Chemistry and Biochemistry

Fraser Stoddart received the King Faisal International Prize for science from Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia at a ceremony in March 2007. The award recognized Fraser for his pioneering work in the develop-ment of a new fi eld in chemistry dealing with nanoscience and, in particular, his work in molecular recognition and self-assembly.

“I am both elated and excited by this honor,” Fraser says. “The King Faisal International Prize in science recognizes only the high-est stratum of scholars and scien-tists from universities, scientifi c societies, and research centers throughout the world. The list of previous recipients is dauntingly impressive. They have steered the course of science in their time and now occupy a place in history. It is a humbling experience for me to be joining their ranks.”

The winners received their awards in a special ceremony held in Riyadh under the auspices of the King of Saudi Arabia.

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry takes great pride in an-nouncing that Dr. R. Stanley Wiliams will be awarded the 2007 Glenn T. Sea-borg Medal. The award, established in 1987, celebrates outstanding achieve-ment in chemistry and biochemistry.

Stan is an HP Senior Fellow at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories and founding Director (since 1995) of the HP Quantum Science Research (QSR) group. He received his B.A. degree in Chemical Physics in 1974 from Rice University and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1978. He was a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs from 1978-80 and a distinguished member of the faculty at the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry from 1980-95.

His primary scientific research during the past 30 years has been in the areas of solid-state chemistry and physics and their applications to technology. This has evolved into the areas of nanostructures and chemically assembled materials, emphasizing the thermodynamics of size and shape. Most recently, he has examined the fundamental limits of information and computing, which has led to his current research in nanoelectronics and nano-photonics. He has received numerous awards for business, scientifi c and aca-demic achievement, including the 2004 Herman Bloch Medal for Industrial Re-search, the 2000 Julius Springer Award for Applied Physics, the 2000 Feynman

Dr. R. Stanley Williams, Seaborg Medalist

R. Stanley Williams

Prize in Nanotechnology, a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship. He has been awarded 57 U.S. patents with more than 40 pending, and has published over 300 papers in professional scientifi c jour-nals. One of his patents was named as one of fi ve that will “transform business and technology” by MIT’s Technology Review in 2000.

Three distinguished experts in nanomaterials and nanotechnology will also speak at the Seaborg Symposium. Louis Brus spent nearly 25 years at Bell Labs, where his research on semiconductor nanocrystals brought him acclaim. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, he has held the Thomas A. Edison Chair in Chemistry at Columbia University since 1996. His research focuses on the physical chem-istry of materials including interfaces, nanocrystals and nanotubes.

Like Stan, Mostafa El-Sayed and James Heath have close ties to UCLA. Mostafa, a member of our faculty for 33 years, is the Julius Brown Chair and Re-gents’ Professor at Georgia Tech and is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. As director of the Laser Dynamics Laboratory, he has pioneered the use of optical methods to study the fundamental electronic properties of nanocrystals and has focused as well on nanoparticles in technological and medical applications. James Heath, the Gilloon Professor of Chemistry at Caltech, is a world leader in the devel-opment of molecular electronics. Jim’s research now aims to attack challenges in cancer and immunology by develop-ing rapid diagnostic tools integrating nanotechnology and microfl uidics.

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry invites faculty, students, alumni, and friends to join us in celebrat-ing Stan’s achievements. The Seaborg Symposium and Medal Award Dinner will take place on Saturday, November 3rd (see page 15 to register.)

Volume 28 Number 1

Chair’s Message....................Happenings...........................3In Focus..................................4Commencement 2007..............Alumni News...........................6In Memoriam..............................Faculty Research...................13Recent Donors........................14Seaborg Registration.........

..2

..3

..6

..71212131415

Inside This Issue

Fall 2007

Fraser Stoddart Honored

UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 20072

Harold G. Martinson

Chair’s Message

I am delighted once again to be able to begin my newsletter message by welcoming a new faculty member! Margot Quinlan will be joining us as an assistant professor on July 1, 2008. Margot will be the inaugural holder of a newly endowed, five year term chair—the Alexander and Renee Kolin Endowed Professorship of Molecular Biology and Biophysics.

As a graduate student at Penn, Margot focused on the fascinating mechanism of force production by the molecular motor protein, myosin. Myo-sin generates force in muscle cells, and shuttles cargo around cells by moving along actin fi laments. Myosin grasps an actin fi lament using two arms, and Margot asked whether the myosin then moves along the actin in an inch worm fashion or instead by a stepping motion. To answer this she developed a novel microscope that can monitor changes in fl uorescence polarization in real time and thereby monitor the orientations of single molecules as they move. She found that myosin employs a human-like walking motion to move along fi la-ments of actin.

As a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF Margot shifted her focus to actin—and to cell biology, where she studied the mechanisms regulating the dynamic assembly and disassembly of actin fi laments in the cell. Actin fi laments, as major components of the cytoskeleton, give the cell its shape, help it to move, and provide for intracellular transport. Margot scored a major discovery here by identifying “Spir,” which regulates

the assembly of actin fi laments and which, even at the earliest stages of embryogenesis, is vital for establish-ing the proper polarity of the embryo. Margot plans to expand her research on Spir when she sets up her independent research program here at UCLA.

Congratulations to Yung-Ya Lin! Promoted to associate professor as of July 1st this year, he is a formidable addition to the tenured ranks of this department. As a teacher Yung-Ya is second to none, inspiring passionate and eloquent praise from students at all levels. In research Yung-Ya is best known for creating entirely new ways of thinking about complex issues—issues that others have thought about for de-cades. Yung-Ya works at the interface of sophisticated physical chemistry and cutting-edge medical imaging. Everyone knows that nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a classic part of physical science, having long played a cornerstone role in the determination of molecular structure. More recently, it has occupied center stage as the basis for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in medicine.

Yung-Ya’s research has introduced a totally new and powerful approach to MRI. Through a combination of theory and experiment, he has harnessed non-linear nuclear spin dynamics to enhance both sensitivity and contrast. Essentially all monographs and all cur-rent NMR characterizations and MRI applications deal exclusively with the linear nature of spin dynamics. The basic idea of Yung-Ya’s research has been to control the chaotic behavior of spins that is caused by non-linear ef-fects such as “radiation damping” and “distant-field” interactions. Yung-Ya has exploited these effects to enhance contrast and make possible earlier and surer detection of cancer tumors and disease lesions. This approach has already been tested in mice with very promising results.

In closing, I would like to provide an update on two events reported in the Spring 2006 Newsletter and an inter-esting connection between them. The

fi rst of these events was the two-day remembrance of Chris Foote, which included science, music, and a banquet in October of 2005. Chris Foote was a faculty member at UCLA for over forty years, and he created the fi eld of singlet oxygen organic chemistry that is of great importance to atmospheric, materials, and biological chemistry. As Chair of our department and contributor to numerous university activities, as well as an outstanding teacher and textbook author, he positively infl uenced every aspect of our university community. Moreover, our department continues to benefi t enormously from the generos-ity of the late Chris Foote and his wife, Judi Smith, who, together with a host of their colleagues, friends, and former students endowed the Christopher S. Foote Graduate Fellowships in Organic Chemistry. As described on page 5, the fellowships support outstanding students during their graduate careers and help UCLA attract the best to our department.

