College Of Chemistry - UC Berkeley

01/18/2025

Congratulations to Jennifer Doudna for being awarded a National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement. 🏅

Doudna, a UC Berkeley biochemist, shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing.

“Those who earn these awards embody the promise of America by pushing the boundaries of what is possible,” read a White House announcement about this year’s medalists. “These trailblazers have harnessed the power of science and technology to tackle challenging problems and deliver innovative solutions for Americans and for communities around the world.”

Doudna is the fourth Berkeley faculty member to receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. At least 34 faculty members have received the National Medal of Science.

Announced by President Joe Biden, the award honors the nation's technological trailblazers

01/07/2025

Congratulations to Jennifer Doudna, professor of chemistry and molecular and cell biology, who was honored by President Biden with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation as a pioneer of CRISPR gene editing 🧬!

https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/doudna-receives-national-medal-technology-and-innovation

01/03/2025

A groundbreaking new machine-learning method created by College of Chemistry and Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences researchers makes computer simulations of atoms faster and more efficient. The method, known as Efficiently Scaled Attention Interatomic Potential (EScAIP) reduces memory usage by more than five times and speeds up its results by more than ten times compared to existing models.

Why is this important? These calculations, which help us better understand batteries and semiconductors, and lead to drug discovery, for example, require a tremendous amount of computing power, and are usually done on the world’s biggest supercomputers.

Read the full story at the link below to understand what this new development means for the research community.

https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/new-machine-learning-method-makes-computer-simulations-atoms-faster-and-more-efficient

12/19/2024

Holiday greetings from the College of Chemistry 🧪

12/17/2024

Congratulations to our own Markita Landry! 🎉🎉🎉

We are honored to announce the inaugural recipients of the CITRIS Innovation Fellowship and AIC Awards.

These three groundbreaking University of California researchers will receive up to $200,000 over two years to help them take their technology solutions for critical societal issues from the lab to the marketplace:
— Reza Ehsani, UC Merced, "Sensor clip for fast, cost-effective monitoring of plant water status"
— Saif Islam, UC Davis, "Advanced hardware security with unclonable ID protection enabled by photonic technology"
— Markita Landry, UC Berkeley, "Nanotechnologies for rapid crop bioengineering"

Read more about their projects: bit.ly/citris-2024aic-awardees

UC Davis College of Engineering | UC Davis Electrical and Computer Engineering | College Of Chemistry - UC Berkeley

11/20/2024

Nine researchers from the College of Chemistry have been named to the 2024 Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers list, recognizing the major impact in their fields through the publication of highly cited papers over the past ten years. According to Clarivate, this group of researchers represents about 1 in every 1,000 scientists and social scientists worldwide.

Citations — when other scientists reference a researcher’s work in their own papers — not only acknowledge the quality of the research but also show its significant contribution to advancing the field.

The full list of highly cited researchers can be found on the Clarivate website.

11/15/2024

Many industrial plants emit large amounts of CO2 — a potent greenhouse gas — that is too hot for current carbon capture technology.

Now, our chemists have discovered that a type of metal-organic framework (M*F), can capture CO2 at higher temperatures, making it suitable for industrial exhaust streams.

*f

UC Berkeley

https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/breakthrough-in-capturing-hot-co2-from-industrial-exhaust

11/04/2024

Beloved colleague and prolific scholar, Alexander (Alex) Pines, Glenn T. Seaborg Professor Emeritus and Professor of the Graduate School, has passed away. He was 79 years old.

As part of his successful career, Alex was a Senior Scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, contributing to DOE programs over four decades. He retired in 2017 but remained active in research, education, and fundraising for the college as professor of the graduate school.

Alex was a pioneer in the development and applications of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, originally in solid-state NMR. Through the art and practice of chemistry, Alex made the impossible possible and laid the groundwork for more advancements to come.

In 2023, thanks to a very generous philanthropic investment, the Pines Magnetic Resonance Center was launched in his honor in the College of Chemistry.

https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/beloved-colleague-and-prolific-scholar-alexander-alex-pines-has-passed-away

10/23/2024

Capturing and storing carbon dioxide is key to lowering greenhouse gases and slowing global warming, but today’s solutions only work for concentrated sources like power plant exhaust.

But a new type of material developed by our chemists could be the answer to getting the world to negative emissions. 🌎

Read the full story at https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/capturing-carbon-air-just-got-easier 🔗

UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society

09/26/2024

Berkeley Chemical Engineering now ranks No. 2 in the top undergraduate chemical engineering programs nationwide, according to U.S.News & World Report’s 2025 rankings. This is up from No. 4 last year.

Check out the full College of Chemistry rankings at chemistry.berkeley.edu/rankings 🔗

09/13/2024

Chemistry is more than just beakers and googles — it is the products in our hair, the scents we wear and, quite literally, the food we eat!

09/13/2024

The Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences have honored Markita Landry, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, with the Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists.

🧠 Landry was awarded the Blavatnik prize for contributions to the development of neurochemical probes — tiny tools — that enable visualization of brain chemistry, and its imbalances in neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases.

🌱 Her lab’s work in the development of tools to genetically engineer plants was also recognized for this award. This important work is helping to tackle big problems in health and the environment, paving the way for advances in more resilient crops and developing new treatments for neurological disease ranging from Alzheimer’s to autism spectrum disorder.

Press Release: https://www.nyas.org/press-release/2024-blavatnik-national-awards-for-young-scientists-announced/Prof. Markita del Carpio Landry from the Univ...

09/10/2024

Professor Omar M. Yaghi’s groundbreaking contributions to the discovery and development of nanoporous framework materials and advancing their applications in carbon capture, hydrogen storage, and water harvesting from desert air have earned him another award 🏆!

https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/omar-yaghi-awarded-2024-balzan-prize

09/10/2024

Game changing science 🧪

Breaking the polymer chain. A new catalytic process vaporizes the main plastics in use today, polyethylene and polypropylene, to release their building block...

09/02/2024

“I always found it really curious that there’s so little discussion of the social impacts of scientific research, even though our research does end up having these really big impacts.”

Kay Xia helped develop the Scientific Responsibility and Citizenship course for first-year chemistry graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley.

A course at the University of California, Berkeley, gets first-year chemistry graduate students thinking about the field’s broader impact

08/29/2024

Today, a new chemical process can essentially vaporize plastics that dominate the waste stream and turn them into building blocks for new plastics, thanks to chemistry professor John Hartwig and his team of researchers.

Read the full story (and watch the video!) here:

https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/new-process-vaporizes-plastic-bags-and-bottles

08/28/2024

The 2024 Games may be over, but student athletes at the College of Chemistry know the same kind of discipline and resilience as any Olympian. They also know that balancing books and sports is a journey of growth.

Meet Jaxon Mitchell and Rebecca Tomann, and learn how they are mastering the art of juggling academics and athletics, building character along the way.

https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/balancing-academics-and-athletics-character-building-experience