News
12/14/2022
Professor Nathan Romero Receives 2023 Air Force Young Investigator Program Award
Through the YIP, the Department of the Air Force fosters creative basic research in science and engineering and enhances early career development of outstanding young investigators.
11/01/2022
Professor Julia Ortony Joins the Faculty
Prof. Ortony earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from U.C. Santa Barbara in 2011. Prof. Ortony’s research focuses on the design of small molecule nanostructures, and the characterization of their conformational and water dynamics. Ortony’s research combines both nanomaterials design and development of dynamics characterization methodologies. Prior to UC San Diego Prof. Ortony was the Samuel A. Goldblith Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. Ortony’s work on nanostructure design for water purification earned her a Bose Fellowship. Ortony is also a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. Over the past several years, Ortony has been heavily involved in EDI efforts, especially with respect to gender inclusion in STEM.
10/28/2022
Interested in applying for our MS or PhD program?
Don't miss our upcoming Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Virtual Open House, hosted by the Division of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs (GEPA) Date: Tuesday, November 1st, 2022 Time Zone: Pacific Standard Time (PST, San Diego time) Zoom Link: <a https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/92381255512" " rel="noopener" target="_blank" title="https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/92381255512">https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/92381255512</a> NOTE: The Chemistry and Biochemistry open house will still occur on November 1 despite the RSVP link indicating a later date (November 9). Please still register through the RSVP link. Apologies for the confusion this might cause.
10/10/2022
Professor Fleur Ferguson Receives 2022 NIH Director's New Innovator Award
These prestigious awards support unconventional approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research.
10/09/2022
Professor Johannes Schoneberg Receives 2022 NIH Director's New Innovator Award
These prestigious awards support unconventional approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research.
09/23/2022
Professor Vicki Grassian Earns 2023 GEOC Medal Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Geochemistry
Professor Grassian is a Distinguised Professor and Chair of our Chemistry and Biochemistry department.
09/09/2022
Professor Valerie Schmidt Appointed William A. Lee Junior Faculty Fellow
Congratulations Valerie!
09/09/2022
Professor Julia Stauber Appointed Yinan Wang Junior Faculty Fellow
Congratulations Julia!
08/15/2022
2021-2022 Teddy Traylor Awards
Congratulations to our 2021-22 Teddy Traylor Award recipients, Kyle Angle (Grassian Lab), Stella Seo (Cohen Lab), Krista Balto (Figueroa Lab), and Taylor Steele (Moore Lab)! Like many of our founding faculty members, Teddy Traylor, a pioneer in organometallic chemistry, has a remarkable history. He was born in Sulphur, Oklahoma, but never graduated from high school. He briefly worked at Dow Chemical Co. before becoming the first assistant professor at UCSD in 1961. Professor Traylor taught organic chemistry courses, and incorporated innovative teaching methods, such as using a banjo to illustrate the wave-like properties of electrons.
08/15/2022
Congratulations to Ruben Elias (Deshmukh Lab), recipient of the 2021-22 Bruno Zimm Award! The Bruno Zimm Graduate Award is named for UC San Diego Professor of Chemistry Bruno Zimm, a pioneer in the study of the biophysical properties of nucleic acids and proteins. The award is given to a full-time Ph.D. student whose research is in the area of physical chemistry, planetary chemistry, or cosmo-chemistry, and whose research is exceptionally meritorious and particularly deserving of recognition. The award is made possible through a gift from Larry S. Millstein, Ph.D. (Chemistry, '87), and his wife Robin Taylor.
08/01/2022
Research Collaboration Between Tezcan and Herzik Lab Yields Publication in Science
For the first time, researchers at UCSD report near-atomic-resolution snapshots of nitrogenase during catalysis using cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM). The results were published in the journal Science.
07/19/2022
Professor Alexis Komor makes Chemical and Engineering News 2022 Talented 12
C&EN's Talented 12 is a list of early-career researchers who are using chemistry to make the world a better place. There were more than 400 nominations this year. Alexis was chosen for her work in developing tools to decipher how variations in our DNA might affect health.