I mentioned that there were two events from the Spring 2006 Newslet-ter that deserved updates, and that there was an interesting connection. The second event was the arrival of Omar Yaghi, who came to us from the University of Michigan. Omar is one of the most highly cited chemists in the world today and was recently selected as one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” scientists and engineers in the nation. Omar has already had a tremendous impact on UCLA and the California NanoSystems Institute, where he is director of the Center for Reticular Chemistry. The connection is that an endowed chair was estab-lished specifi cally for Omar, and it was named the Christopher S. Foote Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Thus, the Foote Fellowships for superior graduate students and the Foote Chair for outstanding faculty will perpetuate our memories of Chris’ contributions and achievements now and forever into the future.

3UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007

The Biochemistry Division is cur-rently raising funds to endow six faculty chairs in the names of our emeriti. It is hard to imagine a chemistry de-partment without biochemists, but a generation ago, biochemistry was not taken seriously by most chemists.

A few insightful pioneers within our department persevered and as-sembled what is now considered one

of the top biochemistry divisions in the world. While helping to create a new fi eld, two became members of the Na-tional Academy of Sciences, one built a major pharmaceutical company, and one brought a Nobel Prize to UCLA. All made major discoveries, and all enhanced the lives of their colleagues and their students.

We would like to honor their impor-

tant contributions to science, teaching and the department by creating chair positions in each of their names: Dan Atkinson, Paul Boyer, Richard Dickerson, Roberts Smith, Verne Schumaker and Charlie West.

For more information please contact Robert Wise: rwise@support.ucla.edu.

Biochemistry Seeks Funding for Endowed Chairs

Front row (l to r): Cory Evans, Lolitika Mandal, Vladimir Ramirez-Carrozzi, Mara Duncan, Yue Liu, Ian Henderson, Steven Claypool Back row: Professors Volker Hartenstein, Stephen Smale, Paul Boyer, Stephen Hitchcock, Steven Clarke, Charles West, Harold Martinson, Greg Payne, and Arnold Berk

Postdocs HonoredThe Chemistry and Biochemistry

Postdoctoral Awards ceremony was held on May 9, 2007 in 159 Boyer Hall in order to honor outstanding postdoctoral researchers. Steven Claypool, Mara Duncan, Cory Evans, Ian Henderson, Yue Liu, Lilitika Mandal, and Vladimir Ramirez-Carrozzi received Research Excellence Awards. Mara received the Boyer-Parvin Award while Lilitika and Vladimir received the Boyer-Peter and Amgen Awards, respectively.

Pho

to: T

odd

Che

ney,

UC

LA P

hoto

grap

hy

Rebecca Nelson, together with her graduate mentor David Eisenberg, will receive the American Chemical So-ciety’s 2008 Nobel Signature Award at the Society’s annual meeting next April in New Orleans. This award recognizes her dissertation as highly distinguished. The work is being published in a series of research papers and reviews. Two of the papers appeared in the journal Nature while two reviews appeared in Advances in Protein Chemistry and Current Opinion in Structural Biology, respectively.

Rebecca’s work is on the atomic structure of the amyloid state–the fi bril state of proteins associated with various diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. The structure of the amyloid state has resisted elucidation because fibrils are not well enough ordered to crystallize.

Fortunately, in 2001 UCLA Chem-istry graduate student Melinda Bal-

birnie found that only seven residues hold protein molecules together in a particular yeast amyloid and was able to grow tiny crystals of this segment. Rebecca went on to determine the structure using X-ray diffraction, aided by her coworkers, David Eisenberg, and Staff Research Scientist Michael R. Sawaya. Because the crystals were exceptionally small, the scientists had to travel to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, to use specialized equipment.

What Rebecca and her cowork-ers found was that the amyloid state consists of two beta sheets, with tightly interdigitating sidechains, and no water between the sheets. The team calls this type of structure, not seen before in proteins, the “dry steric zipper.”

The ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chem-istry was established in 1978 and is the highest honor accorded to a graduate

Graduate Student Rebecca Nelson and Mentor David Eisenberg Win the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry

student in the field of chemistry. It consists of cash awards to the student and his or her preceptor, and plaques inscribed with the signatures of Nobel laureates: one for the awardee, and one for permanent display in the institution’s chemistry department. Rebecca is the fi rst of our graduates to receive this award.

David Eisenberg and Rebecca Nelson

Happenings

UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 20074

Marjorie Bates Retires“Margie” Bates, Senior Lecturer

in Biochemistry, has retired after almost 20 years with the department. More than 60 people attended a reception in her honor in the Winstein Café Com-mons on July 11th.

Margie was an occasional lecturer for the department from 1987-93 after which she took a hiatus. She returned in 1995 as a full-time lecturer with more

than 1000 students each year.Sylvia Daoud Kinzie, one of her

former TAs, writes, “I knew Dr. Bates in the capacity of a mentor while working as a TA...I consider Margie to be one of my greatest mentors and hold her very dear to my heart. She set the standards very high for both her students and TAs and by doing so inspired us to rise to the occasion and be the best we can be.”

Margie constantly sought new ways to engage her students and to make her large classes interactive and stimulating. She developed elaborate animated computer illustrations of com-plex processes, collaborative learning and problem solving sessions (CLAPS), analogies, “micro-discussions” (in which students talked over questions raised in class), imaginative and en-tertaining classroom demonstrations, original biochemistry songs, ungraded diagnostic quizzes, a 180-page course compendium (also used as a class note-book), and a 164-page problem book.

The recipient of many teaching

awards, including the University Dis-tinquished Teaching Award, Margie believes the most important aspect of a college education is the development of analytical and critical thinking. Her classes gained a reputation for be-ing extremely diffi cult, although many students loved her teaching style and recommended her class to friends.

As departmental liaison during her last year at UCLA, Margie wrote part of the Departmental Review Statement on behalf of the instructional faculty, worked to enhance the instructional faculty’s image and departmental role, and spearheaded the establishment of the new Instructional Division as an of-fi cial division of this department.

“I’d like to send my thanks to all who helped to make the July 11th reception such a joyous occasion and contributed to the generous gifts,” Bates says. “I especially want to express my deep appreciation to the staff, faculty, and teaching assistants who helped and supported me over the years.”

Marjorie A. Bates accepts plaque

Pho

to: P

enny

Jen

ning

sHappenings

On the occasion of Christopher Foote’s 70th birthday, his former co-workers and faculty members at UCLA created the Christopher S. Foote Grad-uate Fellowship in Organic Chemistry. Chris and his wife, Judi Smith, made a generous bequest that fully funded the fellowship in 2005.

