Sciences Educational Center.
03/13/2012
Jack Dixon elected to The Royal Society
Jack Dixon, Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is among the eight newly elected Foreign Members and 44 newly elected Fellows of The Royal Society. Said to be "one of the most influential biochemists of his generation," Dixon is also a Professor in the Departments of Pharmacology, Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego. Founded in 1660, The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the world's most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering, and medicine.
03/12/2012
Streamlining Tetrazine Synthesis
A team led by Assistant Professor Neal K. Devaraj of the University of California, San Diego, reports that it is possible to streamline tetrazine production with Lewis acid catalysts such as zinc triflate. Lewis acids promote the first step in tetrazine synthesis: nucleophilic attack of a nitrile by hydrazine. The new synthesis should be useful not only to biochemists, as materials scientists and explosives researchers also use tetrazines. The work is highlighted in Chemical & Engineering News.
03/11/2012
John Zuris to receive 2012 Bruno Zimm Award
Graduate student John Zuris, who works in the Jennings lab, has been selected as the 2012 Bruno Zimm Award Recipient. The award recognizes research excellence in the field of biophysical chemistry. This prestigious award provides a prize of $1,000.
03/11/2012
Alex Carpenter and Karina Kangas to receive NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
Alex Carpenter and Karina Kangas have been selected to receive NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. The list of recipients for the 2012 GRFP Competition is available online by clicking the award list at this website. <a href=https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/>https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/</a> <a href=https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/>https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/</a>
03/10/2012
Discovery Provides Blueprint for New Drugs That Can Inhibit Hepatitis C Virus
Work carried out in the lab of Associate Professor Thomas Hermann could pave the way for drugs that inhibit the Hepatitis C virus - a virus that kills more people in the U.S. than does HIV. A paper in this week's early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes the design of drugs that can inhibit the replication of the hepatitis C virus, which proliferates by hijacking the cellular machinery in humans to manufacture duplicate viral particles.
03/09/2012
Metal Ions Guide Protein Assembly
By using metal ions to link protein molecules to one another, the Tezcan lab has assembled proteins into elaborate and flexibly modifiable sheets, tubes, helical chains, and other objects. Until this study, the goal of rationally controlling the assembly of such complex protein structures has been considered largely unattained. The research was carried out by a graduate student in the Tezcan Lab, Jeffrey Brodin, in collaboration with the Baker Lab.
02/15/2012
Nathan Gianneschi named 2012 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded a research fellowship to Nathan C. Gianneschi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego. " Today's Sloan Research Fellows are tomorrow's Nobel Prize winners," said Dr. Paul L. Joskow, President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Fellows are nominated by their peers and selected by an independent panel of senior scholars. They receive two-year, $50,000 grants to pursue any line of research they choose.
02/13/2012
2012 ACS Physical Chemistry Division Award in Experimental Chemistry
Professor Robert E. Continetti, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of California at San Diego, is the 2012 winner of the American Chemical Society's Physical Chemistry Division Award in Experimental Chemistry. His research group is interested in measuring and understanding the dynamics and energetics of transient species in the gas phase using photoelectron, photofragmentation and translational spectroscopies.
01/10/2012
Protein's arm controls iron-sulfur cluster
Graduate student Elizabeth Baxter and Patricia Jennings, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCSD, collaborated with José Onuchic, a physicist at Rice University, using cluster analysis to probe the structure of the protein mitoNEET to better understand its role in aging, cancer and diabetes. They found the protein could untangle its arms at one end to loosen its grip on a potentially toxic molecule of iron and sulfur. Their research is described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
01/09/2012
Melanie Zauscher selected for Bouchet Graduate Honor Society
Graduate student Melanie Zauscher, who works with Professor Kimberly Prather, Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry, has been selected to be a member of the UC San Diego Chapter of the Bouchet Graduate Honor Society for 2012. The nomination demonstrates Zauscher's exemplification of the characteristics of Edward A. Bouchet: character, leadership, advocacy, service, and scholarly achievement. New members will be inducted into the society at the Ninth Annual Yale Bouchet Conference on Diversity in Graduate Education March 30-31, 2012 at Yale University.
01/08/2012
Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action and Diversity Award recipient
Professor Robert Continetti, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action and Diversity Awards University-wide Award Recipient for 2011. Continetti, who chaired the Chancellors Diversity Council (2009-11), is being recognized for exemplifying the UC San Diego Principles of Community. Nominations recognize those individuals, departments and organizational units who made outstanding efforts in furthering diversity, equal opportunity and affirmative action at UC San Diego. Physical Sciences Dean Thiemens is a University-wide Award Recipient for 2010.
01/08/2012
Envelope for an Artificial Cell
Using a novel chemical reaction, chemists have created self-assembling cell membranes, the structural envelopes that contain and support the reactions required for life. Neal Devaraj, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of California, San Diego, and Itay Budin, a graduate student at Harvard University, report their success in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. By assembling an essential component of earthly life with no biological precursors, they hope to illuminate lifes origins. Although other scientists recently announced the creation of a synthetic cell, only its genome was artificial. The rest was a hijacked bacterial cell. Fully artificial life will require the union of both an information-carrying genome and a three-dimensional structure to house it. The real value of this discovery might reside in its simplicity. From commercially available precursors, the scientists needed just one preparatory step to create each starting lipid chain. The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering supported this work. UC San Diego has filed a patent application on this discovery. Anyone with commercial interest in the research or application should contact senior licensing officer Eric Gosink in the technology transfer office at egosink@ucsd.edu.