07/19/2022
Amaro Lab postdoc Abby Dommer makes Chemical and Engineering News 2022 Talented 12
Abby is recognized for her billion-atom simulations of SARS-CoV-2 in a respiratory aerosol, as well as her other amazing supercomputing work in the Amaro lab.
07/15/2022
Professor Neal Devaraj selected as one of the 2022 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellows
The Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship is the Department of Defense’s most prestigious single investigator award. The Fellowship aims to advance transformative, university-based fundamental research. It is a highly competitive fellowship, with over 300 applications and only 9 recipients this year. At UCSD, this fellowship has only been awarded twice before. Congratulations on this impressive achievement, Neal!
07/01/2022
Chancellor’s Endowed Chair in Chemistry and Biochemistry, Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Dr. Jones received her PhD from the Department of Chemistry at Georgia State University. She received postdoctoral training in structural virology at the University of Alabama- Birmingham and in mass spectrometry (MS)-based protein footprinting at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research interests include the use of the protein footprinting method fast photochemical oxidation of proteins (FPOP) coupled with mass spectrometry for the characterization of the higher order structure of proteins. Her lab has further developed the FPOP method for in-cell (IC-FPOP) studies for proteome-wide structural biology. Biological applications of IC-FPOP include characterizing protein folding intermediates directly in the cell and drug target (both on and off targets) determination. The Jones lab has also extended the method for in vivo analysis (IV-FPOP) in C. elegans. This provides the ability to study protein structure in an animal model for human disease. Professor Jones is part of a campus-wide multidisciplinary STEM cluster hire of faculty whose research, teaching, and service are focused on racial/ethnic disparities in biological and physical sciences, health, medicine, or the environment. She plans to develop a course that will center on health disparities in biomedical research. The course will highlight the research that has been conducted, in particular during the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as provide a historical perspective on the past biomedical research within Black communities that were detrimental to the population. In addition to teaching in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Professor Jones will teach in the Black Diaspora and African American Studies program.
06/30/2022
Professor Partho Ghosh Research Paper Published in eLife
Humans produce on their skin and other places a short peptide called LL-37 as a defense against infectious microbes. This peptide kills disease-causing bacteria by puncturing their cell membranes. However, the bacterium Strep A, a cause of ‘fleshing-eating’ disease and toxic shock syndrome, thwarts the killing ability of LL-37 while establishing serious infections. Strep A does this by capturing LL-37 on its surface, preventing LL-37 from getting to the underlying membrane and puncturing it. It was known that the M protein of Strep A is responsible for capturing LL-37, but it was not known how M protein does this. We investigated this using a technique called X-ray crystallography and visualized atom-by-atom how M protein from a Strep A strain that is an emerging public health threat captures LL-37. Remarkably, we saw that the M protein opens up or unfurls to expose parts that are usually hidden to capture LL-37. The precise level of information on which parts of M protein unfurl to capture LL-37 gained from our study will be useful to designing therapies that combat Strep A infections.
06/30/2022
Assistant Professor John Sous wins 2022 PHYS Award for Young Investigators in Theory
The awardees will give presentations on their current research at the ACS fall meeting. John will be joining our faculty July 2023.
06/23/2022
Professor Itay Budin Receives Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator Award in Lipid Research
The Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator Award in Lipid Research recognizes outstanding research contributions in the area of lipids by a young investigator who is an assistant professor or equivalent.
05/25/2022
Amaro Lab part of a $66M NIH funded consortium
The consortium is looking to develop antiviral drugs for pandemic-level viruses.
05/17/2022
Professor's Prather and Slade co-authored article published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment
The perspective article titled "Microplastics and nanoplastics in the marine-atmosphere environment" proposes a global strategy to tackle atmospheric plastic pollution.
05/16/2022
Shaowei Li Selected as a 2022-2023 Hellman Fellow
The Society of Hellman Fellows is an endowed program at all ten University of California campuses that provides research funding to promising assistant professors who show capacity for great distinction in their chosen fields. Since its founding in 1995, more than 1,900 promising early-career faculty have received Hellman Fellowships, with many recipients going on to become department chairs, award-winning researchers, and MacArthur “genius” grant recipients.