Chris, an outstanding colleague in our department for more than 40 years, died in 2005. His loss was felt throughout our community as he had a positive infl uence on every aspect of our department. UCLA is fortunate to benefi t from Judi’s continuing outstand-ing leadership and service as Professor of Physiological Science/Neuroscience

Foote Graduate Fellowships Establishedand the UCLA Vice Provost for Under-graduate Education.

The Foote-Smith gift allows our department to award fellowships to the most promising applicants to our graduate program, to further improve the quality of our outstanding graduate program, and to keep Chris close in our memories.

The four Foote Fellows are Karina Heredia, Gregory Glover, Khin Chin and Jason Spruell. Karina’s research with Heather Maynard focuses on con-trolled radical polymerization techniques to create protein-polymer bioconjugates for applications in biotechnology and medicine. Greg is also in the Maynard

lab, and is focusing on the synthesis and application of protein-polymer conjugates for use as therapeutics and materials. Khin began research in organic chemistry as an undergraduate at UCLA in the lab of Chris Foote. His graduate research with Miguel Garcia-Garibay centers on the spectroscopy of solid-state nanocrystalline systems and the photophysics of novel fullerene derivatives. Jason is Fellow in the NSF Materials Creation Training Program as well as a Foote Fellow. He works with Fraser Stoddart and Ken Houk, developing nanomachines and molecu-lar muscles.

The Foote Fellows (left to right): Karina Heredia, Gregory Grover, Khin Chin, andJason Spruell

5UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007

Happenings

The following students received the 2007-08 Dissertation Year Fellowships from the UCLA Graduate Division: Mar-cin Apostol, Molly Cavanagh, Hakan Gunaydin, Karina Heredia, Kurt Januszyk, Catherine Kaddis, Scott Korlann, Chris Liu, Adam Lunceford, Frank Rigo, Dyna Shirasaki, James Wilking, and Aron Yoffe.

David Eisenberg and Donald Crothers of Yale University won the Emily M. Gray Award of the Biophysi-cal Society for “signifi cant contribu-tions to education through creating rigorous, ground-breaking text en-riching generations of biophysicists.” Ken Houk has been appointed the Chair of the National Institutes of Health Synthesis and Biological Chemistry Study Section A for fi scal year 2008. This is one of the study sections that reviews organic chemistry and chemical biology proposals.

Carla Koehler received the Ameri-can Heart Association Established Investigator Award for her work in mammalian systems and zebrafi sh on developing models for mitochondrial diseases.

Laurence Lavelle received the Hanson-Dow Award for Excellence in Teaching and a UCLA Professional Development Award. Laurence also

co-authored two books: Hoeger, C., Lavelle, L., Ma, Y. Chemical Principles Instructor’s Solutions Manual (2007), and Krenos, J., Potenza, J., Lavelle, L., Ma, Y. , Hoeger, C. Chemical Principles Student’s Study Guide and Solutions Manual (2007).

The Loo Lab’s presentation at the 2007 Association of Biomolecular Re-source Facilities Conference in Tampa, Florida from March 31-April 3, 2007 won a best poster award. The poster, “Slippery when Translated: Extensive Programmed Ribosomal Frameshifting Revealed by Proteomics,” by Loo, R. R. Ogorzalek, Yang, Y., Mouttaki, H., McInerney, M., Gunsaus, R., and Loo, J.A., describes a collaborative study involving Chemistry & Biochemistry’s Loo Lab, the Gunsalus Lab in UCLA’s Microbiology, Immunology, and Mo-lecular Genetics Department, and the McInerney Lab of the University of Oklahoma’s Department of Botany & Microbiology.

Heather Maynard received an NSF Career Award and the Alpha Chi Sigma Seaborg Award from the Beta Gamma (UCLA) Chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma.

Eric Scerri’s book, The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Signifi cance, continues to perform extremely well.

In keeping with its tradition of excel-lence in undergraduate and graduate teaching, the department has formed an instructional division. It was fi rst led by biochemistry senior lecturer Margie Bates. When Margie retired, Steve Hardinger, a senior lecturer in organic chemistry, took over and cur-rently guides the division’s efforts.

The Instructional Division was formed in recognition of the critical role lecturers play in the department’s educational enterprise and as a means to provide a more effective voice in departmental affairs for this group of our faculty. The division is principally involved in matters relating to student instruction, such as lecture and labora-

Chemistry & Biochemistry Instructional Division Formed

tory courses, training and management of teaching assistants, and advising for our majors and our service courses.

In addition to playing a major role in departmental instructional issues,

It has been reprinted for the 3rd time after just nine months of being first issued. Eric has also been invited to speak on his book in Santiago, Chile and Barcelona, Spain, the latter at the 100th anniversary of the death of Mendeleev as part of Spain’s “year of science” initiative.

Sadaf Sehati has won an Aca-demic Senate’s Distinguished Teaching Assistant Award for 2006-07. Sadaf is one of only fi ve graduate students throughout the entire campus who was chosen to receive this award. Each award carries an honorarium of $2,500 and will be presented to the recipients at the “Night to Honor Teaching” which will be held in October 2007.

Fraser Stoddart was awarded the Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry for 2007. In addi-tion, he was the recipient of the 2008 Arthur C. Cope Award. This presti-gious award from the ACS recognizes outstanding achievement in the fi eld of organic chemistry. Both awards were announced at the ACS National Meeting in Boston on August 19, 2007. Fraser also received the 2007 “Albert Einstein” World Award of Science. The award ceremony took place at the Uni-versidad Autónoma de Nuevo Leónin Monterrey, Mexico.

Faculty & Student Achievements

the division seeks to further enhance instructional resources and the reputa-tion of the department, both inside and outside the UCLA community.

Division members include lectur-ers and academic coordinators in all departmental disciplines. Activities of division members are not limited to classroom lectures but also include research in physical biochemistry and the philosophy of chemistry, K-12 teacher training, educational outreach for the California NanoSystems Insti-tute (CNSI), and major writing projects such as textbooks, laboratory guides, and supplementary material for lecture courses.

Lecturer Laurence Lavelle, a member of the newly formed Instructional Division

Pho

to: P

enny

Jen

ning

s

UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 20076

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has a long history of shared instrumentation facilities op-eration where large, complex, and expensive instrumentation is made available to researchers based on need. In recognition of the increasingly multi-disciplinary nature of modern research and to increase visibility and access to modern instrumentation for molecular characterizations for the larger research community, the Department of Chem-istry and Biochemistry led the creation of the UCLA Molecular Instrumentation Center (MIC), a campus-wide core facil-ity. Of equal importance to instrument access is the availability of technical staff to provide operation, training, consulting, maintenance, and repair of the equipment. Dr. Jane Strouse, who has been developing shared instrumen-tation in chemistry and biochemistry for over twenty-fi ve years, serves as the Director of the MIC, with administrative assistance from Dr. Dafni Amirsakis.

