News
12/15/2011
Rommie E. Amaro joins our physical chemistry division in the winter of 2012. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Amaro earned her Ph.D in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2005.
12/13/2011
Silver lining to Asian dust cloud: more snow in California
Asian dust pollution, kicked up by sandstorms in the interior deserts of the continent, could actually be causing heavier snowfall in California. New research from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego suggests that storm clouds with Asian dust drop more snow on the Sierra Nevada than clouds without the dust. This does not include industrial pollution from burning coal or car exhaust, which actually decreases precipitation. Professor Kimberly Prather joins Madeleine Brand on National Public Radio to explain the implications of the study. <a href=http://www.scpr.org/programs/madeleine-brand/2011/12/07/21671/silver-lining-to-asian-dust-cloud-more-snow-in-cal>http://www.scpr.org/programs/madeleine-brand/2011/12/07/21671/silver-lining-to-asian-dust-cloud-more-snow-in-cal</a> The CBS Evening News also aired an interview with Professor Prather at 6:00 p.m. P.S.T. on December 13, 2011. <a href=http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57341838/pollution-from-china-alters-weather-in-u.s-west/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cbsnews%2Ffeed+%28CBSNews.com%29>http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57341838/pollution-from-china-alters-weather-in-u.s-west/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cbsnews%2Ffeed+%28CBSNews.com%29</a>
12/09/2011
Professors Joseph O'Connor and Michael Sailor named 2011 AAAS Fellows
Nine professors at the University of California, San Diego have been named 2011 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation's largest scientific organization. Professors Joseph O'Connor and Michael Sailor are members of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. O'Connor, an organic chemist, was honored for major contributions to synthetic and mechanistic organometallic chemistry, including transition metal-triggered enediyne cyclizations. Sailor, an inorganic chemist, was honored for developments in the chemistry of nanomaterials, in particular nanoporous silicon and iron oxide nanoparticles, that have led to fundamental advances in sensors, drug delivery materials, and in-vivo diagnostic devices. Further information is available online <a href=http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressreleases/nine_uc_san_diego_professors_named_2011_aaas_fellows/>http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressreleases/nine_uc_san_diego_professors_named_2011_aaas_fellows/</a>
11/28/2011
U.C. San Diego Jumps Ahead in Chemical Research
The leading chemistry trade magazine C&EN reported in their Nov. 14, 2011 issue that U.C. San Diego was among the 'big movers' in dollars spent on chemistry research. U.C. San Diego ranked #10 in the nation in overall spending on chemical research ($24M) and #7 in federal support for chemical research ($18M). The expenditures on chemical research at U.C. San Diego are matched only by the top research institutions, such as Northwestern University, Harvard University, and our sister school U.C. Berkeley. In addition, U.C. San Diego ranked #6 in country for all R&D spending (including life sciences, engineering, mathematics, chemistry, and others), placing it above elite institutions such as Cornell University, Stanford University, and M.I.T. For more information, see the full article at <a href=http://cen.acs.org/articles/89/i46/NSF-Data-Show-Academic-RD.html>http://cen.acs.org/articles/89/i46/NSF-Data-Show-Academic-RD.html</a>
11/25/2011
Professor Seth Cohen Co-founder of Biotech Startup
A newly established biopharmaceutical company in Burlingame, Calif. that will develop novel cancer therapies has been co-founded by Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Seth Cohen. Called Cleave Biosciences (<a href=http://www.cleavebio.com/ >http://www.cleavebio.com/</a>), the new company was established by Cohen and two other scientific co-founders Raymond Deshaies and Francesco Parlati. The company was founded in part on Cohens work on metalloprotein inhibitors at U.C. San Diego (<a href=http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/smetalloproteases.asp >http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/smetalloproteases.asp</a>) and, in collaboration with Deshaies at Caltech, has developed lead compounds for novel cancer targets. A news release on the new company and its $42 million in financing is at: <a href=http://www.cleavebio.com/CleaveSeriesAPRFINAL.pdf >http://www.cleavebio.com/CleaveSeriesAPRFINAL.pdf</a>
10/28/2011