05/06/2022
American Chemical Society NOS 2022
If you bring the smiles, we’ll bring the sun to NOS 2022 hosted here in La Jolla by American Chemical Society, Division of Organic Chemistry. There’s still time to submit a poster abstract (until May 31, 2022) https://nationalorganicsymposium.org and meet us in SoCal June 26-30, 2022. What’s your best memory of past NOS?
04/26/2022
Tezcan Lab Research Published in Nature
It may seem counterintuitive to many, but metal ions play a critical role in life, carrying out some of the most important biological processes. Tezcan Lab design a flexible system that sidesteps copper-protein binding.
04/08/2022
Congratulations 2022 recipients of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships!
We proudly announce that the National Science Foundation has selected Leila Chihab (Peters Lab), Vanessa Eng (Tezcan Lab), Jane Sedlak (Grassian Lab), Renee Niles (Figueroa Lab), Etienne Palos (Paesani Lab), Maribel Clerk (N. Romero Lab) and Undergrads Pranali Bedekar, Brian Donovan, Gordon Peiker, and Marc Zepeda from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry as the recipients of the 2022 Graduate Research Fellowship! We also congratulate the NSF-GRFP Honorable Mentions: Gillian Gadbois (Ferguson Lab), Emily Latif (N. Romero Lab), Daniel Milshteyn (Budin Lab), Erin NEal (Grassian Lab), Xandra Nuqui (Amaro Lab), Andrew Tao (Ferguson Lab), Jacob Vance (Devaraj Lab)
04/01/2022
Nate Slade Awarded National Science Foundation Grant
Nate Slade was awarded the recent National Science Foundation grant for his proposal "Understanding the Fate of Plastic Additives in Marine Aerosol Mimics".
04/01/2022
Figueroa Lab Article Published in Science
The article "Unstable Molecule Clicks with Synthetic Strategy" details how Figueroa Lab uncovered a way to bind unstable diphosphorus to a single metal ion.
03/28/2022
Wei Xiong and Joel Yuen-Zhou Receive 2022 MURI Award
Since its inception in 1985, the tri-Service MURI program has supported teams of investigators with the hope that collective insight from multiple disciplines could facilitate the growth of newly emerging technologies to address the Department’s unique problem sets. The highly-competitive MURI program, which complements the Department’s single-investigator basic research grants, has made immense contributions to both defense and society at large. From a merit-based review of approximately 340 proposals received, a panel of experts narrowed the proposals to a subset, from which the 28 final awards were selected. Along with with scientists at CUNY, PSU and UC Merced, Wei Xiong and Joel Yuen-Zhou were among the 28 research teams who won the final awards.
03/28/2022
Research Corporation for Science Advancement has named three outstanding Cottrell Scholars as recipients of its 2022 STAR and IMPACT Awards. Seth Cohen has won the IMPACT award and is recognized as an active and impactful academic researcher who has dedicated much of his time and career to the betterment of the federal scientific endeavor and national science policy.
02/14/2022
Professor Lisa Jones to join the faculty
The Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of California San Diego, is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Lisa Jones. Professor Jones focuses on structural proteomics using biochemical, analytical, and biophysical approaches to study protein interactions important in biological processes. She uses the protein foot printing method fast photochemical oxidation of proteins coupled with mass spectrometry to identify these interactions as well as further expand this method to studying complex biological systems. In 2019, she received the Biophysical Society’s Junior Faculty Award for her research. Professor Jones’ research is truly visionary as she further develops methods to understand complex, detailed biological phenomena in living cells. Professor Jones’ appointment is part of a recent University of California Office of the President Advancing Faculty Diversity grant. The grant supports a campus-wide multidisciplinary STEM cluster hire of faculty whose research, teaching, and service are focused on racial/ethnic disparities in biological and physical sciences, health, medicine, or the environment. In addition to teaching in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Professor Jones will teach in the Black Diaspora and African American Studies program. Professor Jones begins her appointment as Chancellor’s Associate Chair on July 1, 2022.