The MIC Magnetic Resonance Laboratory together with the biostruc-tural NMR instruments includes one EPR and ten NMR spectrometers ranging in frequency from 300 to 800 MHz, which can be used to observe a large range of nuclei in liquid and solid samples over a large temperature range. Two full-time staff scientists, Dr. Robert Taylor and Dr. Ping Yang, and one half-time graduate student as-sistant, Gardner Creech, maintain the MIC instruments.

The J.D. McCullough X-ray Labo-ratory is made up of two single-crystal

diffractometers with low temperature capability and three powder diffrac-tometers with a variety of accessories, e.g. high temperature furnaces, an area detector, and autosamplers. Currently, the laboratory is operated by Dr. Saeed Khan, with active recruiting underway for a second staff member in X-ray diffraction.

The Mass Spectrometry Labora-tory contains a variety of instruments with several ionization methods and analyzers. Sample service is available or users may be trained to acquire their own mass spectra. This labora-tory has recently been reorganized and rearranged to optimize the space available. Currently, the staff is made up of one full-time mass spectrometrist,

Dr. Gregory Khitrov, and a half-time graduate assistant, Chris Henry. Active recruiting is underway for a second staff scientist and for a MIC associate direc-tor for Mass Spectrometry.

The Materials Characterization Laboratory consists of a scanning electron microscope, atomic force mi-croscope, light scattering particle ana-lyzers, thermal analysis equipment, and many more small instruments useful for materials synthesis and characteriza-tion. This laboratory is managed by Dr. Ignacio Martini.

The Proteomics Laboratory, man-aged by Dr. Melissa Sondej, is made up of electrophoresis equipment, a spot cutter, gel imagers, and several mass spectrometers. The Biochemistry Instrumentation Facility, maintained by Dr. Martin Phillips, has a substantial list of equipment for the physical char-acterization of biochemical systems. Elemental Analysis and Speciation, operated by Dr. Amir Liba, includes ICP-MS, ICP-OES, both with autosam-plers, HPLC, and an elemental analyzer for light elements. Sample preparation consultation and digestion services are available.

Funding for this endeavor has been provided by the Division of Physical Sciences and Life Sciences of the Col-lege of Letters and Science, the David Geffen School of Medicine, and the California NanoSystems Institute. The MIC web site contains an up-to-date equipment list along with full contact information for all staff. We invite you to have a look at www.mic.ucla.edu.

UCLA Molecular Instrumentation Center

Left: Melissa Sondej at the Themo LTQ-FT-ICR mass spectrometer in the Proteomics Lab; Right: Coreg Khitrov at the IonSpec ESI-7T-FT-ICR mass spec-trometer in the Mass Spectrometry Lab; Below: Dafni Amirsakis at the Bruker AV600 NMR spectrometer in the Magnetic Resonance Lab

Pho

tos:

Ste

ve H

ardi

nger

In Focus

7UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007

Commencement 2007

Congratulations Graduates!

Clockwise from the top: The Class of 2007; an aerial view of the ceremony; (left to right) PhD recipients Carlos Hernandez, Philip Haussmann, Scott Gilje, Daniel Ess and Armando Durazo; PhD recipients Dyna Shirasaki and Heather Shepherd. All commencement photos were taken by Bob Knight Photo.

UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 20078

Graduate Student Dissertation Awards

Undergraduate Student Awards

The Saul & Sylvia Winstein Award was presented by Fraser Stoddart to Cari Pentecost The Physical Chemistry Dissertation Award was presented by Tom Mason to his student Carlos Hernandez The Biochemistry Dissertation Award was presented by Shimon Weiss to his student Fabien PinaudThe Inorganic Chemistry Dissertation Award was presented by Jeff Zink to his student Franklin OwThe Thomas and Ruth Jacobs Award was presented by Ken Houk to Paul Ha-Yeon Cheong

Alumni Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship to Ivan Tochitsky, Hamilton C. TsangRonald S. Gabriel, M.D./Scrubs Unlimited Summer Research Fellowship to Osvaldo GutierrezYoshie Kadota Undergraduate Research Fellowship to Tuyet Ngoc HoDaniel Kivelson Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship to Zhe James HuiArthur Furst Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research to Bryan Tsutomu HaradaDolores Cannon Southam Award for Excellence in Research to David Lawrence Ang, Nathaniel Patrick GutzwillerDunn Award for Excellence in Biochemistry to Kevin Lee Chang, Dennis Hong Lee, Laura ZhangGeissman Award for Excellence in Organic Chemistry to Alexander B. Santanilla, Meera M. Iyer, Audrey G. RossRamsey Award for Excellence in Physical Chemistry to Lily Ching Ting Huang, Shahin ManoochehriHypercube Scholar to Audrey G. RossGold Family Foundation Award to Van Thanh MaiEthel Terry McCoy Award for Excellence in Chemistry and Biochemistry to Mei Na Chan, Tina Ah-Ting Ho,

Toni Marie Lee, Suhn Rhie, Patricia Yung-Hwa Sun, Joyce Ann Wei, Yue ZhangMerck Index Award to Christopher Behrens, Joel Matthew Brothers, Babak Hassanzadeh, San Ngoc Khong,

David Nguyen, Hamilton C. Tsang

Commencement 2007Graduate and Undergraduate Awards

Ruthie Kadota presenting the Yoshie Kadota Undergraduate Research Fellowship to Tuyet Ngoc Ho

Ben Schwartz presenting the Gold Family Foundation Award to Van Thanh Mai

Margy Kivelson presenting the Daniel Kivelson Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship to Zhe James Hui

Ken Houk presenting the Scrubs Summer Research Fellowship to Osvaldo Gutierrez

Fraser Stoddart presenting the Saul & Sylvia Winstein Award to Cari Pentecost

Robert Boschan (center) with recipients of the Alumni Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship: Ivan Tochitsky (l) and Hamilton Tsang (r)

9UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007

Ph.D. Degrees Conferred

Commencement 2007

Chuautemoc Arellanes (Paulson) Measurements of Reactive Oxygen Species in Ambient Particulate Matter

Kevin Barnese (Valentine) Manganese, the Superoxide Detoxi-fi er

Morgan Beeby (Yeates) Comparative Genomics and Application to Specifi c Biological Systems: Hyperthermophily and Shell-Forming Proteins

Sabrina Benchaar (Reisler) Mapping the Interaction of Cofi lin with G-Actin

Paul Ha-Yeon Cheong (Houk) Quantum Mechanical Studies into the Mechanisms and Selectivities of Synthetic Organic Reactions

Andrew Clark (Tolbert) Semiconducting Polymers as Templates for Hybrid Nanostructured Optoelectronic Materials

Arun Divakaruni (Gober) Control of Morphogenesis in Caulo-bacter Crescentus

Darren Dumlao (S. Clarke) A Yeast Small Molecule Methyltrans-ferae Involved in Its Amino Acid Starvation Stress Response

