Professor Anastassia Alexandrova is part of the newly funded Energy Frontier Research Center, named Center for Closing the Carbon Cycle (4C).   The Center for Closing the Carbon Cycle, or “4C” for short, seeks to advance the fundamental science behind CO2 capture and conversion. With a DOE grant of more than $10 million, University of California, […]

We are pleased to welcome alumna Mackenzie Anderson (BS ’17, MS ’19, PhD ’22, Kaner group) as the department’s new 2022-25 Willard F Libby Teacher-Scholar. Our Teacher-Scholar program allows postdoctoral scholars to experience research and teaching at the same time as a way to prepare them for future faculty positions. A true Bruin, Anderson received […]

Led by Professor Anastassia Alexandrova, the new center’s research team will be working in a new branch of chemistry involving the creation of molecules that act as qubits. Alexandrova will lead the team composed of Assistant Professor Justin Caram (Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCLA), Dean of Physical Sciences and Distinguished Professor Miguel Garcia-Garibay (Chemistry and Biochemistry, […]

In a new video, Professor Keriann Backus explains her Nobel Fund project aiming to develop a new method for mapping the protein interactions that are fundamental to almost every process in living things. The new photoaffinity chemistry developed by Backus’s team could accelerate our understanding of the millions of interactions that are regulated by proteins […]

Professor Ken Houk is co-leader of a team of researchers who have found a way to break down fluorine compounds that contribute to pollution and health problems The team includes Professor Ken Houk and former group members YiLu Li (Tianjin University) and Professor Xiao-Song Xue (Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry), along with UCLA postdoctoral alumnus Professor Will Dichtel and […]

Professor Amy Keating (PhD ’98 Houk/García-Garibay groups) has been named head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Department of Biology. After graduating from Harvard University with a degree in physics in 1992, Professor Amy Keating developed an interest in organic chemistry and reaction mechanisms and joined UCLA’s organic chemistry graduate program working with Professors Ken Houk and Miguel García-Garibay.  […]

Their Nobel Fund project is to combine synthetic biology and synthetic chemistry to develop cannabinoids, both the common cannabinoids as well as rare cannabinoids for medicinal use. They have been able to develop a microbial host that can produce these compounds in high titters, which allows further development of these compounds into the full biologically […]

In a new video, Professor Richard Kaner explains his Nobel Fund team’s goal is to create technology for grid-level batteries that store energy from sustainable but intermittent sources such as the sun and wind. Kaner’s collaborator on the project is Professor Yuzhang Li from UCLA Engineering. Kaner is one of six Chemistry & Biochemistry faculty members selected […]