02/09/2022
Diversifying Scientific Perspectives in Our Undergraduate Classrooms
In Fall 2021, the Monthly Inclusive Teaching Informal (MITI) Lunch Series in Physical Sciences was launched via the Student Success Center. This new initiative is intended to be a low-key way for instructors across the division to share resources, tips, and examples of methods used in our undergraduate and graduate classrooms to increase student engagement and interaction and to create an inclusive, supportive learning environment. Recently, three Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty instructors highlighted the creative ways they are integrating diverse scientists and perspectives into their undergraduate courses. Click the link to read more!
02/04/2022
Maintaining Undergraduate Labs During Difficult Times
It has been almost two years of tumultuous ups and downs and our lives have been thrown into chaos as we have lived in the indefinite fear of the unknown. UC San Diego’s biggest unknown was how to navigate the uncertainty of our new reality of remote, socially distanced learning. The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry jumped into action at the start of the pandemic by embracing the new student experience of remote learning whole heartedly to ensure the safety of our students, while still encouraging their growth. One of the biggest challenges, however, was figuring out how to support the undergraduate teaching labs during this transition. It is in large part due to the commitment and resilience of our staff and teaching assistants that our undergraduate teaching labs have been able to thrive so efficiently during the confusing and ever-changing constraints of our new Covid reality. Professor Brian Leigh directly attributes the success of Chem 7L to the phenomenal TA’s that help teach the course. “The TAs accommodated students with synchronous-remote sections from 8 AM to 10 PM PST so that no matter where on the planet a student was learning from, there was a live TA in a Zoom room waiting to interact with them during the student’s normal waking hours. On top of this, the TA’s added to 7L by making laboratory videos, oral quiz assessments, and normalized TA instructional material across all 28 sections. The TAs had a huge hand in success of this course.” Professor Haim Weizman shared similar sentiments for his lab staff. “Before Winter ‘22 we have found that 2/3 of the students didn’t have prior in-person lab experience. This is very problematic since this advanced lab relies on skills that students develop over two previous labs. To ensure students’ success and safety, we designed a new experiment that would allow students to practice crucial techniques. Lab staff member Cindy Tran worked very hard to test the protocol and organize the labs in a timely manner. Her ingenuity and dedication are admirable.” Additionally, the teaching lab staff stepped-in as needed to provide laboratory videos and data for upper-level lab courses, optional hands-on experiences for students in select labs and assistance for new faculty and lab instructors in transitioning courses to remote format. Professor Dontarie Stallings reflected on the difficulties that remote learning gave his Chem 108 course, and how with the help of teaching lab staff they were able to overcome them. “Mary Server, Peter Wortuba and I collaborated to redesign the student learning experience —overcoming the remote learning constraints while piloting a Course Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs). The preparatory work by Peter and Mary was both substantial and effective. CUREs allow students to use historical data to generate hypothetical outcomes. The students then test these outcomes and disseminate their respective result. Due to the collaboration with Peter and Mary, each student was able to work on the same 5 week project with unique and authentic data. This collaboration has demonstrated the effectiveness of CUREs and given our department an additional quiver in our teaching portfolio.” Professor Jeremy Klosterman shared praise for his teaching lab staff Cindy, “We would not have been able to give chem majors the opportunity to try out the CHEM143B experiments without her. Not only did Cindy set up and organize the chemicals and equipment for each experiment, she also worked with Dr. Sever to ensure a safe lab environment that followed COVID protocols. Cindy was there every lab section to help the TAs and students carry out the experiments. Her help was greatly appreciated as most of the bootcamp students had taken 7L and 43A online and were working in lab for the very first time. Best of all, Cindy was enthusiastic about the whole experience and I’m sure she always had a smile under her mask.” We are so thankful for the dedication of our staff and teaching assistants who meet issues with flexibility and are always willing to accommodate these constant changes. Your efforts and successes do not go unnoticed.