Armando Durazo (Valentine & Faull) Hydrogen/Deuterium Exchange Studies on Superoxide Dismutase 1

Daniel Ess (Houk) Computational and Theoretical Investigations of 1,3-Dipolar and Bis-Pericyclic Cycloaddition Reactions

Scott Gilje (Kaner) Chemical Manipulation of Graphite for Polymer Composite and Nanoelectronic Applications

Philip Haussmann (Stoddart) Dynamic Synthesis of Rotaxanes

Carlos Hernandez (Mason) Novel Lithographic Techniques for the Production of Monodisperse Colloids: LithoParticles

Jamie Im (Houk) The Total Synthesis of Laurenditerpenol

Kurt Januszyk (Clubb) Biochemical and Structural Character-ization of RNA Binding Domain in the LINE-1 Retrotransposition System

C. Steve Joiner (Stoddart) Nanotube-Based Biosensors and Molecular Borromean Rings

Steven Karlen (Garcia-Garibay) Design, Synthesis and Charac-terization of Aphidynamic Materials

Kristen Koch (Koehler) Biochemical and Biophysical Character-ization of the Mitochondrial Import Pathway

Chrissie Lee (Chanfreau) Novel Examples of Post-Transcrip-tional Regulations of Gene Expression in the Yeast Saccharomyces Cerevisiae

Edward Leverich (Koehler) Regulation of the Mitochondrial Bio-genesis of Multiple Organisms

Jennifer Luft (Houk) Computational Investigations of Organic Reaction Mechanisms and Stereoselectivities

Thomas Miller (Fukuto & Valentine) The Regulation of Soluble Guanylate Cyclase by Nitrogen Oxides and Thiols

Jose Nuñez (Garcia-Garibay) Toposelective Synthesis of a Tri-ply-Bridged Molecular Gyroscope and Polymorphogenic Behavior of Alkylated Rotors

Franklin Ow (Zink) Gas-Phase Photofragmentation and Multi-photon Ionization of Transition Metal and Lanthanide Coordination Compounds

Cari Pentecost (Stoddart) Molecular Borromean Rings and Solomon Links

Susan Pieniazek (Houk) Quantum Mechanical Studies of Kinetics and Thermodynamics of Diels-Alder Reactions Involving Heteroaromatic Dienes

Fabien Pinaud (Weiss) Peptide-Coated Semiconductor Quan-tum Dots and Their Applications in Biological Imaging of Single Molecules in Live Cells and Organisms

Megan Plotkowski (Bowie) The Transmembrane Domain of Myelin Protein Zero Can Form Dimers: Possible Implications for Myelin Construction

Erik Richman (Tolbert) Orientation Control of Mesoporous Systems

Joyce Sayegh (S. Clarke) Identifi cation and Characterization of Human Protein Arginine Methyltransferases

Damon Scoville (Reisler) Structure and Dynamics of the Actin Hydrophobic Loop Determines Filament Structure

Heather Shepherd (Garrell) Application and Characteriza-tion of Polymer Coatings for Droplet Microfl uidics and Corrosion Protection

Dyna Shirasaki (Loo & Tobin) Probing the Protein Partners of Huntingtin Using a Novel BAC Transgenic Model of Disease

Catherine Skibo (Gimzewski) Room Temperature Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Studies of Organic Molecules on Copper Surfaces

Courtney Stanton (Houk) Computational Investigations of Enzymatic Mechanisms of pKa Predictions Using QM, MM and QM/MM Methods

Adam Stieg (Gimzewski) From the Bottom Up: Instrumentation Design and Nanoscale Studies in Scanning Probe Microscopy

UyenPhuong Tran (C. Clarke) Characterization of Coq2 and Coq7 Proteins, Dual Function Polypeptides in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Coenzyme Q Biosynthesis

Sarah Villa (S. Clarke) Envrionmental Stress Response of Pro-tein Repair L-Isoaspartyl Methyltransferase and Its Physiological Role in Repairing Age-Damaged Proteins in Higher Plants

Lisa Wesoloski (Gimzewski) Low Temperature Scanning Tun-neling Microscopy Studies of Surfaces and Molecules

Left to right: Thomas Miller, Jennifer Luft and Edward Leverich

UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 200710

Commencement 2007Master of Science Degrees Awarded

Bachelor of Science Degrees AwardedBachelor of ScienceHighest Honors

Bachelor of ScienceHonors

Bachelor of Science

Christopher BehrensJoel Matthew BrothersMei Na ChanKevin Lee ChangBryan Tsutomu HaradaBabak HassanzadehCharles Jia-Haur HuMeera Mangalam IyerAarya Kafi San Ngoc KhongIn Mo KooDennis Hong LeeDavid NguyenPatricia Yung-Hwa SunHamilton C. TsangJoyce Ann WeiLaura ZhangYue Zhang

Josephine S. AguilarDavid Lawrence AngJonathan BolotinRachel Marie BrewerAlexander Buitrago SantanillaChristopher K. ChengMario King Long CheungMatthew Yankin ChoNathaniel Patrick GutzwillerTina Ah-Ting HoCheung-Fai LauWesley H. LinVincent H. LuongShahin ManoochehriHuong Kim NguySuhn RhieHeather Christine RochaAudrey G. RossOri SchnitzerClaudia SevillaJenny WanSara WangLai Yi Wu

Sam AbbassiRana AfrasiabArash AfsahiJosephine S. AguilarSamira AhantabChristopher Michael AllanRichard Joseph AlvarezDavid Lawrence AngIrina AroustamianIvonne Vanessa ArroyaveBrian D AspellLinda Phyu AyeAfshin BadiiCyril Chidjac BaidaTenny BalabegiansBobby Askari BaravatiChristopher Behrens ∆ ΦKonstantin BelevichMeredith Kollman BellGurvinder Singh BhattiAaron Thomas BirgeJonathan BolotinRachel Marie BrewerJoel Matthew BrothersAnn Thuy BuiAlexander Buitrago SantanillaMuhnad CahlaAshley Rose CalviCarl CamposEfren Acevedo Carrasco, Jr.Alan King Yan CeeKrista Anne CelentanoHenry CespedesMei Na ChanAishwarya ChandhiramouliKevin Lee Chang ΦSoo ChangYu ChenChristopher K. ChengHani CherazaieCaroline Man Ting CheungMario King Long CheungSara Kwai-Lan ChewAnnie Chu ChiMatthew Yankin Cho ΦGina ChoiSanghoon ChoiNina ChuApril Renee CorpuzAnthony Joseph Covarrubias

