The department of Chemistry and Biochemistry would like to congratulate Professor Anastassia Alexandrova, who was recently promoted to the rank of Associate Professor, effective July 1, 2015.
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Professor Sri Kosuri's work with alternative rock band OK Go to help release their newest album, encoded into DNA, has been highlighted by the New Yorker and Popular Science.
Popular Science (By Francie Diep): OK Go, the band behind viral music videos like that one with the treadmills, plans to release its newest album encoded into DNA later this year, the New Yorker reports.

The list of winners and photos from the 2014 Departmental Awards Ceremony are now available for viewing online. On Friday, November 21, we held our annual Departmental Awards Ceremony. In addition to recognizing the efforts of our accomplished students and faculty, we had an opportunity to celebrate our Department's excellence in teaching and research. See More >>

UCLA is the number 5 university in the subject of chemistry and number 8 overall in the inaugural U.S. News and World Report Rankings - Best Global Universities.

UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry is delighted to announce the arrival of Assistant Professor, Alexander Spokoyny.
Dr. Alexander Spokoyny was born and spent his childhood and teenage years in Moscow, Russia. After his family immigrated to United States in 2001, Spokoyny attended UCLA, where he was introduced to the area of boron cluster chemistry working as an undergraduate researcher in the laboratory of Prof. M. Frederick Hawthorne. He continued his graduate chemistry education at Northwestern University under the guidance of Prof. Chad A. Mirkin. At Northwestern, Spokoyny developed new materials, devices, and fundamentally new classes of ligand platforms based on organomimetic carborane clusters. Upon receiving his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry in 2011, Spokoyny decided to move further east, where he was an NIH PostDoctoral Fellow working in the laboratories of Profs. Stephen L. Buchwald and Bradley L. Pentelute at MIT. There his research interests involved the development of new bioconjugation strategies for peptides and proteins and regulation of proteinprotein interactions.
Prof. Spokoyny's research program encompasses an interdisciplinary approach focusing on pressing problems in chemistry, biology, medicine and materials science. To tackle these challenges, we are exploring fundamentally new synthetic avenues, structural understanding, and applications for inorganic and organomimetic clusters. His group will focus on the development of an extensive and versatile synthetic toolbox, allowing for the functionalization of various 3D cluster motifs (polyhedral boranes and carboranes), polyoxometallates (POMs), and small aluminum and noble metal clusters. Specifically, they will be working on new ligand platforms with unique electronic and steric features, stable inorganic radicals, and multifunctional, atomically precise nanosized molecules. These research efforts will reveal novel and potentially useful solutions to important problems in science and technology, including: catalysis, energy storage and protein recognition and labeling.
You can learn more about Prof. Spokoyny and his group by visiting his group website: Spokoyny Group Web Site »

Recruitment Period :: Open Jul 1, 2014 through Nov 28, 2014
Biochemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Lecturer Positions
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA seeks applications for temporary lecturer positions in the areas of Biochemistry, Organic Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry and Chemistry Labs during the 2014-15 academic year. Responsibilities will include lecturing, conducting regularly scheduled office hours, writing and grading exams and problem sets, and supervising teaching assistants for an upper division introductory Biochemistry course focused on Structure of macromolecules, Enzymes, and Metabolism. Qualified candidates will have a Ph.D. in biochemistry or equivalent discipline and have significant experience in teaching Biochemistry courses at the college level.
Candidates should provide a curriculum vitae and a statement of teaching philosophy (max 1 page), and should arrange for 3 letters of reference to be uploaded to UCLA Academic Recruit.
Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the positions are filled. The University of California is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

A brand new edition of Chemistry & Biochemistry Newsletter 2013-2014 Volume 1 is now available.
Download as a PDF or Read online
We have completely revamped the newsletter, including more content to provide you with better insight about the faculty, students, and scientific achievements that make our department so successful.
You will also learn about our fundraising campaign, “Advancing Excellence in Undergraduate Laboratory Education” (Page 24) . We are confident that with your support we can meet our goals and greatly enhance the UCLA experience for thousands of current and future Bruins.

The American Cancer Society has awarded Professor Jorge Torre, while Prof. Liao and his team won the NAS Award for Industrial Application of Science. Prof. Liao is being honored for his work in the development of industrially viable processes for the generation of biofuels. Prof. Liao's work represents the cutting edge in the industrial application of synthetic biology.
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The American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grants support innovative cancer research across a wide range of disciplines. The society awarded Professor Jorge Torres with the American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grant.
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UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry is delighted to announce the arrival of Assistant Professor, Sriram Kosuri.
Prof. Kosuri received his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 2001, where he conducted research on bacterial systems biology with Dr. Adam Arkin. In 2007, he received his Sc.D. in Biological Engineering at MIT working with Dr. Drew Endy. His research focused on developing simulations and models of bacteriophage T7 gene expression, and testing these models by redesign and synthesis of the T7 genome. During this time he co-founded OpenWetWare, and helped the initial development of the MIT Synthetic Biology Working Group and iGEM.

UCLA undergraduate student Megan Cory (Biochemistry major) was one of seven blood donors who helped to save the life of a young mother who nearly died from massive bleeding after giving birth.
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