Ever since Professor of Chemistry Robin L. Garrell began her appointment as Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate Division in July 2011, she has worked hard to make its significance more readily apparent. By joining forces with divisional deans, departmental chairs, faculty, and staff, she has demonstrated a “we, not I” approach to addressing the ongoing needs of the UCLA graduate community; a dedication to and compassion for those she

serves; and the kind of forward thinking needed to constantly re-evaluate fund allocation and standard processes to make sure students are continually benefitting from the best educational experiences possible. “We’re concerned about how our students access resources and the kinds of policies that allow them to be more successful in their graduate programs to fulfill their requirements and complete their degrees in a timely way,” Garrell said. “I think nearly all of the faculty in our department are always looking out for how to ensure their students’ success at UCLA and beyond, and that was a particular interest of mine.” Garrell described her career path as a “continuum” that progressed from teaching and research to various levels of administrative service. An organic chemistry professor at UCLA since 1991, Garrell also serves as a member of the California NanoSystems Institute and Biomedical Engineering Interdepartmental Degree Program (IDP), a special assistant for strategic initiatives in the Office of the Vice Provost for Intellectual Property and Industry Relations, the principal investigator and director of the NSF IGERT

Materials Creation Training Program, and as a faculty member of the Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Program. She served as co-chair of the UCLA Chemistry and Materials Science IDP (1999-2003), chair of the UCLA College of Letters and Science Faculty Executive Committee (2003-2007), and as vice chair (2008-2009) and chair (2009-2010) of the UCLA Academic Senate before accepting her current position as dean. Garrell said all of her roles combined peaked her interest in broad scale concerns affecting graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. “At the end of the day, you’re forging your own path and if you’re trying to decide whether to do something, like to take on a leadership role or a new responsibility, it’s going to take time and effort away from something else, so it has to align with something that you really care about,” Garrell said. “I would say my path, here, and the things I’ve chosen to do are really consistent with my commitment to making the educational environment better for students.” Before Garrell’s appointment as dean began, she set several initial goals to address pressing matters, such as being “transparent” about how the Graduate Division works to implement policies and allocate resources, and strengthening the division’s ties with departments across campus. “One success of the past year was forging relationships with the deans, so that when we’re making policy or funding decisions, we’re doing it together and are going in the same direction,” Garrell said. Big picture issues such as continuous enrollment, in which a graduate student is registered in a degree program until the time of graduation, were addressed by implementing such policies as the (continued on p. 18)

Chemistry

N E W S L E T T E R

&BiochemistryDepartment of

In This Issue Page

Chair’s Message................2 Awards...........................3-5Happenings....................5-7Graduation 2012............8-11Distinguished Lectures...12-13Research......................13-18Calendar..........................19

Fall 2012Volume 32 - Number 1

Robin L. Garrell Makes Great Strides in Graduate Education in her First Year as Dean

Robin L. Garrell

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CHAIR’S MESSAGE Having just been named department chair, I am very pleased and honored to write this section of the newsletter for the first time. Many exciting things have happened since Al Courey wrote his farewell column in the Spring newsletter, and you will be able to read about many of them in the following pages. The very first thing that comes to mind as I start writing these lines is how grateful we all are to Al for his dedication and leadership during the last four years. Although this has been,

by far, the most challenging period since the time I joined UCLA, Al has done a remarkable job improving every aspect of our department and pointing us in the right direction. I should comment that becoming department chair was the farthest thing from my mind just a few months ago. I have an incredibly talented and productive group of students and postdocs and a very demanding job as an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. I guess my students will have to forgive me for being a little more absent. However, JACS will not suffer, because my Editor Assistant, Kady Bell-Garcia, is extremely efficient and organized, not only in dealing with the Journal business, but also as an editor of this newsletter. My perspective of becoming the department chair changed from seeing it as a very intimidating proposition to seeing it as a very exciting one after talking to Dean Rudnick and having Jim Bowie, Neil Garg and Ben Schwartz agree to serve with me as vice chairs. Considering the support and leadership they would provide, the great staff Al Courey and our CAO Shahla Raissi have assembled, and the invaluable guidance offered by Mandy Bell, the only other thing I needed to factor into my decision was the amazing groups of faculty, students, postdocs, alumni and friends of Chemistry and Biochemistry that constitute our community, all of whom I would be able to interact with on a regular basis. It will be an exciting three years ahead of us, and we are looking forward to working with all of you to make our department, and everyone in our community, even more successful. On that note, we recently learned that our department continues moving up in the international rankings. The Shanghai Jiao Tong, the QS World University, and The London Times rankings placed our department among the best in the world. Although many factors play into those rankings (number of citations, citations per paper, publications in top journals, etc.), faculty and student awards are among the ones we value the most. I think you will be amazed to read how many awards and prizes members of our department have received since the last newsletter. My congratulations on that regard go to Heather Maynard, Sabeeha Merchant, Craig Merlic, and Yi Tang (see p. 3-5). I am particularly impressed by our junior faculty. For starters, Xiangfeng Duan (four awards!!) and Neil Garg, who were promoted to Associate Professors on July 1, continue gathering accolades. We also received news this summer that Louis Bouchard was the winner of a very competitive Beckman Young Investigator Award (see p. 4). Graduate students Adam Goetz and Alex Huters received the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry and Bristol-Myers Squibb

Fellowships, respectively (see p. 5). I think you will also be pleased to read that Heather Maynard is now a full professor (see p. 7), and that Robin Garrell is excelling in her position as Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate Division (see p. 1). We were also pleased that Anne Andrews’ joint appointment in our department became official on July 1 (see p. 6). There are a number of exciting things happening in the department. We have just unveiled the department’s new Web site, and we hope that you will like it and visit often. You will also find that our graduate program is branching out to offer eight different specializations. Students will be able to select among (1) Analytical Chemistry and Instrumentation, (2) Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, (3) two tracks of Biophysics, (4) Inorganic Chemistry, (5) Materials and Nanotechnology, (6) Organic Chemistry, (7) Physical Chemistry, and (8) Theory and Computation. We had an outstanding class enter the department this Fall Quarter and we are very excited about having programs that will facilitate and formalize the highly interdisciplinary education and research that has been going on in our department for a long time. Earlier this Fall, we had a very special event in the celebration of the 100th birthday of Saul Winstein; it was a daylong symposium and banquet that reunited many of Winstein’s students and friends, along with many graduate alumni who were decorated with the Winstein Dissertation Award over the years (see p. 12). The Scott lecture was also recently presented by Prof. Daan Frenkel from the University of Cambridge, England. On November 19, we had our annual Departmental Awards Ceremony, where we celebrated the research and teaching accomplishments of our students, postdocs and faculty, as well as outstanding service from our staff. The grand finale for this year will be the 2012 Seaborg Symposium and Medal Award Banquet on December 7, 2012. This year’s honoree is Harold Varmus, who received the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Michael Bishop) for the discovery of cellular oncogenes. He was the director of the National Institutes of Health from 1993 to 1999, was appointed by President Obama as a co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and currently serves as the Director of the National Cancer Institute. This year’s Seaborg Symposium is entitled “Can Scientists Make the World a Better Place through Discovery, Dissemination, and Application of Knowledge?” and will be co-hosted by the UCLA Johnson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the David Geffen School of Medicine. Next February we will host the first lecture in honor of Professor Orville Chapman, featuring Professor Robert J. McMahon, a Chapman Alumni, as the inaugural speaker, and in May we will have the Donald J. Cram lecture, delivered by Nobel Laureate Barry Sharpless from Scripps Research Institute. We will also have our annual Kivelson lecture in the Winter, and the Bernstein and Hawthorne lectures in the Spring. You can find out more information about departmental activities on our Web site: www.chem.ucla.edu. We hope that you will be able to join us at some or all of these events!

Chair Miguel Garcia-Garibay Photo Credit: Reed Hutchinson

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AWARDSXiangfeng Duan Wins IUMRS - MRS Singapore Young Researcher Award, the JMC Lectureship, and the DuPont Young Professor Award

Professor Xiangfeng Duan won the inaugural International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS) and the Materials Research Society (MRS) “IUMRS - MRS Singapore Young Researcher Award.” Duan was selected from among 89 nominees for this prestigious award, which was presented to him in Singapore at the International Conference of Young Researchers on Advanced Materials (ICYRAM) in July. During the

conference, Duan presented the award lecture, entitled “Building Functional Nanosystems with 0D, 1D and 2D Nanostructures.” Duan was also awarded the 2012 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship for his contributions to the field of materials chemistry. This lectureship is an annual award that honors a younger scientist who has made a significant contribution to the field. In addition, Duan was one of nine faculty members to receive a DuPont Young Professor Award. “The DuPont Young Professor grants fund highly original research early in a professor's research career,” said Douglas Muzyka, DuPont Senior Vice President and Chief Science & Technology Officer. “This program is an excellent way for DuPont to create lasting relationships with emerging research leaders around the world who are attacking some of the world's greatest challenges.” Source: UCLA Newsroom

Sabeeha Merchant Receives Darbaker Prize in Phycology

Professor Sabeeha Merchant was awarded the 2012 Darbaker Prize in Phycology for meritorious work in the study of microscopic algae by the Botanical Society of America. Merchant has been instrumental in developing the genetics and genomics of Chlamydomonas

as a model organism. Her work has elucidated the role of metabolic cofactors and iron and copper utilization in the biogenesis of the photosynthetic apparatus, thus providing the basic understanding of chloroplast development for green algae and plants.