Michael Alan CummingsDina Hadi DabbousMinh-Tu DoTu Huy DoJulie Phuong DoanShadi DoroudgarPeter Andrew DoyleChristine DuJennifer EngRana Abbas FeidiAshley Clare GamayoJustin Patrick GolovatoDaniel Larry Greenfi eldNadia GuardadoNathaniel Patrick Gutzwiller*Merissa HalimBryan Tsutomu Harada ΦAnna C. HarrisBabak Hassanzadeh ΦJessica Isabel Helman-CubillaStevanie HermawanHeidy Marytza HernandezJustina HiiLinda Kalin HimTina Ah-Ting HoNgoc-dung Thi HoangDae Kon HongDouglas M. HongEllen HongGrace Weiyown HsuMaung Ye HtutCharles Jia-Haur HuJim HuangLily Ching Ting HuangZhenwei HuangAngela HuynhSusanna Ling HweeMaximiliano David HyonSoo Jeong ImMeera Mangalam Iyer ΦDazy S. JohnsonKyung Won JooAarya Kafi ΦAngela KangMin Kyung KangYon Ju KangRyuto KawaiDaisuke KawauchiYuliya KhokhlovaSan Ngoc Khong

Nathaniel Patrick GutzwillerToni Lee

Marc Rodriguez William Thieu

11UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007

Commencement 2007

Bora KimHyun KimRobert S. KimJoann Chao-Min KoIn Mo KooChristopher Lee KuhlmanTony C. KwokJean Gacusana LaguatanCherie LamIeng Seng LamCynthia Rae LarkinsAustin Will LauCheung-Fai LauDiem Hong LeMark LeDennis Hong LeeKyu J LeeRenee C. LeeChung Kin LiJingjing LiShannon LiXian LiXiaofeng LiangRachel Jia-Hway LinWesley H. Lin ΦYushiu LinWutt Yie LinnWai Man LioLing Min LohVivian LuKonstantin I. LunskiyDavid Tung LuongVincent H. LuongBill D. LyMahsa MahmoudiShabnam MajidianShahin ManoochehriAnne MaokhampioLeo MariscalKevin Kaveh MikailMouna Aref MikatiTanesha Nicole MossChing Yee NgMarida NgovHuong NguyAnthony NguyenCaitlyn Phuong NguyenDavid Nguyen ΦHannah Hai Yen NguyenThuy-Tien Thi NguyenNicholas NiiroKristine Sachiko NishiyamaLena Brooke NiuniavaHoward Y. NohJoanna Marie OlsenWilly Pandi

Dalnam ParkSoo Kyung ParkYounkyung ParkMartha Katherine PastuszkaArjun Vinod PatelShruti S. PatelEdwin Abelardo PerezChristine Uyen PhamDuy PhungErline D. PoerwantoParinaz PourbahramiJason Michael ReichSuhn RhieHeather Christine Rocha ΦFabian Joseph RodriguezSueyeon RohAudrey G. RossTomomi SagaOri SchnitzerDanielle Elizabeth SchrammAaron R. ScottAndrea L. SeidJohn SetoClaudia Sevilla Φ Norman ShihLindsay Sarah ShortShellvia SitiMarissa SosaAndrew Joseph SpiroGracejeet Kaur SroyaShea Michele StellaAshley Xiaoying SunPatricia Yung-Hwa Sun ΦShih-Fan SunLorillee Carlos TallorinXiaojie X. TamidaBill TanCalvin TanShi Tang

Daniel Hale ThompsonRyan TovLinh Huyen TranMinh TrinhAmy Ha Hong Thi TruongHamilton C. Tsang ΦPaula Marie Tsoi-A-SueLisa Claire VampolaJoey Garcia VillanuevaDiana Maria Edith VillwockJenny WanSara WangYili WangJoyce Ann WeiTodd Matthew WeldonMelissa Louise WestermannMelissa Lauren WongLai Yi WuHuiyu XiaYang XuSean YeeKevin Jia-Chian YenYukari YonemuraJi Hyun YoonKwang-Chae YoonLaura Zhang ΦYue ZhangLih Kandy Zheng

Bachelor of Science (cont.)

* Departmental ScholarΦ Phi Beta Kappa∆ Computing Specialization

At press time, we did not have a complete list of all students receiving graduate de-grees. For a complete list go to: www.chem.ucla.edu/news/acb.html.

Left to right: Kristen Koch, Steven Karlen, Steven Joiner and Kurt Januszyk

UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 200712

Alumni NewsSandra I. Lamb, BA’54, PhD’59

(Young), The California Los Padres Section of the American Chemical So-ciety has established the Sandra Lamb Award for Service to the CALPACS Section and the Chemical Commu-nity (formerly known as the Founders Award). Sandra was one of the found-ers of the Los Padres Section, which has served Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties since 1995. As a lecturer, Sandra ran the organic chemistry labs at UCLA from 1976 until her retirement in 1993. She was instru-mental in running the Seaborg Medal Banquet and was very involved with the UCLA Chemists’ Association and Alpha Chi Sigma. From 1993-99, she was laboratory coordinator at UC Santa Barbara. At her ACS fi fty-year member-ship recognition ceremony in 2003, she received the Founders Award.

Bruce Rickborn, BA’56, (UC Riv-erside), PhD’60 (Cram) has received the fi rst Sandra Lamb Award for Service to the CALPACS Section and the Chemi-cal Community. Bruce was an assistant professor at UC Berkeley before join-ing the faculty at UC Santa Barbara in

1962. He has co-authored one book and about 90 journal articles and has mentored over 30 doctoral students. His research has included mechanistic studies and organic chemistry—espe-cially using D tracers in stereochemis-try and searching for novel reactions. Currently retired, he received his ACS fif ty-year membership recognition award in 2003.

Gordon W. Gribble, BS’63, (UC Berkeley), PhD’67 (Oregon) postdoc ’68 (Anet), the Dartmouth Professor of Chemistry, an endowed chair at Dartmouth, spent a sabbatical year (2006-07) at Gettysburg College, where he wrote a monograph, Naturally Oc-curring Organohalogen Compounds – a Comprehensive Survey. This year saw the publication of Palladium in Heterocyclic Chemistry, A Guide for the Synthetic Chemist, 2nd edition (Else-vier), which he coedited with J. J. Li. He writes that “my lab work these days is confi ned to my basement where I have been making wine since 1978.”

Howard E. Katz, BS’78, (MIT), PhD’82 (Cram), is professor of materials science and engineering at Johns Hop-

kins University and will become depart-ment chair in 2008. He was president of the Materials Research Society in 2004 and will become president of the Inter-national Union of Material Research Societies in 2009. He leads a research group at Hopkins pursuing organic and hybrid electronic and photonic devices with applications in circuits, sensing, energy conversion, and bioimaging.

Donald R. Blake, BS’78, PhD’84, (UC Irvine) is professor of chemistry at UC Irvine and currently chair of its chemistry department. The focus of his research is atmospheric chemistry.

Tien C. Ko, BS’82, MD’86, did postdoctoral work at the University of Texas and then at UC San Francisco. He is now professor, chief of surgery, and vice-chairman, surgery, at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Ko is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

Karrie Tomiska Amor, BS’03, and her husband, Courtney Amor, BS’03, have completed their medical training at Washington University School of Medi-cine in St. Louis, Missouri, and are now doing residencies in Houston, Texas.