Studying real world chemical complexity in the lab: The ocean in a beaker
The Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CAICE) is simulating ocean-atmosphere-climate reaction processes in a lab setting, using breaking waves that produce realistic sea spray particles. After a year of major effort working with Scripps oceanographers, an ocean-atmosphere system is now in place to study the chemistry of ocean and atmosphere and how they impact one another. Scientists will be able to systematically make changes to ocean chemistry, by adding microorganisms, to determine how changes in ocean chemistry will affect sea spray and cloud properties that are important to climate. Over the next 2.5 weeks, scientists with state-of-the-art instrumentation shipped from around the world will be visiting UC San Diego to sample the new ocean in the lab, studying how effectively the particles form clouds, undergo heterogeneous reactions, as well as details on their chemical complexity at the microscopic level. It you are in the San Diego area between Oct 31 and Nov 13, you are invited to visit and see the project in action. Plus, scientists involved will update this blog each day. <a href="https://climatechem.wordpress.com">https://climatechem.wordpress.com</a>
09/20/2011
2 UC San Diego Scientists Receive Prestigious New Innovator Awards from NIH
Two scientists at the University of California, San Diego have been awarded New Innovator Awards from the National Institutes of Health for research projects that challenge the status quo with innovative ideas that have the potential to propel fields forward and speed the translation of research into improved health for the American public. The federal biomedical research agency announced today that John Chang, an assistant professor of medicine, and Nathan Gianneschi, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, are among 49 scientists nationwide to receive the prestigious award this year. Gianneschi and his group will receive $2.3 million over the next five years to conduct further research on their innovative new strategy for delivering molecules specifically to tumor tissue, while avoiding unwanted side-effects normally associated with chemotherapy.
09/08/2011
Christopher Johnson wins NSF American Competitiveness in Chemistry Postdoctoral Fellowship
Christopher Johnson, awarded the Ph.D. In Physics this month for studies of combustion intermediates in Bob Continetti's laboratory, received one of 10 highly competitive National Science Foundation American Competitiveness in Chemistry Postdoctoral Fellowships in August. Chris will carry out his postdoctoral studies at Yale University in the laboratory of Prof. Mark Johnson, and will continue to collaborate with scientists at UCSD in the NSF-sponsored Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment.
09/07/2011
Jeffrey Brodin to receive Bruno Zimm Award
Graduate student Jeffrey Brodin, who works in the Tezcan lab, has been selected to as the 2011 Bruno Zimm Award Recipient. The award recognizes research excellence in the field of biophysical chemistry. This prestigious award provides a prize of $1,000.
09/06/2011
ACS 2012 National Award Winners Kubiak and Rheingold
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry congratulates Distinguished Professors Clifford P. Kubiak and Arnold L. Rheingold for winning ACS 2012 National Awards. Professor Kubiak won the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry. Professor-In-Residence Arnold L. Rheingold won the ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry. The ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry winner is selected from nominees who have demonstrated extensive contributions to the advancement of inorganic chemistry. The ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry winner is selected from nominees who have accomplished outstanding research in the preparation, properties, reactions, or structure of inorganic substances. Special consideration is given to independence of thought and originality. Each award consists of $5,000, a certificate, and money to attend the meeting at which the award will be presented. This is the first time these two awards have gone to the same department, a testament to our strength in Inorganic Chemistry. Congratulations!
08/06/2011
Professor Emeritus William S. Allison passed away Saturday, July 30, following a long illness. He was an internationally renowned expert in the field of bioenergetics and was especially known for his work on the molecular machinery in cells that makes ATP. Recruited to UCSD in 1969, he continued to work long after retirement in 2003. He was a valued colleague and will be missed. In accordance with his wishes, arrangements will be private.