Yi Tang Receives Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the Environmental Protection Agency and National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award

Professor Yi Tang was awarded the prestigious 2012 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the United States Environ-mental Protection Agency at a ceremony held at the U.S. EPA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on June 18, 2012. The annual award, which Tang won for his project entitled “An Efficient Biocatalytic Process to

Manufacture Simvastatin,” recognizes pioneering chemical technologies developed by leading researchers and industrial innovators who have made significant contributions to pollution prevention in the United States. The award was shared with Codexis Inc, the company that licenses Tang’s technology. Additionally, Tang received a National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award for his research project entitled “Rediscovering Natural Chemical Diversity.” Established in 2004, the award supports investigators taking “highly innovative approaches that have the potential to produce a high impact on a broad area of biomedical or behavioral research.” Tang was recognized at a two-day NIH Director's Pioneer Award Symposium, held September 13-14, 2012 in Bethesda, Maryland. Source: UCLA Newsroom/UCLA Today

Steven G. Clarke Named to Endowed Chair in Gerontology by UCLA Longevity Center

Professor Steven G. Clarke was named to UCLA's Elizabeth and Thomas Plott Chair in Gerontology by the UCLA Longevity Center. The endowed chair, held for a five-year term, is intended for a scholar who conducts research and education activities related to aging and longevity in the areas of molecular biology, neuroscience and immunology. Clarke, who has been a member of the UCLA faculty since 1978, directed the UCLA Molecular Biology Institute from

2001 to 2011. He received his doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology from (continued on p. 4)

FALL 2012 NEWSLETTER FACULTY, STAFF & CONTRIBUTORS

Editorial Board Miguel Garcia-Garibay, Heather Maynard, Shahla RaissiEditing & Production Kady Bell-GarciaCollege Development & Alumni Relations Silvia Orvietani Busch, Kerri YoderContributors Anne Andrews, Mandy Bell, Thomas Cahoon, Arne Dieckmann, Miguel Garcia-Garibay, Neil Garg, Robin Garrell, David Gingrich, Adam Goetz, Sandra Hernandez, Kendall Houk, Alexander D. Huters, Genevieve Lee, Timothy Mahlanza, Denise Mantonya, Heather Maynard, Paris McDonald, Craig Merlic, Silvia Orvietani Busch, Yves Rubin, Melissa Woehrstein, and Lufeng Zou

UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry607 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles, California 90095-1569

Yi Tang

Sabeeha Merchant

Steven G. Clarke

Xiangfeng Duan

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Harvard University and did his undergraduate work in chemistry and zoology at Pomona College. Clarke’s research focuses on the biochemistry of the aging process and it is aimed at understanding, on a molecular level, how human functions are maintained during aging. Clarke has received numerous awards, including the American Chemical Society's Ralph F. Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry, a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health, and a Senior Scholar Award in Aging from the Ellison Medical Foundation. Elizabeth Plott was a former member of the UCLA Longevity Center's board of directors. The Plott Chair is selected by a committee of UCLA aging experts in the fields of neurology, geriatrics, psychiatry and pathology. Source: UCLA Newsroom

Louis Bouchard Receives Beckman Young Investigator Award

Professor Louis Bouchard was awarded a 2012 Beckman Young Investigator Award during a ceremony at the Beckman headquarters in Irvine this past August. According to the Beckman Foundation Web site, “the Beckman Young Investigators (BYI) Program is intended to provide research support to the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of academic careers in the chemical and

life sciences.”

Heather Maynard Receives Leverhulme Fellowship

Professor Heather Maynard received the Leverhulme Fellowship, enabling her to spend part of her Spring sabbatical conducting research in the United Kingdom. Maynard visited the Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Department of Materials at Imperial College in London to collaborate with Professor Molly Stevens and her research group on biomolecule nanopatterning and low cost HIV sensors.

Maynard delivered a series of Leverhulme Lectures in the U.K. at Imperial College and Cambridge University with the theme of “Bionanotechnology: Advances and Unprecedented Applications;” gave seminars at the High Polymer Research Group “Polymers for People” meeting at Pott Shrigley on the subject of “Protein-Polymer Conjugates for

Medical Applications;” and also gave a talk at Warwick University for Warwick2012 on “Protein-Polymer Conjugates: Synthesis andApplications,” a meeting sponsored by Macro U.K., the U.K. Polymer Group under the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Society of Chemical Industry. Neil Garg Wins American Chemical Society’s Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable Research Grant

The American Chemical Society’s Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable, a partnership between the ACS Green Chemistry Institute and member corporations in the pharmaceutical field, has awarded Professor Neil Garg its first research grant specifically directed toward greener medicinal chemistry.

His proposed research, titled “Development of Green Nickel-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling Reactions,” will focus on using a seldom-employed low-cost reagent within a green solvent to recreate the same sought-after couplings that are currently assembled using more expensive and wasteful compounds and processes. The outcome of this year-long project will be published and made available to the public to encourage the pharmaceutical industry and others to adopt the resulting greener alternatives. Source: American Chemical Society

Craig Merlic Receives Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching Award for his Web site, WebSpectra

Professor Craig Merlic received the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching award for his development of WebSpectra, a Web site aimed at helping organic chemistry students better understand spectroscopy problems. “This is a first-rate training site for teaching students how to interpret NMR and IR spectra through practice with a good, simple, workable user interface and very good introductory material in the narrative,” said the editor of the

MERLOT Chemistry Editorial Board. WebSpectra was added to the MERLOT Web site listing, in recognition of the award. MERLOT promotes technology in higher education classrooms by offering a free online community of collaborative teaching and learning materials. The winners of the 2012 Classics award were honored at the 2012 MERLOT/Sloan-C Emerging Technologies Conference, held on July 25th at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Neil Garg

Heather Maynard

Louis Bouchard

Craig Merlic

Awards (continued from p. 3)

AWARDS

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AWARDS/HAPPENINGSDepartment of Chemistry and Biochemistry Welcomes Competitive Fall 2012 Incoming Graduate Class  

       This year, the Chemistry program welcomed 46 new graduate students, while the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology program welcomed 11 graduate students. During the 2012 admissions season, the admissions committee recognized that applicants had higher GPA averages and more competitive GRE scores than in previous years, contributing to a

competitive incoming class. The department also received a variety of prestigious awards from the Graduate Division. Three incoming students were selected to receive the UCLA Competitive Edge Award: Jose Medina, Melissa Sandoval, and Diana Yugay. This program is exclusively for incoming doctoral students from underrepresented backgrounds who are pursuing STEM programs. Awardees were given the opportunity to be in residence at UCLA for six weeks before they began their studies, participating in research and attending various professional development sessions. Four incoming students were also awarded the Eugene V. Cota Robles Fellowship: Jose Medina, Alexandra Mendoza, Melissa Sandoval, and Diana Yugay. This diversity fellowship is awarded to highly competitive students of underrepresented backgrounds and provides a stipend, plus tuition and fees, for the first year, alleviating students from their teaching responsibilities. It also provides financial support in the fourth year. Source: Melissa Woehrstein

Adam Goetz Receives ACS Division of Organic Chemistry Graduate Fellowship

Adam Goetz, a Ph.D. student in Professor Neil Garg’s lab, received a 2012-2013 ACS Division of Organic Chemistry Graduate Fellowship, sponsored by Organic Reactions/Organic Syntheses. In addition to being awarded $27,000, Goetz will have the opportunity to attend the 2013 National Organic Symposium and to present a poster based on his research this coming June. He will present on the topic of modulating regioselectivities in reactions of 3,4 pyridynes.

Dissertation Year Fellowship Awardees

Nine students were awarded the Dissertation Year Fellowship for the 2012-2013 academic year. The awardees received stipends, plus standard tuition and fees during the academic year, to concentrate on finalizing their dissertations. The 2012-2013 Dissertation Year Fellowship Recipients from Biochemistry and Molecular Biology were Timothy Anderson, Tadashi Kawashima, and Angela Soriaga. The recipients from Chemistry were Zheng Cao, Mauricio Comas Garcia, Wenliang Huang, Alexander Huters, Andrew Roberts and Laura Schelhas. Source: Melissa Woehrstein

Alexander D. Huters Receives the Bristol-Myers Squibb Graduate Fellowship in Synthetic Organic Chemistry

Alexander D. Huters, a Ph.D. student in Professor Neil Garg’s lab, was chosen as a recipient of one of five 2012-2013 Bristol-Myers Squibb Fellowships. Fellowship awardees, who receive a $35,000 award, were chosen not only based on their academic performance and research achievements, but also on their demonstrated potential for significant future accomplishments. Huters will travel to Lawrenceville, New Jersey in April 2013 to participate in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Chemistry Awards Symposium. The title of his talk will be “Enantiospecific Total Synthesis

of [4.3.1]-Bicyclic Welwitindolinones.”