In MemoriamGeorge H. Carter, BS’35, died

March 19, 2007, aged 94, at his home in Prosser, Washington. From 1955 to 1975, he was a food chemist for the Department of Agriculture at the Washington State University research station in Prosser. Carter is described as a key person in the development of the modern Washington wine industry. When many people believed the state could not produce quality wine, he and Walter Clore promoted the idea of making world-class wine in Washington with European varieties. Carter is also credited with impressing upon Wash-ington wine makers the importance of malolactic fermentation to make a more palatable acidity.

Merlyn W. Heddon, BS’42, died October 21, 2006, aged 88.

Leonard Greiner, BS’43, died May 3, 2007, aged 85. His son Seth BS’83

has established the Leonard Greiner Memorial Scholarship Fund to assist undergraduates.

Frances Thornton Thieriot , BS’84, died February 13, 2007, aged 53. She was a member of the UCLA National Honor Society. Franci attend-ed Loyola Marymount University and received a Junior Top Scholar Award and degree in Computer Science. She was elected to the Board of Governors of the Mathematical Associations of America. Franci supported numerous charities and organizations dedicated to helping children. She founded Macy Ready Mix Company and served as CEO and president. She was involved in archeology and participated in an Etruscan excavation in Northern Italy. Later in life, Franci started a career in music, composing songs and playing the piano.

Helen Young, widow of William G. Young, died December 3, 2003, aged

100. William, for whom Young Hall is named, was an organic chemistry professor and Chair of the department (1940-48), Dean of Physical Sciences (1948-57), and Vice Chancellor for Planning (1957-70). He died in 1980.

Nancy C. McMillan, widow of Wil-liam G. McMillan, professor of physi-cal chemistry and chair 1959-65, died August 25, 2006, aged 81.

Irving S. Bengelsdorf, BS (Illi-nois), PhD’50 (Chicago), died June 22, 2007, aged 84. He started work as a research chemist with General Electric and then in 1960 moved to U. S. Borax in Southern California.

In the early 1960s he left U. S. Borax to become science editor of the Los Angeles Times where he devel-oped a column “Of Atoms and Men.” He was praised for making arcane scientifi c issues understandable to the average reader. During this period, he also taught in the UCLA Department

Continued on page 14

13UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007

Faculty Research

UCLA Chemists Develop a New Ultra-Incompressible, Superhard Materialby Ric Kaner

Superhard materials are used for everything from cutting tools to drill for oil and dig tunnels to scratch-resistant coatings for precision instruments. In a recent issue of the journal Science (316, 436, 2007), Ric Kaner, Sarah Tolbert, and their students, along with Jenn-Ming Yang from Materials Science and Engineering and Abby Kavner from Earth and Space Science, reported a promising new approach to designing ultra-incompressible, superhard ma-terials. Their idea is to combine dense transitional metals, which are often soft

due to metallic bonding, with small main group elements to form short, strong covalent bonds. This has led to rhenium diboride (ReB2), a material capable of scratching diamond.

Diamond is the hardest known material because its carbon atoms form very short covalent bonds, resulting in a material that is exceedingly resistant to plastic deformation. While diamond is an extremely useful abrasive, it does have limitations. For example, diamond is not used to cut steel due to reactions that occur between the carbon in dia-mond and the iron in steel. Other light elements, such as boron and nitrogen, can be combined to mimic the prop-erties of diamond by maintaining the short covalent bonds responsible for its high hardness. The result, cubic bo-ron nitride, is often used as a diamond substitute since it also has a very high hardness (although only half that of diamond) and it is capable of cutting steel. However, cubic boron nitride is not found in nature and must be made synthetically under extreme pressures and temperatures resulting in a mate-rial that is even more expensive than diamond. Hence, new materials that can be made under less extreme conditions are desirable.

To this end, the UCLA team has developed methods for making ReB2

without the need for pressure. Normally, rhenium is a soft metal, easily deformed by bending, as one would unfold a paper clip. However, rhenium is dense and quite incompressible. By incorporat-ing boron into the network of rhenium atoms, short covalent bonds form to create ReB2, a material that is both highly incompressible and very hard. In fact, in one direction rhenium diboride has been found to be as incompress-ible as diamond. Although its average hardness is considerably less than that of diamond, when oriented in the proper direction, ReB2 is capable of scratching diamond. Rhenium diboride has also been found to withstand the highest differential stresses ever measured (up to 12.9 GPa). The UCLA team is now trying to develop related materials that use less expensive transition metals.

This research is funded by the National Science Foundation. Special thanks are also due to alumni Ray and Dorothy Wilson and the late George Gregory and his wife Gerry who have generously supported Ric Kaner’s re-search over many years.

A fascination with soft materials and just about anything dispersed in a liquid drives the research of Tom Ma-son, the John McTague Chair. Since he joined our department about four years ago, Tom and his group have been mak-ing new kinds of multi-phase materials, including ‘LithoParticle dispersions’ and ‘nanoemulsions’, as he calls them.

LithoParticles, custom-shaped particles that range in size from mi-croscale to nanoscale, are made us-ing lithographic technology, the same technology used to create electronic circuitry for computer chips. Tom’s group is the fi rst on campus to install and operate an advanced lithography exposure system, known as a ‘stepper’. The stepper system uses robots, auto-mation, and ultraviolet light to rapidly

print very detailed patterns onto silicon wafer surfaces. Tom’s group applies this technology in unusual ways to mass-produce new kinds of particles and release them from a solid substrate into liquid solution. LithoParticles can be made from a wide variety of solid materials, including polymers, metals, and inorganics, and they can have a multitude of different shapes. A strik-ing example of LithoParticles recently made the cover of the March 29, 2007 issue of the Journal of Physical Chem-istry C.

Tom and graduate student Carlos Hernandez made the world’s fi rst ‘col-loidal alphabet soup’, composed of microscale versions of all 26 letters of the English alphabet in 1/100th point font. (This article uses 9-point font.)

