UC San Diego Chemistry & Biochemistry

It is with great sadness that the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry announces the passing of our friend and colleague Mario Molina. Mario Molina was a true hero in the field of chemistry. His Nobel prize winning research on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and his strong leadership showed how science can guide international agreements and policy. His research and teaching on climate change have inspired a new generation of scientists. He was a giant in our field and he will be missed.

Walk-In Advising Wednesdays! Wednesdays, 9-11:45 and 1-3:45 via Zoom Chat with Hanna https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/92530810682... Chat with Gelsey https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/98010883170 Chat with Selaina https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/92010234549

Alexis Komor named one of Fortune Magazine’s 40 under 40 in Health! Congratulations! Komor quietly made history a few years ago. A chemistry postdoc who arrived in the lab of Harvard’s David Liu not long after discovery of Crispr, the breakthrough gene-editing technology, Komor figured out how to edit DNA in a new, still more precise waydown to a single base unit (or letter) in the DNA sequence. Revolutionary as it is, Crispr, which is often described as a molecular sciss...ors, is a crude editing tool. Komor modified the technology, turning it into a base editorcapable of replacing a single cytosine base (C) in the DNA sequence with a thymine base (T)that Liu compares to a pencil and eraser. That’s significant because a number of human diseases are caused by point mutations in which there is a single letter out of sequence. Komor’s base editor had the potential to fix some of those mutations. Komor’s work has given rise to a flourishing scientific field. She inspired her colleague Nicole Gaudelli (see blurb) to develop a second base editor that could turn an adenine base into a guanine base (A to G). The technology Komor and Gaudelli invented became the basis of Beam Therapeutics, which is working to develop treatments for human diseases using base editors. The company had its IPO in February and has a market cap of $1.3 billion. Others are developing different base editors, too. Komor was a consultant for Beam for two years while establishing her own independent lab at the University of California San Diego. - Fortune Magazine

We are excited to announce that UCSD Chemistry and Biochemistry is one of six American Chemical Society (ACS) Bridge Sites in the nation. This initiative was made possible by an NSF- and Genentech-sponsored ACS grant awarded to Assistant Professor Brian Leigh. The mission of the ACS Bridge Project is to strengthen the chemical sciences by increasing the number of underrepresented minority students who receive doctoral degrees in chemistry. https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu//chemist-helps-bridge-underrepre

The 2021 ACS Award in Surface Chemistry was recently announced. Congratulations to Chemistry and Biochemistry Chair, Vicki Grassian!

We are pleased to announce that last January Chair Grassian established a new role in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry for Vice Chair of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Climate (VC-EDIC). Professor Stacey Brydgesa long-time leader in chemistry education and ardent champion of social justice and access to/retention in STEMwas selected as the inaugural VC-EDIC beginning July 1. For more details, visit: https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/feature/walking-the-walk-of-change

A video message from all of us, to all of you!

Welcome to the department Assistant Professor Erik Romero! Our research interests lie in two areas of chemical space: (1) re-designing known reactions under milder reaction conditions and in a greener fashion and (2) discovering new reactions that expand the arsenal of transformations available for academic, industrial, and medicinal chemists. As such, we are interested in developing reactions wherein a photoredox catalyst, that is excited by visible light, works synergisti...cally with a ground-state transition-metal catalyst to promote synthetically valuable transformations of enthalpically strong bonds. The mechanisms of these processes will be investigated such that the insights obtained can be leveraged to rationally design next-generation catalysts featuring heightened activities and selectivities. By accomplishing these goals, we can drive the development of new synthetic strategies that maximize the overall atom-efficiencies of multi-step synthetic sequences, which ultimately saves time, money, and precious limited resources. The EARomero Research Group: https://earomero6.wixsite.com/ther2g See more

Congratulations, Class of 2020! We are very proud of you all, and we wish you great success in your future!

Congratulations Professor Joel Yuen-Zhou!

Congratulations to Molecular Synthesis major, Anthony Rodriguez for being named as an ACS Scholar! The ACS Scholars Program awards renewable scholarships to underrepresented minority students majoring in undergraduate chemistry-related disciplines, and are also intending to pursue careers in chemistry-related fields.