Eugene V. Cota Robles Awardees: Melissa Sandoval, Jose Medina,

and Alexandra Mendoza (Diana Yugay is not pictured)

Adam Goetz

Alexander D. Huters

Dissertation Year Fellowship Awardees: Andrew Roberts, Alex Huters, Laura Schelhas, Mauricio Comas-Garcia,

Angela Soriaga, Tad Kawashima, Wenliang Huang, and Zheng Cao (Timothy Anderson is not pictured)

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HAPPENINGS Alexandrova Lab Describes a Photo-driven Molecular Wankel Motor in Angewandte Chemie

The Alexandrova Lab published a VIP paper in Angewandte Chemie on July 9, 2012, reporting on their discovery of a photo-driven molecular Wankel motor, B13+. This cluster has the dual-ring structure. The motor is driven by circularly-polarized

infrared electromagnetic radiation. Calculations show that this illumination leads to a guided unidirectional rotation of the outer ring, which is achieved with rotational frequency of the order of 300 GHz. Co-authors included postdoctoral scholar Jin Zhang, former postdoctoral scholar Manuel Sparta, and former visiting graduate student Alina Sergeeva.

Undergraduates Host UCLA InnoWorks for Local Middle School Students

UCLA undergraduate students proudly hosted the 2012 UCLA InnoWorks Academy program from July 30 - Aug 3, 2012 in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. This scientific workshop, entitled “Making Sense of the Senses,” was organized by the talented UCLA InnoWorks student members and their faculty advisor, Professor Neil Garg. The students acted as mentors for roughly 20 underserved middle school students from Los Angeles County, sharing their passion for science by conducting a range of interactive scientific experiments. The UCLA chapter of United Innoworks Academy, in its second year, aims to partner underserved middle school students with college mentors to encourage them to pursue higher education and to promote careers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine.

Reisler & Gimzewski Labs Reveal How Drebrin-A, a Key Neuronal Actin Binding Protein, Modifies Single Actin Filaments

High resolution Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) shows cooperative binding of drebrin to single actin filaments and reveals the resulting change in their structure. The observed nanoscale structural changes modify the binding of other actin binding proteins and contribute to the unique properties of neuronal cytoskeletons. The discovery will help researchers to further analyze

the role of Drebrin A and actin in neurons and take the next steps towards understanding the molecular connection between drebrin A deficiency and Alzheimer’s disease. This work was highlighted in Biophysical Journal on July 17, 2012. Co-authors included postdoctoral scholar Elena Grintsevich and former graduate student Carlin Hsueh.

Anne Andrews Joins the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

The joint appointment of Professor Anne Andrews in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry became effective July 1, 2012. She joined the department’s organic and physical chemistry divisions, and continues to serve as a Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior. Andrews received her bachelor’s in chemistry from Pennsylvania State University in 1985, and her Ph.D. in chemistry from American University in

1993. She also attended George Washington University’s Sino-Soviet Institute for Russian Area Studies. Andrews was a United States Department of Education Fellow and a NIH Predoctoral Intramural Research Training Awardee (IRTA). Andrews continued as a Postdoctoral IRTA Fellow and a Senior Staff Fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health. In 1998, she joined the faculty at Pennsylvania State University in the departments of chemistry and veterinary and biomedical sciences, and was affiliated with the Huck Institute’s Neuroscience and Molecular Toxicology Programs before she moved to UCLA. Andrews is an Eli Lilly Outstanding Analytical Chemist Awardee and the recipient of a National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression Independent Investigator Award, among others. She is a fellow of the Collegium Internationale Neuropsychopharmacologicum and a Serotonin Club councilor. Andrews serves on multiple review panels for the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke. She is also an Associate Editor of ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

Professor Neil Garg with UCLA undergraduate students at the InnoWorks Academy program,

held on July 30-August 3, 2012.

Anne Andrews

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HAPPENINGSDepartmental Promotions

Professors Xiangfeng Duan and Neil Garg, who have both been the recipients of numerous early career awards, were promoted to tenure this past July. Professor Duan received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1997, his master’s degree in chemistry from Harvard University in 1999, and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Harvard University in 2002. He went on to serve as a founding scientist, principal scientist and manager of advanced technology at Nanosys Inc., from 2002 to 2008, before joining the faculty at UCLA in 2008. His most recent awards include the International Union of Materials Research Societies (IUMRS) and the Materials Research Society (MRS) “IUMRS - MRS Singapore Young Researcher Award,” the 2012 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship, and the DuPont Young Professor Award (see p. 2). He was also a co-winner of the Herbert Newby McCoy Award in 2011. Professor Garg received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from New York University in 2000, and his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 2005, under the direction of Professor Brian Stoltz. He then worked as a NIH postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Irvine, under the direction of Professor Larry Overman. Garg joined the faculty at UCLA in 2007 as an Assistant Professor. His most recent awards include the 2012 Alpha Chi Sigma Glenn T. Seaborg Award, the 2012 A.P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and a research grant from the American Chemical Society’s Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable (see p. 4). He was also the winner of the 2011 Hanson-Dow Award for Excellence in Teaching, and was a co-winner of the Herbert Newby McCoy Award in 2011. Additionally, Professor Heather Maynard was recently promoted to full professor. Professor Maynard received her bachelor’s in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1992, her master’s in materials science from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995, and her Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 2000, under the directorship of Nobel Prize winner Robert Grubbs. She then served as an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow, under the directorship of Jeffrey Hubbell, from 2000-2002, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and University of Zurich. Professor Maynard joined the UCLA faculty in 2002 as the first Howard Reiss Career Development Chair and as a member of the

California Nanosystems Institute. Her most recent awards include being named a Leverhulme Fellow in 2012 (see p. 4) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2011.

Improved Summer Research Program Introduced

The Summer Research Program provides incoming students an opportunity to engage in research prior to beginning the Chemistry and Biochemistry graduate program. With guidance from the Graduate Student Affairs Office, incoming students make their own arrangements to join a professor’s lab during the summer months and receive a stipend to assist with their summer living costs.          This year, the Graduate Student Affairs Office developed a structured orientation schedule and implemented a cohort model for all summer research participants. The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry welcomed a total of 30 students for its inaugural summer orientation on July 9, 2012. The day’s events included an introduction to the department, computing services, departmental photos, and an exclusive departmental laboratory safety training session. The agenda primarily focused on summer responsibilities, and summer participants also attended a comprehensive fall orientation in September. In previous years, summer participants began their summer research individually, selecting a random date of their choice. This year’s cohort model allowed students to learn more about the department, introduce themselves to others, and begin building relationships, proving to be a success. Source: Melissa Woehrstein

Xiangfeng Duan Neil Garg Heather Maynard

Left: Graduate Student Affairs Officer Melissa Woehrstein moderates a student panel at the Summer Research Orientation held on July 9, 2012.

Right: Summer Research Program students enjoy an outdoor lunch at their orientation program.

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Doctor of PhilosophyLital N. Adler(Steven G. Clarke, Advisor)

Ian Paul Andrews(Ohyun Kwon, Advisor)

Gregg A. Barcan(Ohyun Kwon, Advisor)

Ben Boal(Neil Garg, Advisor)

Sarah Marie Bronner(Neil Garg, Advisor)

Becky (Pik Kay) Chan(Joan Valentine, Advisor)

Jonah J. Chang(Michael Jung, Advisor)

Eric Kuan-Jai Chen(Kendall Houk, Advisor)

Julio Marcelo D’Arcy(Richard Kaner, Advisor)

Hexiang Deng(Omar Yaghi, Advisor)

Timothy Allen Dong(Michael Jung, Advisor)

Lisa Dudek(Sarah Tolbert, Advisor)

Selma Duhović(Paula Diaconescu, Advisor)

Sarayoot Eaimkhong(James Gimzewski, Advisor)

Jonathan Erde(Joseph Loo, Advisor)

Michael Matthew Fryd(Thomas Mason, Advisor)Recipient of the Physical Chemistry Dissertation Award, presented by Professor Thomas Mason

Erin Rochelle Greiner(Joseph Loo, Advisor)

Meghan Elizabeth Johnson(Carla Koehler, Advisor)

Scott Arne Johnson(Kendall Houk, Advisor)

Christopher Byung-hwa Kang(Sarah Tolbert, Advisor)

Soohong Kim(Shimon Weiss, Advisor)

Yuen A. Lau(Jeffrey Zink, Advisor)

Andrew T. Lech(Richard Kaner, Advisor)

Yueh-Jung (Cynthia) Lee(Guillaume Chanfreau, Advisor)

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Graduation 2012 The 2012 Chemistry and Biochemistry Graduation Ceremony took place on Saturday, June 16. The ceremony began with the conferring of the first annual Alumni Award to astronaut Anna Fisher, who received her B.S. in chemistry, M.S. in chemistry, and M.D. from UCLA, by Chair Albert Courey. Dr. Fisher then gave an inspirational graduation address, which included reflections on how UCLA shaped her future and culminated with stories of her success as an astronaut with NASA (see p. 11). Prior to the hooding of our forty-seven Ph.D. students, five graduate students received dissertation awards from their advisors. We were delighted that Carolee Winstein was able to join us, presenting the Saul and Sylvia Winstein Dissertation Award to Kyle Quasdorf, in honor of her parents. The Ph.D. hooding ceremony was followed by the presentation of two Masters and seven Departmental Scholar candidates. The undergraduate portion of the ceremony began with the presentation of fourteen undergraduate awards and fellowships to twenty-seven recipients. We were honored to have alumnus Robert Boschan present the Alumni Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship to Hui Tsui. Additionally, Robin Genchel, a cousin of the late alumna Dolores Cannon Southam, presented the Dolores Cannon Southam Award for outstanding research to Krystal McCarty and Kristina Woodruff. The ceremony culminated in the presentation of this year’s class of 311 bachelor’s degree candidates. We congratulate our 2012 graduates on their success in joining our distinguished family of alumni and wish them all the best in their future professional endeavors. The names of our 2012 graduates and award recipients are listed below.