08/05/2011
UCSD wins 2011 NIOSH Collegiate Health and Safety Award
The 2011 NIOSH Collegiate Health and Safety Award has been won by the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the University of California, San Diego. This award, given by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Health & Safety, recognizes the most comprehensive laboratory safety program in higher education (undergraduate study only). The Department received a commemorative plaque plus a $1000 prize for travel expenses so a representative could attend the award symposium at the fall national meeting of the American Chemical Society. Criteria for the award and a list of past recipients are given on the website of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety.
08/05/2011
Field study may herald changes in weather and climate forecasting
Atmospheric dust may play a key role in precipitation, according to researchers who flew aircraft and used ground monitoring stations to study these particles carried over the Pacific Ocean from Asia. They presented their results on Aug. 30 in a Division of Environmental Chemistry symposium at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Denver. Kimberly A. Prather, Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego and Professor in the Graduate Department and Climate, Atmospheric Science and Physical Oceanography Division at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and colleagues established correlation between the dust from Asia and the quantity of ice in clouds over California and snowfall amounts in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Part of a multiyear study of cloud properties and precipitation in California known as CalWater, the researchers even traced one dust transport event in 2009 that added 16 inches to the snowpack.
08/04/2011
Measurements of Fukushima Radiation Leakage Made at Scripps Pier
Atmospheric chemists at the University of California, San Diego report the first quantitative measurement of the amount of radiation leaked from the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima, Japan, following the devastating earthquake and tsunami earlier this year. Their estimate, reported August 15 in the early, online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is based on sulfur dioxide gas and sulfate particles that blew across the Pacific Ocean on prevailing westerly winds to an instrument at the end of the pier at Scripps Institution of Oceanography where the group of senior author Mark Thiemens, Dean of UCSD's Division of Physical Sciences, continuously monitors atmospheric sulfur.
08/03/2011
Sawrey and Rheingold selected as 2011 ACS Fellows
Associate Vice Chancellor Barbara Sawrey and Distinguished Professor-In-Residence Arnold Rheingold have been selected as 2011 Fellows of the American Chemical Society. The designation ASCF is awarded to members who have made important contributions to the science or profession and for service to the Society. The 2011 ACS Fellows will be honored at a special ceremony during the ACS National Meeting in Denver on Monday, August 29, 2011. Congratulations!
08/01/2011
Seth Cohen to lead scholars' collaborative
Seth M. Cohen, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California San Diego, has been named Chairman the Cottrell Scholars Collaborative, a newly formed organization composed of recipients of the prestigious Cottrell Scholar Award. The collaborative, is meant to be a vehicle for the scientists to collaborate with each other even as they pursue their individual areas of study at their home universities. At same time Cohen was named chairman, an advisory board of five other scientists was named.
07/19/2011
Mike Tauber wins NSF CAREER award
Assistant Professor Mike Tauber, has earned a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The CAREER Award is NSF's most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of our University. Such activities will help build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in education and research in the chemical sciences.
07/14/2011
Dr. Haim Weizman today received UCSD's Safety Award For Excellence (SAFE). It celebrates UCSD employees who excel in creating and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace consistent with Environment, Health & Safety policies. Nominees must satisfy 1 or more of these 5 criteria; implementing a safety program for their workplace, taking an active role and being a strong advocate of safety and health, demonstrating significant improvement over previous conditions, consistently maintaining a good safety program over a number of years, and making an extra effort to improve or correct a specific aspect of safety within the workplace. Previous departmental winners include Sheila Kennedy, Professor Murray Goodman, Joseph Taulane, Professor Jay Siegel, and the Undergraduate Lab Staff.
07/07/2011
Neal K. Devaraj joins our biochemistry division in the fall of 2011. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Devaraj earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University in 2007.