The random thermal ‘Brownian’ mo-tion of the letters is signifi cant, so they rotationally and translationally diffuse, as is easily seen using optical micros-copy. By incorporating fluorescent dyes into these polymer letters, the Mason group is creating new types of biomarkers that can be detected by their shape and not just their fl uorescence

Tom Mason: Big Success with Little Particles

Continued on next page

Ric Kaner

Tom Mason

Pho

to: R

eed

Hut

chin

son,

UC

LA

Pho

to: J

. N. W

ilkin

g

UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 200714

SeaborgiumAmgen, Inc.Guillaume ChanfreauChevron Phillips Chem. Co.Eli Lilly and Co.Genentech, Inc.Ron LauMichael SekeraThe Wilson Trust

PlatinumAllergan, Inc.James BowieIn Mo Koo

GoldAndrew FortneyBruce GarnerCarlyn GinAlexander GreerCharles GrudzinskasJune Y. KimMaly LengGary Strathearn

Recent Donors

SilverSteven ClarkeDavid EisenbergHarold EllisMillie M. GeorgiadisGordon GribbleJohn HansonKendall HoukRobert Neuman, Jr.Joseph PintoCharlene SundgrenJean TruebloodXue WangFrances WattenbergChin-Hua Wu

of Chemistry and then was an adjunct professor at USC. Later, he was a contributing science columnist for the Herald-Examiner. After Bengelsdorf moved to Oceanside in the early 1990s, he continued do consulting work for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Daniel Koshland, Jr., BS’41 (UC Berkeley), PhD’49 (Chicago), died July 23, 2007, aged 87. A long-time profes-sor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley and editor of Science from 1985-95, he was our 14th Seaborg medalist in 2000 and a contributor to the Seaborg medal fund. (Koshland actually worked with Seaborg on the Manhattan Project during WWII.) He was a member of the National Acad-emy of Sciences and a recipient of the National Medal of Science among many other honors.

In Memoriam (cont. from page 12)

CopperRachel BrewerAshley CalviSong-Yang ChanCraig DelpheyLinda ForrestLeon GoodmanRichard KanerCharles KnoblerOhyun KwonMartin LibermanNorm MarcovitchPhyllis MatzkinCraig MerlicEdwin MoonYasushi OgawaRobert ScottJames SinclairMichele R. WeinhouseRoy WhitekerWilliam Zwick

signatures. This work has been recog-nized twice by Nature, as a research highlight and as a technology feature [“Down to the Letter”, Nature 446 940 (2007)]. The striking image of colloidal alphabet soup will also appear in the catalogue of “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2008. In addi-tion to developing and optimizing new methods of mass-producing particles, Tom’s group is currently exploring ways of manipulating and assembling the particles in a controlled manner to build tiny structures.

The Mason group is also interested in nanoemulsions, aqueous dispersions of nanoscale oil droplets, stabilized against coalescence by a surfactant. Nanoemulsions are similar to ordinary microscale emulsions in composition, but their synthesis requires extreme conditions (high mechanical flow or shear) to effectively rupture larger drop-lets into nanoscale emulsion size. To achieve such high fl ow rates, Tom relies

on high-pressure microfl uidic technol-ogy. White, liquid-like microscale emul-sions fed into the microfl uidic device emerge as a transparent, solid-like cream. Graduate student Jim Wilk-ing has shown that nanoemulsions can have a very high elasticity even at very small droplet volume fractions,

implying most of the emulsion is water, not oil. Nanoemulsion elasticity is a product of the nanoscale droplet size and is not found in microscale and larger emulsions. This research about nanoscale mayonnaise, also known as ‘nano-naise’, was recently published [“Irreversible Shear-Induced Elastic Vit-rifi cation of Nanoemulsions by Extreme Droplet Rupturing,” J.N. Wilking and

Mason (continued from page 13)

Thank you for your

generous support! Note: When reporting the death of an alumnus, we would appreciate more information than just the date of death so we can report on the life and activities of the deceased.

A LithoParticle Label

T.G. Mason, Phys. Rev. E 75 041407/1-5 (2007)].

Tom’s invited review article about nanoemulsions [“Nanoemulsions: For-mation, Structure, and Physical Prop-erties,” T.G. Mason, J.N. Wilking, K. Meleson, C.B. Chang, and S.M. Graves, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 18 R635-R666 (2006)] is among the top papers of 2006, having been downloaded more than 300 times in three months. Tom is interested in deploying nanoemulsion technology in cosmetics, food products, and pharmaceuticals.

Tom is grateful to John McTague for funding the McTague Career Devel-opment Chair and for supporting young faculty at UCLA. Due to the fi ve-year term of the chair, Tom is looking ahead for continuing support of the stepper system and clean room that is housed in our department. Readers interested in more information and possibly sup-porting this work are encouraged to visit http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/Mason/.

15UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007

Please Indicate the Number of Attendees Below:________ Symposium: No charge________ Reception and Medal Award Dinner: $70 per person ($40 per ticket is tax deductible)________ Medal Award Dinner Tables of Eight: $500 per table ($260 per table is tax deductible)________ Student Medal Award Dinner Support: $50 per student (fully tax deductible) ________ I am unable to attend, but enclosed is a contribution of $ ________ to help support the work of ________ the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Method of Payment:________ My check made payable to The UCLA Foundation is enclosed.________ Please charge my: ____MasterCard ____Visa ____American Express ____Discover

________ Name on Card (Please Print)_________________________________Amount to be Charged Now $ ____________

________ Credit Card No.___________________________________________Date of Expiration_____________________

Name______________________________________________________Title/Organization___________________________

Name□ This is a joint gift. Spouse/Partner Name____________________________________________________________

Address_________________________________________________________________City/State______________________

Zip__________________Telephone________________________Email___________________________________________

Names of Symposium Guests___________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Names of Dinner Guests___________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please respond by 10/19/07. See insert envelope for Disclosure Statements. Please send the payment and form to:

Seaborg Event CoordinatorUCLA Department of Chemistry and BiochemistryBox 951569Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569For questions contact Cynthia Allen - callen@chem.ucla.edu or 310-267-5123

Dear Alumni,We would like to know what you have been up to, how your career is going, and about

your latest achievements. Please contact us if you would like to help with future alumni Please contact us if you would like to help with future alumni events, either here or in your own area, or if you would like to participate in lectures, events, either here or in your own area, or if you would like to participate in lectures, symposia, social events, career networking, or graduate student recruitment.symposia, social events, career networking, or graduate student recruitment.

When you send updated news about yourself, please indicate whether you give us permission to use your information in Chemistry and Biochemistry publications or any alumni directory. We cannot use your information without your explicit permission. Ad-dress changes and other updates can be sent to:

External Affairs Offi ceUCLA Department of Chemistry and BiochemistryBox 951569Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569(310) 267-5123 E-mail: callen@chem.ucla.eduWeb address: http://www.chem.ucla.edu

Seaborg Registration FormDr. R. Stanley Williams will present

“Making and Using Functional Nanostructures”November 3, 2007

Seaborg Symposium: 1:30 p.m. at the California NanoSystems Institute AuditoriumReception (6:30 p.m.) and Medal Award Dinner (7:30 p.m.) at Covel Commons

s □ Home □ Work

s □ Home □ Work

Pho

to: Y

ves

Rub

in -

http

://ru

binp

hoto

.com

6904 LS058

UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 200716

Non-Profi t Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDUCLA

UCLA Department of Chemistry and BiochemistryBox 951569Los Angeles, California 90095-1569

Address Service Requested

2007-2008 CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2007 Seaborg Symposium and Medal Award Dinner: November 3, 2007, 1:30 p.m.Departmental Awards Ceremony: November 5, 2007, 4:00 p.m. Reception at 5 p.m. in the Court of SciencesCommencement Ceremonies: June 13 and June 14, 2008