GRADUATION 2012

Photo Credit: GradImages®Watermark Photo Credit: Yves Rubin

Top: Carolee Winstein and Neil Garg with theSaul and Sylvia Winstein Dissertation Awardee, Kyle

Quasdorf Bottom: Robin Genchel with the Dolores Cannon

Southam Award recipients, Kristina Woodruff (left) and Kristal McCarty (right)

(continued on p. 9)

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Zongxi Li(Jeffrey Zink, Advisor)

Wei-Siang Liau(Carla Koehler, Advisor)  

Ron Lin(Shimon Weiss, Advisor)

Carlos Javier López Colón(Wayne Hubbell, Advisor)Recipient of the Biochemistry Dissertation Award, presented by Professor Wayne Hubbell

Breeyawn Ririe Lybbert(Michael Jung, Advisor)

Rock J. Mancini(Heather Maynard, Advisor)

Heather Thomas McFarlane(David Eisenberg, Advisor)

Tehetena Mesganaw(Neil Garg, Advisor)

Kevin Miller(Paula Diaconescu, Advisor)

Andrew Min(David Eisenberg, Advisor)

William Morris(Omar Yaghi, Advisor)

Sonya E. Neal(Carla Koehler, Advisor)

Benson Ngo(Harold Martinson, Advisor)

Geoff Nosrati(Kendall Houk, Advisor)

Bala Krishna Pathem(Paul Weiss, Advisor)

Travis Anthony Pecorelli(Jeffrey Zink, Advisor)

Kyle Wayne Quasdorf(Neil Garg, Advisor)Recipient of the Saul and Sylvia Winstein Dissertation Award, presented by Carolee Winstein and Professor Neil Garg

Emilio Ramos(Tomas Ganz, Advisor)

Iris E. Rauda(Sarah Tolbert, Advisor)

Shakir Sayani(Guillaume Chanfreau, Advisor)

Alexander Wayne Schammel(Neil Garg, Advisor)

Yuewei Sheng(Joan Valentine, Advisor)

Veronica Strong(Richard Kaner, Advisor)

Courtney R. Thomas(Jeffrey Zink, Advisor)Recipient of the Inorganic Chemistry Dissertation Award, presented by Professor Jeffrey Zink

Cortnie S. Vogelsberg(Miguel Garcia-Garibay, Advisor)Recipient of the Thomas L. and Ruth F. Jacobs Dissertation Award, presented by Professor Kendall Houk

Jonathan K. Wassei(Richard Kaner, Advisor)

Courtney Lynn White(James Gober, Advisor)

Master of ScienceJohnny CaiLisa CaoNikolay DimitrovXin GuanChristopher Byung-hwa KangTun-Min MaungChristian VacaKristina WoodruffChu Ran Zheng

Bachelor of ScienceSusan Zaher AbbaszadehEbenezer Abdella Ahmed Mohammed AbdulkarimGamaliel Isai AcevedoHannah Ghong-Ju Ahn Sean Shaho AkhavanJose Eduardo AlonsoEdward Albert AmadorRamela AmirianAthena Kimberly AusSean M. BadalSunna Bae(continued on p. 10)

GRADUATION 2012

Photo Credit: GradImages®Watermark Photo Credit: Yves Rubin

Doctor of Philosophy (continued from p. 8)

Top: Dean Joseph Rudnick with Gold Family Foundation Award

recipient Agape Awad Bottom: Robert Boschan with Alumni Undergraduate Summer Research

Fellowship recipient Hui Tsui

U C L A C h e m i s t r y & B i o c h e m i s t r y - F A L L 2 0 1 2

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Katarzyna Marta Banas Nora Lena Bedrossian Φ Dana Ben Yehuda Daniel Callahan Ben-ZviRebecca Zoe BennettMax Rutherford Berger Gilberto Bernal, Jr. Anasheh BoghozianGregory Aaron Braggin James Kentalo BridgewaterKelly Midori Brown Adam David Brunell ΦChristian BustillosBolun CaoLisa Ann Cao*Alexander CastilloLauren Nicole Cerulle Jennifer Chan Elbert Kai Chung Chao Lawrence Kai Yiu ChauLuxi Chen Φ (Recipient of the Ethel Terry McCoy Award for Excellence in Chemistry & Biochemistry) Matthew Hon ChenRichard Kuanta ChenSabrina Shiyu ChenSean ChenXumin Chen Yihu Chen Ho Shan CheungJason Tang Kong Cheung Tammy Wing Sam ChewVicky Chiang ΦLubna Chitalwalla Soo H. ChoSuk Jin ChoAlice Ye Seul Choi Christine Jeeun Choi Hye Min Choi Kevin Long ChuTiffany Mei Chu Francisco Chung Hannah Elizabeth ClausonKevin Michael Cone Tylor Douglas ConnorEdgar Corona Daria Alekseevna CubberleyAndrew George Dadour Shayla Phuong Diem Dang Bryant L. DaoSpenser Lawrence DavisRoland Davoudi Avelino Apostol De Leon, Jr.

Nikolay Dimitrov Dimitrov Φ*(Recipient of the Merck Index Award)Jane Jing Ding Sora DoStephanie D.EaneffAndrew Wayne EddyChengcheng FanWeiwei FangJames Hao FannNadia Medina FatahiNouran FeloDavid FooAustin Daniel Gable Laura M. Galindo Kaycee GeleraSoheil Kalimi GidaniyanThomas Joseph Gintjee IVJian GongDavid Hilario Gonzalez-MartinezDylan Jake GoodrichXin Ning Guan * (Recipient of the Ethel Terry McCoy Award for Excellence in Chemistry & Biochemistry)Antony Edward GuglielmoneRajat Gupta Joanna Ellen Haight Gemmy Hannsun Φ (Recipient of the Merck Index Award)Matthew David HechtKhuong HoangShen Bang HuShiwei HuangVivian Sui Nam Hui Kung-Ping HungDavid Huynh Khanh Ngan Thanh Huynh Mioy Tan Huynh Hey Min Hwang Jee Youn Hwang (Hypercube Scholar)Jong Pil Hwang Eunchi Hyun Yuliya IlyushenkoEoon Hye JiRichard Mark Jin Katherine Joanne JohnsonYong Ha JungNeda Kalali Chulsoo Kang Hyun Sik KangJu H. Kang Gurpreet KaurSukhpreet KaurSabeen Asia Kazmi

Andrew KimDae Woong KimErica Sungeun KimHyojoo Kim Isaac Jungyoon Kim Jin Ki Kim ΦKeun Won KimPil Heon Kim Sang Jun Kim Seok Hyun KimYena KimYoung Jin KimYu Ji KimFred Fred Kobzeff (Recipient of the Whitcome Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship)Eun Byul Erica Koh Michael Andrew KrakJonathan Lan Kuo Jiyoung KwakMing Ho George Kwong Yin Mon Kyaw Andrew Paul Laffin Tak Wa LamAlexander William Lamb Roger LauLeo LeNga Hoang Le Sarah Elizabeth LechnerAlbert Lee (Recipient of the Geissman Award for Excellence in Organic Chemistry)Christopher Sang Jin LeeJinwon Lee Michael Jaehoon LeeMinyi Lee Miri Kim Lee Sarah Susie LeeSeul Ah LeeYan Chi Lee Xiaoyi Li Jeffrey LoAnastasia LomovaJamie LuMichael D. LuSong LuoYiwen LuoToan T. LyBrian MaDanning Ma (Recipient of the Ethel Terry McCoy Award for Excellence in Chemistry & Biochemistry) Mia Grace MackowskiAlexander Kyle Mar

John Donald Marra Φ (Recipient of the Merck Index Award)Rey William Martin(Recipient of the Arthur Furst Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research)Gregory Allen MasamoriTun-Min Oo Maung *Kyle Russell McCarthy Krystal Nicole McCarty(Recipient of the Dolores Cannon Southam Award for Excellence in Research) John MillerHagop Jack MkroyanNatalie Ann MoffettMarco A. Molina Nikolaos Mouchtouris (Recipient of the Merck Index Award)Patrick Adam Nack-LehmanChang Hyun NahmAkash Naidu Elizabeth NamYoonsun NamNicolas Gregory Nelson Alexander David NewtonJimmy NgoAndrew M. Nguyen Hoang Anh Phu Nguyen Hoang Nhat Nguyen Phuong Vy Nguyen Vu Phan H. Nguyen Jennifer Rose O'ConnorMakoto OeStephanie Yukari OharaJennifer Serah OkaforMegan Paz OlaguerMatt Christian Ordonez OngocoJose Ortega-Collazo Garabed Ohannes Ourfali Clint Cody Owens Kush Kishorchandra PanchaniRobinpreet Singh Pannu Steven V. PanotesHae Lim ParkJae Wook ParkJinyi ParkSung Yeun ParkJaesung Park Nikita Kalpesh Patel Andrew PhamJonathan Theodore Pham Φ