01/28/2022
Teaching Modalities for Winter Quarter
We are returning to in person instruction as of Monday, January 31st. For faculty teaching in a fully remote modality, ALL aspects of a remote course, including exams, must be offered in a remote format (this may be synchronous or asynchronous). Remote courses cannot be changed back to in person for the remainder of the Winter quarter. For faculty teaching in an in-person or hybrid format, please consider the following: In person instruction may utilize up to 50% remote instructional strategies. Given the late start to in person teaching this quarter, that means you would need to account for a minimum of 1 week of in person instructional time. (You may choose the remainder of the time to use remote practices as you see fit). Please clearly communicate with your students, TAs, and staff what, when, and how you expect students to participate in various course activities. Clear communication of expectations will hopefully minimize the challenges of transitioning back into the classroom. If you would like to request additional or overflow spaces, please complete the Room Request form at your earliest convenience. Due to the York Hall retrofit project, the high-speed scanner has been moved to NSB 2303-A4. Scanner Reservation Process: For those that wish to utilize the scanner, please make a reservation in the Google calendar (directions and link below). It is important that you use the Google calendar to reserve the scanner to avoid conflicts, especially during peak exam periods. Using your UCSD Active Directory (AD) credentials, you will need to be logged into your Google/UCSD account at gsuite.ucsd.edu. When you access the calendar (via the link below), please click on the icon in the bottom right corner (+Google Calendar). This icon will launch the NSB 2303-A4 calendar to allow you to reserve your time and date. https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=ucsd.edu_he06eivk7sujvhihlng0jkr6dk%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America%2FLos_Angeles Scanner Access: All Winter instructors and TAs will be able to access the room via the key card reader. If you have any issues accessing the room, please contact chemadvising@ucsd.edu. Lastly, please be conscious of the potential for ongoing, short term absences due to COVID-19. Existing course policies should help to minimize this impact. These policies may include alternative assignments, make-up options, drop policies, podcasted or recorded lectures or other sessions, etc… Please discuss plans for potential TA or instructor absences with your TAs and colleagues, respectively. Most importantly for all faculty (regardless of instructional modality), please communicate your plans with your students, TAs, and staff. As students are making plans on whether and/or when to return to campus this Winter, the more notice we can provide, the better. If there are questions, comments, or concerns, faculty can contact Thomas Bussey (tbussey@ucsd.edu) or Amy Tran (amytran@ucsd.edu).
01/20/2022
Kyle Angle (Grassian Lab), recipient of the 2022 Carol & George Lattimer Award!
The Lattimer Award is given to an outstanding graduate student who seeks interdisciplinary approaches to problem solving and has a strong commitment to education. Recipients not only demonstrate promise as a stellar scientist or mathematician, but also impact others through mentorship, service, and educational outreach. Congratulations to Kyle Angle (Grassian Lab), named recipient of the 2022 Carol & George Lattimer Award!
01/20/2022
Distinguished Graduate Student Fellowship
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry established the Distinguished Graduate Student Fellowship to recognize research excellence. This prestigious fellowship provides one quarter of fellowship support (stipends and fees), as well as an additional $3,000 bonus for the Fellow to use towards research support. Congratulations to our 2021-22 Distinguished Graduate Student Fellowship recipients! Lucia Cancelada (Prather Lab) Rachel Ehrlich (Yang Lab) Anand Ojha (Amaro Lab) Joseph Palasz (Kubiak Lab) Hyeonglim Seo (Cohen Lab)
01/20/2022
2022 Dean’s Undergraduate Excellence Award!
Congratulations to our students named recipients of the 2022 Dean’s Undergraduate Excellence Award! Francis Alipranti (also Silagi Award recipient) (Komives Lab) Reagan Beers (Sailor Lab) Mark Glossbrenner (E. Romero Lab) Grace Lee (E. Romero Lab) Olivia Modi (Zid Lab) Christopher Nowak (Grassian Lab) Gordon Peiker (Grassian Lab) Jessica Raygoza (Pillus Lab) Elanor Sievers (Debelouchina Lab)