06/23/2011
Swarming Nanoparticles Communicate to Boost Drug Concentrations Near Tumors
A team of scientists drawn from the University of California, San Diego, MIT, and the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute has demonstrated that, like swarming insects drawing crowds to a food source, a system of nanoparticles and engineered proteins can communicate with one another to raise the concentration of systemically administered drugs at the site of a tumor. The system harnesses one of the bodys own communication pathways, one that coagulates blood, to accumulate drugs right where they are needed. Professor Sailor and colleagues at MIT and UC Santa Barbaras Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute describe their system in Nature Materials online July 19 ahead of the print edition of the journal.
06/14/2011
Kimberly Prather wins 2011 Distinguished Scientist Award
Kimberly A. Prather, Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego and Professor in the Graduate Department and Climate, Atmospheric Science and Physical Oceanography Division at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is to receive the 2011 Distinguished Scientist Award from the San Diego Section of the American Chemical Society. Based on the recipient's scientific acumen and a general evaluation of their overall scientific contributions, it is the most prominent award the section gives. The award, first presented to Distinguished Professor Bruno Zimm in 1992, is designed to honor a prominent local scientist and to highlight the importance of San Diego as a center of research. Other departmental winners include Distinguished Professors Caserio, Nicolaou, Taylor, Goodman, Tsien, Thiemens and McCammon.
06/06/2011
Emeriti mentoring program helping undergraduates
Emeritus Chemistry Professor John Wheeler is one of the volunteers guiding first-generation college students through the university experience. These are high-achieving first generation and low-income students who often do not have someone at home with a core set of college experiences. Faculty mentors are matched one-on-one with first and second year undergraduates based on the students interests and goals. Established in 2005, the program is a model for other California universities. Currently the program has 39 student mentees. It looks to add others to the 34 active emeriti faculty mentors.
05/31/2011
Pieter Dorrestein to receive American Society of Pharmacognosy's Matt Suffness Award
Pieter Dorrestein has been chosen receive the 2011 Matt Suffness Young Investigators Symposium Award from the American Society of Pharmacognosy. The award is intended to recognize the contributions of younger natural product scientists, and to provide a special, timely forum for them to present results from their research at the annual ASP meeting. Dorrestein is an Associate Professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCSD.
05/24/2011
Eric Salgado receives 2010-2011 Martin D. Kamen Prize
Dr. Eric Salgado has been awarded the 2010-2011 Martin D. Kamen Prize for his thesis, "Metal-Directed Protein Self-Assembly."
05/24/2011
Chemistry in the clouds-searching for links between aerosols and California's water supply
In 2009, the California Energy Commission and NOAA launched a research project called CalWater. It has two aims: to gain a better understanding of the mechanics of atmospheric rivers when they slam into the state's mountain ranges and how computer models of climate change should account for the rivers, and to determine if and how precipitation is influenced by the tiny particles called aerosols that are at the center of every cloud droplet. Prather and collaborators from PNNL, Colorado State University, and NOAA are studying the impacts from aerosols, which can be liquid or solid, the products of nature, such as sea salt or windblown desert dust, or the products of man, such as urban soot or nitrates from farm operations. The answers will help resolve some of the unknowns of California's future water supply.
05/17/2011
Distinguished Professor K.C. Nicolaou elected resident member of the American Philosophical Society
Kyriakos C. Nicolaou (Distinguished Professor in the UCSD Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Chairman of the Department of Chemistry and Shiley Professor of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute, and Skaggs Professor of Chemical Biology at the Skaggs Institute of Chemical Biology) is one of five honorees elected as a Resident Member of the American Philosophical Society, in the category of Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
05/09/2011
Timothy Bertram and Michael Galperin win DOE Early Career Research Program Awards
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science announced today that 65 scientists from across the nation have been selected for five-year awards under the Office's Early Career Research Program. The five-year awards are designed to bolster the nation's scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work.