Bachelor of Science(continued from p. 9)

Watermark Photo Credit: Yves Rubin

GRADUATION 2012

(continued on p. 11)

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Quynh Vo Bao Pham(Recipient of the Ethel Terry McCoy Award for Excellence in Chemistry & Biochemistry) Steven Viet PhamTuo PiaoLaura PowellAaron Luz PuertollanoHaili QiuAustin QuachRyan Vincent Quiroz Φ(Recipient of the Merck Index Award)Joan Danielle RamosAman RanganParastou RastegarNeal Gregory Rice Andres Rafael RodriguezPatricia Beatriz RodriguezXiao Mei RuanStephanie Anne RunkeJennifer Joy Russell Kazuhiro Shamim SabetTakafumi Sakurai ΦShida SalehiMikhail Delorey SchumacherTomer Schwartz Danny Segura Amin SeyedkazemiShandy ShahabiNowsheen ShahnazMaya S. Shehayeb (Recipient of the Merck Index Award)Nai-Wei ShihSergey Shnitkind(Recipient of the Alpha Chi Sigma Achievement Award)Jocelyne Noella Siewe TientcheuJaklin G. Simonian Nainwant Kaur Singh Leah Marie Sitler Chanrith Siv Brian David SmithBrent Francis Solomon Catherine Ong SonedaPaul Song Yun Song Carolina Lia SonuIdean Sotoudeh DeilamyMyron Halili SoyangcoDerek James Spitters Victoria Roe SuZhiqiang Sun

Hae Lim Sung Tiantian Tang Pawarid TechathaveewatZaw ThuraRandy Thien ToAshley Kristine Tobin Andrew TranAnh Hoang Tran Dang Minh Tran Thai Quan Tran Tri Nha TranYee Tsang Derick Seanhow TsaoiHui Su Tsui (Recipient of the Alumni Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship)Christopher Lawrence Turner Vladimir UfimtsevJennifer Oliveros Uyan Thu To VanJustin Espiritu Viloria Tramy Thi VoHubert WangLinda Wang Ze Qiang WangDavid Isaac Weiss Φ (Recipient of the Dunn Award for Excellence in Biochemistry)Anita WenMarlyn Anne WidjajaJordan Ryan Williams Kenneth Chung-Ming Wong Kristina Pan Woodruff Φ*(Recipient of the Dolores Cannon Southam Award for Excellence in Research)Kingsley Yu Wu Nancy Wu (Recipient of the Ramsey Award for Excellence in Physical Chemistry)Wei Hang Wu Meisi Xiao Weihong YanEsther Sophia Yang Ting-Chiang Yang Brian Gerard Yep Christopher Jin-Yong Yoon Diana YuAnoosh ZadfarChengqian Zang Yi Zeng Lei Zhao Chu Ran Zheng *Wen Bin Zhou

GRADUATION 2012

*Departmental Scholars Φ Phi Beta Kappa

Watermark Photo Credit: Yves Rubin

Bachelor of Science(continued from p. 10)

Alumna Astronaut Anna Fisher Gives Graduation Address

           Alumna and Astronaut Anna Fisher received the first annual UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry Alumni Award at the department graduation ceremony on June 16, 2012. Additionally, she gave the 2012 graduation address, instilling hope in the minds of undergraduate and graduate students poised to enter the working world, and reminding them to “find something [they were] passionate about,” to “be persistent,” and to not “neglect [their] personal lives.”

Dressed in her own M.D. graduation regalia, she was an example of UCLA-bred success. Fisher received her B.S. degree in chemistry in 1971, an M.D. in 1976, and an M.S. in chemistry in 1987, all from UCLA, but she said becoming an astronaut resulted from the “adventure of life” and her forays down several different paths. “The detours and missteps that you encounter can often turn out to have positive impacts,” Fisher said. “And although I didn’t realize it at first, everything I learned here at UCLA, and the confidence I gained from successfully completing very rigorous programs in chemistry and

medicine, prepared me so well for all of the new things I would need to learn to be a successful astronaut.” Fisher shared several memories of her ten years at UCLA, noting the time her quantum chemistry professor, Dr. McMillan, reviewed her midterm and helped her calculate the best time to view shooting stars – before dawn. “Now every time I see a shooting star, I think of Dr. McMillan and the time he took with each of us,” Fisher said. “But I bet he never expected me to be looking down on the meteorites, as I did from the space shuttle.” After her speech, Fisher presented former chair Albert J. Courey with a commemorative collage, documenting her mission into space, for display in Young Hall. Fisher was part of the crew on the space shuttle Discovery, STS 51-A, which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on November 8, 1984 and returned on November 16, 1984. Fisher’s graduation address is available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1HUQ9Ra1NY. If you would like to suggest an alumnus/a for a future Alumni Award, or if you are interested in endowing the award, please contact the chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Miguel Garcia-Garibay, via e-mail (chair@chem.ucla.edu). Potential awardees should have made outstanding contributions to their fields (not necessarily in chemistry and biochemistry) and cannot have received the Seaborg Medal.

Anna Fisher and Albert J. Courey

The commemorative collage from Astronaut Fisher includes

a small California state flag and crew patch that traveled on the Discovery, as well as

photographs from the mission.

Photo Credit: GradImages®

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DISTINGUISHED LECTURESCelebration of the 100th Birthday of Saul Winstein

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry hosted a day-long Celebration of the 100th Birthday of Saul Winstein on October 6, 2012 at the California NanoSystems Institute. The event featured 20-minute talks about the Winstein era and chemistry since then, and was followed by a reception and banquet at the UCLA Faculty Center. Winstein collaborators George Olah, Jack Roberts, Martin Saunders, and Paul

Schleyer; former Winstein research group members John Brauman, Maurice Brookhart, John Grutzner, Ed Kosower, Ieva Reich, Reuben Rieke, and Phil Warner; Winstein Award winners Luis Campos, Bob McMahon, Paul Ornstein, and Dean Tantillo; historian and sociologist of chemistry, Jeff Seeman; and physical organic chemist and former Chancellor of NCSU and UCSD, Marye Anne Fox participated in the event. Carolee Winstein and members of the Winstein family also attended. In addition to sixteen lectures, a “Physical Organic Chemistry at UCLA in the 21st Century” poster session was held, featuring the research of graduate students and postdocs.

Saul Winstein was born on October 8, 1912 and graduated from UCLA in 1934. He received his Ph.D. from Caltech in 1938. After a year at Harvard University with Paul Bartlett, he became an instructor at IIT and returned to UCLA as an instructor in 1941, becoming a full professor in 1947. His career flourished at UCLA until his death in 1969. Seventy-two students obtained their Ph.D. degrees under his supervision, and eighty-six postdoctoral fellows came from all parts

of the world to collaborate with him. Together, one hundred joined the academic profession and had outstanding careers. Winstein’s discoveries of neighboring group involvement in cation formation, non-classical cation and the concepts of homoconjugation and homoaromaticity, and in medium effects, radical and organometallic reaction mechanisms, ion-pair behavior, and mechanisms of substitution and elimination reactions contributed mightily to the maturing of physical organic chemistry. He invented many phrases, including “neighboring group participation,” “solvent participation,” “internal return,” “anchimeric assistance,” and “intimate ion pair” that were among the most important topics of chemists in the 1950s and 1960s. He received many awards, including the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, 1948; membership in the National Academy of Sciences, 1955; the California Museum of Science and Industry's California Scientist of the Year Award, 1962; membership in the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1966; the ACS Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry, 1967; and the Franklin Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions to Chemistry, 1968. Source: Kendall Houk

Inaugural Orville L. Chapman Lecture Coming in February 2013

         Professor Robert J. McMahon (Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin) will present the inaugural Orville L. Chapman lecture on February 28, 2013. McMahon received a B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1980, and a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from UCLA in 1985, under the supervision of Chapman, working on the mechanisms of carbene rearrangements. After researching excited-state electron

transfer as a postdoctoral research associate with Professor Mark S. Wrighton at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McMahon joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988. He was promoted to full professor in 1997. He became an Associate Editor of the Journal of Organic Chemistry in 2000, and was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003.

Chapman was widely recognized as a leader in various scientific fields, including photochemistry, matrix isolation spectroscopy, reaction intermediates, polymers, and materials design. He received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and English from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1957, before moving on to join the chemistry faculty at Iowa State University. In 1974, Chapman was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences and transferred to UCLA, where he investigated several organic reactive intermediates, such as carbenes, nitrenes, and propadienones. His ideas concerning the novel molecule, C60, developed in 1980, and in 1981 he initiated efforts directed at its chemical synthesis, pioneering contributions to materials chemistry. Chapman received many awards, including the Pure Chemistry Award and the Arthur C. Cope Medal from the American Chemical Society, and the Texas Instruments Foundation Founders' Prize. He also holds five patents for new industrial processes. In 1991, he won the Computer World Smithsonian Institute Award for the best use of computers in education and academia. Chapman passed away on January 22, 2004, after a year-long battle with lung disease. In his honor, the undergraduate computer lab on the fourth floor of Young Hall was named the Orville L. Chapman Learning Center.

Saul Winstein

Robert J. McMahon

Orville L. Chapman

Joan Winstein, Carolee Winstein, and Kip Thorne blowing out the

candles of Saul Winstein’s cake at his 100th birthday celebration,

held October 6, 2012

Winstein’s 100th Birthday Celebration Photo Credit: Arne Dieckmann, Lufeng Zou

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DISTINGUISHED LECTURES/RESEARCHPlease Participate in Establishing the Charles and Carolyn Knobler Lectureship

The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is excited about establishing a new yearly lectureship in honor of Charles and Carolyn Knobler, who have been extraordinary contributors to the science, life, and spirit of our department and UCLA over many decades. Chuck, as he is affectionately known, and Carolyn have been key members of our department for almost 50 years and are still very

active. Chuck has served twice as the chair of the department, and he has also served as associate dean for the Division of Physical Sciences. He has taught countless UCLA students, and both he and Carolyn have made many outstanding research contributions in surface science, virology, scattering, and crystallography. Especially for those of you who know Chuck and Carolyn, please join us in honoring them by contributing to this annual lectureship in innovative cross-disciplinary chemistry. Please make checks payable to the UCLA Foundation. Please write “Knobler Lecture” in the memo area and send checks to Kerri Yoder, Director of Development of Physical Sciences, College of Letters & Science, 1309 Murphy Hall, P.O. Box 951413, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1413.

Quantum Mechanics and Molecular Dynamics of Organic and Biological Reactivity Workshop

Professors Anastassia Alexandrova and Kendall N. Houk hosted a workshop on “Quantum Mechanics and Molecular Dynamics of Organic and Biological Reactivity” at UCLA on June 21-23, 2012. Twenty-seven speakers came from universities and companies all over the United States and from Germany, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. There were 24 posters by additional attendees from UCLA and other universities. This was a satellite meeting of the International (continued on p. 17)

Heather Maynard develops a way to strengthen proteins with polymers

Seeking a way to lessen the amount of protein degradation that can occur during shipment and storage, Professor Heather Maynard and co-workers discovered that synthesizing sugar polymers to attach to proteins provides adequate stabilization. Proteins are widely used as drugs — insulin for diabetics is the best known example — and as reagents in research laboratories, but they react poorly to fluctuations in temperature and degrade in storage. Because of this instability, proteins must be

shipped and stored at regulated temperatures, which increases costs,

and may end up being discarded because their “active” properties have been lost. Manufacturers of protein drugs will generally add substances known as excipients, like polyethylene glycol, to the proteins to prolong their activity. Maynard’s study, which suggests an alternative to this method, was published in the Journal of the American Society of Chemistry on April 20, 2012. The polymers consist of a polystyrene backbone and side chains of trehalose, a disaccharide found in various plants and animals that can live for long periods with little or no water. An example many people will recognize is Sea-Monkeys — the “novelty aquarium pet” introduced in 1962. Sea-Monkeys can be purchased as kits that contain a white powder; when water is added, the powder turns into small shrimp with long tails said to resemble those of monkeys. Trehalose is known to stabilize proteins when water is removed, and as a result, it is an additive in several protein drug formulations approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat cancer and other conditions. “Our polymers were synthesized by a controlled radical polymerization technique called reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization in order to have end groups that can attach to proteins to form what is called a protein-polymer conjugate,” Maynard said. “We found that the polymers significantly stabilized the protein we used — lysozyme — better to lyophilization (freeze-drying, in which water is removed from the protein) and to heat than did the protein with no additives.” The research team found that attaching the polymer covalently to the protein — that is, forming a protein-polymer conjugate — stabilized the protein to lyophilization better than adding the non-conjugated polymer at the same concentration. The team also found that the polymers stabilized lysozyme significantly better than the currently used excipients trehalose and polyethylene glycol. The Maynard research group is currently exploring the use of their polymer as a stabilizer by attaching it or adding it to FDA–approved protein therapeutics. In addition, they are investigating the mechanism of how the polymer stabilizes proteins. The research team included recent Ph.D. (continued on p. 17)

Heather Maynard

Carolyn and Charles Knobler

Professors Anastassia Alexandrova and Kendall N. Houk (center) with the speakers featured at the “Quantum Mechanics and Molecular Dynamics of Organic and Biological Reactivity”

Workshop, held June 21-23, 2012.

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Biochemistry professor Juli Feigon and co-workers have mapped the structure of a key protein–RNA complex that is required for the assembly of telomerase, an enzyme important in both cancer and aging. The study was published July 13, 2012 in the journal Molecular Cell. The researchers found that a region at the end of the p65 protein that includes a flexible tail is responsible for bending telomerase's RNA backbone to create a scaffold for the assembly of other protein building blocks. Understanding this protein, which is found in a type of single-celled organism that lives in fresh water ponds, may help researchers predict the function of similar proteins in humans and other organisms. The genetic code of both the single-celled protozoan Tetrahymena and humans is stored within long strands of DNA packaged neatly within chromosomes. The telomerase enzyme helps create telomeres — protective caps at the ends of the chromosomes that prevent the degradation of our DNA, Feigon said. Each time the cell divides, the telomeres shorten, acting like the slow-burning fuse of a time bomb. After many divisions, the telomeres become eroded to a point that can trigger cell death. Cells with abnormally high levels of telomerase activity constantly rebuild their protective chromosomal caps, allowing them to replicate indefinitely and become, essentially, immortal. “Telomerase is not very active in most of our cells, because we don't want them to live forever,” Feigon said. “After many generations, DNA damage builds up and we wouldn't want to pass those errors on to subsequent cells.” Overactive telomerase is particularly lively within cancer cells, which prevents them from dying out naturally. Finding a way to turn off telomerase in cancer cells might help prevent them from multiplying. “Any time you want to stop an enzyme, you can target activity, but you can also target assembly,” she said. “If you keep it from assembling, that's just as good as keeping it from being active, because it never even forms.” While there is enormous interest in telomerase due to its connection to cancer and aging, very little is known about its three-dimensional structure or its formation, Feigon said. Four years ago, UCLA postdoctoral scholar Mahavir Singh set out to determine how a strand of RNA and multiple proteins bind together to form telomerase. He set his sights on the p65 protein, one of the key components of the enzyme. Like many proteins, p65 is a long chain of both stiff and supple links that fold in upon one another in a prescribed pattern. At the very end of the p65 protein is a floppy, disordered tail. “We knew the tail was important for the protein's function, but it wasn't clear how or why,” said Singh, first author of the study. “From the structure, it became evident how it interacts with the telomerase RNA.” When Singh snipped off the flexible tail from p65, he found that the assembly of telomerase became severely limited. The tailless p65 simply couldn't help put together the enzyme. Using both X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic

resonance spectroscopy, Singh probed the structure of the protein and its interaction with telomerase RNA. He found that upon assembly, the flexible tail transforms into a rigid crowbar that pries apart the strands of the RNA double helix. The newly altered protein tail bends the RNA into a new shape required for binding an essential component of telomerase, a protein called telomerase reverse transcriptase, or TERT. The p65 protein not only brings two parts of the RNA closer together to allow for the attachment of the TERT protein, but it also folds around the end of the RNA strands to protect them before the telomerase assembles. Without its protein shield, the “naked” RNA is susceptible to degradation and could be chewed up by other enzymes, Singh said. The p65 protein belongs to a family of “La-motif” proteins, molecules that act as “RNA chaperones” in many organisms including humans, Feigon said. “How the p65 protein binds with RNA has never been clear,” Feigon said. “Nobody could figure it out, and that's partly because they were missing a critical, extra part of the protein which changes from being a completely random coil to being folded and ordered when it interacts with RNA.” Studying p65 within the humble Tetrahymena may help Singh and Feigon better understand its La-motif cousins within the human body, which may also sport protein tails. “A lot of data indicates that the protein tail is important for the binding of all kinds of RNAs in human cells,” Feigon said. “It is particularly critical for the translation of the hepatitis C viral RNA. Now we can potentially predict how those proteins will assemble and interact with their RNAs.” The researchers who first discovered telomerase were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2009. They also used Tetrahymena thermophila, a tiny microorganism with hair-like flagella commonly found in fresh water. This research was federally funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Other co-authors included senior staff scientist Duilio Cascio, postdoctoral scholars Zhongua Wang and Bon-Kyung Koo, undergraduate researcher Anooj Patel, and Kathleen Collins, a UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology. Source: UCLA Newsroom

Juli Feigon discovers how key enzyme involved in aging, cancer assembles

RESEARCH

The RNA backbone of telomerase (multicolored) is shown interacting with three different parts of the p65 protein (shown in gold, blue, and light green).