05/05/2011
Barbara Sawrey wins 2011 Athena Pinnacle Award
Barbara Sawrey, UC San Diego's associate vice chancellor for undergraduate education, received The Athena San Diego Individual in Education Pinnacle Award last week.
05/03/2011
Professor J. Andrew McCammon elected to the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences today elected three professors at the University of California, San Diego to membership in the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors bestowed on U.S. scientists and engineers.
05/02/2011
Teaching award won by Dr. Christina Johnson
The Committee on Distinguished Teaching has selected Dr. Christina Johnson as the recipient of a 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award.
05/02/2011
Michael Galperin and Ulrich Müller selected as 2011-2012 Hellman Fellows
Assistant Professors Michael Galperin and Ulrich Müller have been selected as 2011-2012 Hellman Fellows. The Hellman Fellowship Program was established at UCSD in 1995 through the generosity of Chris and Warren Hellman.
04/12/2011
What can Nanochemistry do for Chemical and Biological Sensing
It seems these days that if one's "pet nanomaterial" does not live up to initial expectations for use as an active component of a solar cell, photodetector, light-emitting diode, laser, field-effect transistor, battery, display, chromatography stationary phase, water splitting or carbon dioxide recycling photocatalyst, hydrogen storage or gas separation open framework, drug delivery or detoxification system, medical imaging or therapeutic device, then for sure it will respond in some way to some stimulus and thereby function as some sort of chemical or biological sensor.
04/12/2011
Rejuvenating Electron Microscopy
Modifying a protein from a plant much favored by science, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and colleagues have created a new type of genetic tag visible under an electron microscope, illuminating life in never-before-seen detail.
04/11/2011
Structure Formed by Strep Protein Can Trigger Toxic Shock
Infection with some strains of strep turn deadly when a protein found on their surface triggers a widespread inflammatory reaction. In a report published April 7 in the journal Nature, UC San Diego researchers describe the precise architecture of a superstructure formed when the bacterial protein called M1 links with a host protein, fibrinogen, that is normally involved in clotting blood.
04/05/2011
Five students awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
We proudly announce that the National Science Foundation has chosen five Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry students to receive 2011-12 Graduate Research Fellowships - Corinne Allen (Seth Cohen, advisor) Mehrnoosh Arrar (J. Andrew McCammon, advisor) Henry Korman (K.C. Nicolaou, advisor) Brandon Razooky (Leor Weinberger, advisor) Olivia Ryder (Timothy Bertram, advisor) More info on NSF GRFP: http://www.nsfgrfp.org/
03/18/2011
High school student is top 10 Intel Science Talent Search winner
Xiaoyu "Carrie" Cao, a Torrey Pines High School student working in the Sailor lab since 2008, is one of the top 10 Intel Science Talent Search 2011 awardees. This tremendous distinction singles her out as one of the top high school-age scientists in the U.S. Entrants were asked to develop solutions for global challenges. Cao devised a new type of nanoscale sensor using silicon and polymers, which detects biochemicals in water and chemical toxins in the air. She met with President Obama in Washington D.C. and received a $20,000 award. Congratulations Carrie!
03/15/2011
Carlos A. Guerrero joins our organic chemistry division in the fall of 2011. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University. Dr. Guerrero earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from The Scripps Research Institute in 2008.
03/01/2011
Kristine Tanabe and Eric Salgado win 2011 DIC Young Investigator Awards
Graduate students Eric Salgado and Kristine Tanabe won Young Investigator Awards from the American Chemical Society's Division of Inorganic Chemistry. They are two out of the eight winners who will speak at a symposium honoring talented young inorganic chemists this fall at the 2011 ACS meeting in Denver. Each winner will give a presentation and receive $1000 and a commemorative plaque. This is the first time two students from one dept have won this award. Akif Tezcan and Seth Cohen are their proud advisers.
01/25/2011
2011 Murray Goodman Endowed Lecture
Sam Gellman will give the 7th Goodman Endowed Lecture.