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Biochemistry Professor Todd Yeates and co-workers have designed specialized proteins that assemble themselves to form tiny molecular cages hundreds of times smaller than a single cell. The creation of these miniature structures may be the first step toward developing new methods of drug delivery or designing artificial vaccines. “This is the first decisive demonstration of an approach that can be used to combine protein molecules together to create a whole array of nanoscale materials,” said Yeates, who is also a member of the UCLA-DOE Institute of Genomics and Proteomics and the California Nanosystems Institute. Published June 1, 2012 in the journal Science, the research could be utilized to create cages from any number of different proteins, with potential applications across the fields of medicine and molecular biology. UCLA graduate student Yen-Ting Lai, lead author of the study, used computer models to identify two proteins that could be combined to form perfectly shaped three-dimensional puzzle pieces. Twelve of these specialized pieces fit together to create a molecular cage a mere fraction of the size of a virus. “If you just connect two random proteins together, you expect to get an irregular network,” said Yeates. “In order to control the geometry, the idea was to make a rigid link holding the two proteins in place as if they were parts of a toy puzzle.” The specifically designed proteins intermesh to form a hollow lattice that could act as a vessel for drug delivery, he said. “In principle, it would be possible to attach a recognition sequence for cancer cells on the outside of the cage, with a toxin or some other 'magic bullet' contained inside,” said Yeates. “That way, the drug could be delivered directly to certain targets like tumor cells.”

At this stage, the assembled protein cages are porous enough that a drug placed inside would likely leak out during the delivery process, Lai said. His next project will involve constructing a new molecular cage with an interior that will be better sealed. The versatile protein structures might also be used as artificial vaccines. Some traditional vaccines use an inactive surface protein from a virus to trick the body's immune system into thinking it is under attack. This method isn't always effective, because sometimes the protein in question doesn't look enough like the virus to trigger a strong response from the body's defenders. However, by decorating the surface of a molecular cage with segments of virus-derived proteins, the tiny structures might better mimic a virus, stimulating an immune response even stronger than a traditional vaccine and better protecting the human recipient from illness. “Our first challenge will be repeating these kinds of designs with molecules that are less likely to generate a host immune response,” he said. “Generally, we want to use proteins that look like human proteins so the body does not recognize them as foreign.” The idea of building complex, self-assembled protein structures has been Yeates' ambition since he published a paper outlining preliminary work on this method in 2001. Yet the concept remained on the back burner for 10 years, until Yen-Ting Lai joined Yeates' research group. With three master's degrees — in structural biology, bioinformatics and biomedical engineering — Lai had the right combination of skills to bring the research to fruition, Yeates said. This project was federally funded by the National Science Foundation. Other co-authors included UCLA senior staff scientist Duilio Cascio. Source: UCLA Newsroom

Todd Yeates builds molecular “cages” to fight disease

RESEARCH

Todd Yeates and Yen-Ting Lai

Every color in this molecular cage represents a separate protein, while cylindrical segments indicate rigid parts and ribbon-like

segments indicate flexible parts of each protein chain. The grey sphere in the protein cage indicates the empty space in the middle

of the container and is not part of the molecular structure.

BruinWorks is an online networking site exclusively for UCLA alumni. It allows alumni to connect professionally and personally to a network of nearly 400,000 UCLA alumni. BruinWorks is a UCLA graduate's most valuable resource. BruinWorks enables you to network with other UCLA alumni from our department, search for jobs, résumés and other alumni, post a job or your own résumé, access a comprehensive UCLA alumni directory, explore a global calendar of UCLA events, and join interest and geographic alumni groups. Sign up for BruinWorks: Go to www.bruinworks.com and click on Log in. First-time users will be directed to sign up to establish an account. If you already have an account, you can log in with your e-mail address and password.

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RESEARCH

In 1928, chemists Otto Diels and Kurt Alder first documented diene synthesis, a chemical reaction important for synthesizing many polymers, alkaloids and steroids. Their work on this mechanism, which came to be known as the Diels–Alder reaction, the most commonly used and studied mechanism in organic chemistry, won them the 1950 Nobel Prize in chemistry. However, what happens during the reaction was never entirely clear until Professor Kendall N. Houk, UCLA's

Saul Winstein Professor of Organic Chemistry, and colleagues reported exactly how the Diels–Alder reaction occurs. Their research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on August 7, 2012. “We have examined the molecular dynamics of the Diels–Alder reaction, which has become the most important reaction in synthesis, in detail to understand how it happens,” said Houk, who is also a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. Houk and his colleagues created a number of simulations — he calls them short movies — of molecules coming together and reacting. “The idea,” Houk said, “is to understand how the reaction happens — not just that A goes to B and B goes to C, but to actually follow how the bonds are forming and how the atoms are moving as these things come together. Using the massive computing power we have now, we get a degree of resolution of the mechanism that was not really possible before. It took a lot of computer time, but as a result, we now have unprecedented insight into how this reaction occurs.” Organic chemists have argued about whether two bonds that form during a reaction form at the same time or if one forms first, followed by the other. “We find that for the simplest Diels–Alder cycloaddition, it takes only about five femtoseconds on average between the formation of the two bonds; we consider that as occurring simultaneously,” Houk said. (A femtosecond is one millionth of one billionth of a second.) Houk's August 7, 2012 PNAS paper was his first in the journal since being elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010. The same PNAS issue also featured an interview with Houk, who is one of the most prolific chemists in the world and one of the world's leading physical organic chemists.

“We have studied many different classes of reactions and come up with various kinds of rules for understanding why things happen the way they do,” Houk said in the interview. He and his colleagues — who included David Baker at the University of Washington, Charles Doubleday at Columbia University and Kersey Black at Claremont McKenna College — used computational methods to better understand basic chemical reactions and to design proteins and enzymes to catalyze chemical reactions. The combination of computational design and molecular biology “leads to a catalyst for whatever reaction is needed, if we can get this all to work properly,” Houk said. Describing his research to predict the structure of novel proteins that could catalyze specific chemical reactions, he said, “The idea is to design a catalyst for any reaction that's important for whatever reason — an important drug or a commercial product, for example.” Designing proteins and enzymes is difficult, but it can be successful. “We've beaten really enormous odds but have really just scratched the surface of what is possible,” Houk said. “Future developments in theory and computing power should make this work much better.” Black and Doubleday were co-authors with Houk on the PNAS article, along with Peng Liu, a postdoctoral scholar in Houk's laboratory, and Lai Xu, who earned her Ph.D. in Houk's lab and is currently a postdoctoral scholar at Texas Tech University. (Liu, who also conducted his Ph.D. research in Houk's lab, was awarded a UCLA Chancellor's Postdoctoral Award in June 2012.) Houk has pioneered the use of computer calculations and simulations to study organic chemistry and to predict chemical reactivity. His research group has made predictions of new phenomena that have been verified experimentally, and he has made critical contributions to our understanding of how enzymes are able to selectively catalyze reactions. In 2008, his research group used computer methods to create “designer enzymes” and to predict structures of proteins that can catalyze reactions which do not occur naturally — a major milestone in computational chemistry and protein engineering. Designer enzymes are likely to have applications for defense against biological warfare by deactivating pathogenic biological agents, and for creating more effective medications, Houk said. He and his colleagues are currently working on computational methods to predict catalysts for reactions that will have important applications in industry and in therapies for fighting disease. “Our work is theoretical and computational but is always tied to real phenomena,” Houk said. “We first try to understand what is happening and then try to make predictions that experimentalists can test. The goal of our research is to use computational methods to design the arrangement of groups inside a protein to cause any desired reaction to occur.” Source: UCLA Newsroom

Kendall Houk Provides New Insights into How the Most Iconic Reaction in Organic Chemistry Really Works

Kendall Houk

Photo Credit: Reed Hutchinson

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Paul S.Weiss, CNSI director and Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences, and co-workers have developed a new transparent solar cell that is an advance toward giving windows in homes and other buildings the ability to generate electricity while still allowing people to see outside. The study was published in ACS Nano on July 12, 2012. Weiss, study leader Yang Yang, a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering and the director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at CNSI, and co-workers described a new kind of polymer solar cell (PSC) that produces energy by absorbing mainly infrared light, not visible light, making the cells nearly 70 percent transparent to the human eye. They made the device from a photoactive plastic that converts infrared light into an electrical current. “These results open the potential for visibly transparent polymer solar cells as add-on components of portable electronics, smart windows and building-integrated photovoltaics and in other applications,” Yang said. Polymer solar cells have attracted great attention due to their advantages over competing solar cell technologies. Scientists have also been intensely investigating PSCs for their potential in making unique advances for broader applications. Several such applications would be enabled by high-performance visibly transparent photovoltaic (PV) devices, including building-integrated photovoltaics and integrated PV chargers for portable electronics. Previously, many attempts have been made toward demonstrating visibly transparent or semitransparent PSCs. However, these demonstrations often result in low visible light transparency and/or low device efficiency, because suitable polymeric PV materials and efficient transparent conductors were not well deployed in device design and fabrication. Weiss and co-workers have demonstrated high-performance, solution-processed, visibly transparent polymer solar cells through the incorporation of a near-infrared light-sensitive

polymer and using silver nanowire composite films as the top transparent electrode. The near-infrared photoactive polymer absorbs more near-infrared light but is less sensitive to visible light, balancing solar cell performance and transparency in the visible wavelength region. Another breakthrough is the transparent conductor made of a mixture of silver nanowire and titanium dioxide nanoparticles, which was able to replace the opaque metal electrode used in the past. This composite electrode also allows the solar cells to be fabricated economically by solution processing. With this combination, 4% power-conversion efficiency for solution-processed and visibly transparent polymer solar cells has been achieved. “We are excited by this new invention on transparent solar cells, which applied our recent advances in transparent conducting windows to fabricate these devices,” Weiss said. Study authors also included materials science and engineering postdoctoral researcher Rui Zhu; Ph.D. candidates Chun-Chao Chen, Choong-Heui Chung, Letian Dou, Steve Hawks, and Tze-Bin Song; Gang Li, who is former vice president of engineering for Solarmer Energy, Inc., a startup from UCLA; and CNSI postdoctoral researcher Yue Bing Zheng. The study was supported by the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Office of Naval Research, and the Kavli Foundation. It was featured on NPR and ABC News, and in various publications including Slate, Wired, PC World, the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Mail, and Time. Source: UCLA Newsroom

RESEARCHPaul Weiss and Co-workers create highly transparent solar cells for windows that generate electricity

Visibly transparent polymer solar cells produced by solution processing

graduate Rock J. Mancini and current graduate student Juneyoung Lee, both of the Maynard research group. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation. Source: UCLA Newsroom

Maynard develops a way to strengthen proteins with polymers (continued from p. 13)

Quantum Mechanics and Molecular Dynamics of Organic and Biological Reactivity Workshop (continued from p. 13)Congress on Quantum Chemistry held in Boulder, Colorado on June 25-30, 2012. The workshop was held at the conference room in the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics and was financially supported by Gaussian Inc., Amgen Inc., Avila Therapeutics, Schrödinger LLC, and the American Chemical Society – Publications Division. Members of the Alexandrova and Houk groups helped to make the workshop a great success.

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Leave of Absence Policy and the Childbirth Accommodation Policy, which Garrell introduced to allow female graduate students to receive paid leave for childbirth. “At the end of the day, what [the policies] really help do is ensure that the students and the faculty are fulfilling their obligations, the students are fully committed to reaching their degree goals, and the faculty are fully engaged in helping them do that,” Garrell said. “Trying to align our practices with those policies was a major effort over the past year and it’s an ongoing commitment, really.” Other policies put into place this year, such as the Visiting Graduate Policy, in which the Graduate Division began processing the appointments of visiting graduate researchers instead of the International Education Office, and the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Filing policy, were demonstrative of another one of Garrell’s goals—simplifying standard procedures for students and faculty. Similarly, a Web portal was developed to make fellowship nominations and submissions electronic, furthering the initiative to go paperless. Garrell said the implementation of the electronic filing policies, despite “sounding mundane,” was gratifying because it provided ease of mind to everyone involved. “It’s just a simple thing that makes people’s lives better,” Garrell said. Recruitment efforts are also being tackled in a forward-thinking manner, as the Graduate Division has begun utilizing technology to support departmental efforts on campus. In one such effort, Anne Dela Cruz, the Graduate Division’s Director of Diversity, Inclusion, and Admissions, and Associate Dean Carlos Grijalva distributed promotional materials at student meetings of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers and the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, employing iPads to record prospective graduate students’ contact information and connect them to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry’s Graduate Office. “We just began that effort this past year and we’re really going to be ramping that up in partnership with departments, especially to help address diversity goals, but also just to make sure departments are learning about the students who have expressed interest,” Garrell said. Garrell has also worked to increase the number of women STEM graduates. As the fifth female scientist to join the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and the only female faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh, where she taught prior to coming to UCLA, she said equal opportunity was always on her mind. Adrienne Lavine, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, Judith Smith, vice provost for undergraduate education, and Garrell secured a $132,000 Clare Booth Luce Program grant last December that is now being used to ready several high-achieving female science majors at UCLA for careers in teaching and research. Garrell said she was inspired by the number of women in leadership roles at UCLA, which also factored into her interest in becoming a dean. “I learned from being here how important it is to have critical mass, because it was just so obvious what a difference it made to me, personally,” Garrell said. “We have lots of female students, so I think the challenges to them and their success are more subtle than

they were when I started my career, but there are still some barriers and unfair judgments that come into play. I find it really rewarding, in teaching General Chemistry and sophomore Organic Chemistry, that when I interact with the students they see me as a role model.” Since practicing “transparency” has been extremely important to and encouraged by Garrell, an allocation work group was also recently appointed by Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh to discuss “the whole funding picture.” Enrollment planning will be discussed, with the goal of providing graduate students full financial aid throughout their studies. Garrell said large scale enrollment planning had not occurred in twenty years, and that this project would require much time and effort. “We’re in tight budget constraints with a lot of worries about state support for the University, so we really have to pay attention to how we’re using funds and ensure that we’re using them well,” Garrell said. Although Garrell said she felt like she was “barely hanging on to a galloping horse” when she first became dean, EVC Waugh said her diligent, problem-solving nature has enabled her to make progressive achievements throughout the year. “Robin’s first year in the Graduate Division was marked by a steady flow of innovations to streamline and improve services to students, faculty and departments,” Waugh said. “Her leadership style is engaged, enthusiastic, hands-on, and industrious. She brings the intense investigatory zeal of a scientist to the challenges facing our campus and is fearless in her willingness to take on complex, thorny problems, whether in management, policy or procedure. At the same time, she is pragmatic in the best sense of the word, recognizing that we must set clear priorities and goals.” Miguel Garcia-Garibay, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, also said Garrell’s devotion to students was routinely demonstrated by her efforts to improve every cornerstone of the UCLA graduate experience. “As a new department chair, I have been delighted to work with Dean Garrell,” Garcia-Garibay said. “Dean Garrell knows that Chemistry and Biochemistry is one of the top departments in the world, because of the strength of its graduate program. In order to attract the brightest young researchers, she has worked with us to make sure that Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows have the best educational and research experiences, which will allow them to become the leaders of their fields. She also cares deeply about the personal well-being of our students and postdocs.” Looking ahead, Garrell said she planned on working with the Alumni Association to enhance professional development prospects for students. Continuing to build relationships with department chairs and vice chairs to better support their individual needs is also high on her list of top priorities. “In Chemistry and Biochemistry, I’m sure many students will continue to go into industry or academics, but many are going in directions that their faculty mentors might not have considered; intellectual property law, technical marketing, non-profits,” Garrell said. “I’m really looking for opportunities to engage our alumni as extra mentors for our grad students; bringing them back to the departments to give advice on what jobs are out there that students might not be thinking about and how to get them.” If you are interested in supporting graduate education, please visit: https://giving.ucla.edu/ChemAndBioChem.

Garrell makes great strides in graduate education (continued from p. 1)

RESEARCH

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Scott Lecture, Presented by Professor Daan Frenkel, University of Cambridge, EnglandNovember 5, 2012 (Young Hall, Room 2033, 4:00

p.m.)

Annual Department Awards CeremonyNovember 19, 2012 (Court of Sciences, Room 24, 4:00 p.m.)

Bristol-Myers Squibb/UCLA Lectureship, Presented by Dale Boger, Scripps Research Institute

November 29, 2012 (Molecular Science Building, Room 3440, 5:00 p.m.)

Seaborg Symposium & Medal Award Banquet, Honoring Harold VarmusDecember 7, 2012 (CNSI Auditorium, 12:00-5:45 p.m.,

Covel Commons, 6:30-8:30 p.m.) (see p. 20)

David S. Sigman Memorial Lectureship, Honoring Baldomero “Toto” Olivera, University of Utah

January 17, 2013 (Lecture: CNSI Auditorium, 12:00-1:30 p.m., Poster Session & Reception: CNSI Lobby, 1:30-2:30 p.m.)

Amgen/UCLA Lectureship, Presented byMatt Francis, UC BerkeleyJanuary 17, 2013 (5:00 p.m., Contact Organic Divisional Office for Location Info: 310-206-1036)

Pfizer/UCLA Lectureship, Presented by Shannon Stahl, University of WisconsinJanuary 24, 2013 (5:00 p.m., Contact Organic Divisional Office for Location Info: 310-206-1036)

Bristol-Myers Squibb/UCLA Lectureship, Presented by Huw Davies, Emory UniversityJanuary 31, 2013 (5:00 p.m., Contact Organic Divisional Office for Location Info: 310-206-1036)

Orville L. Chapman Lecture, Presented by

Professor Robert J. McMahon, University of Wisconsin February 28, 2013 (Contact Organic Divisional Office

for Time and Location Info: 310-206-1036)

Donald J. Cram Lecture, Presented by Barry Sharpless, Scripps Research Institute May 2, 2013 (Contact Organic Divisional Office for

Time and Location Info: 310-206-1036)

CALENDAR

Supporting our Seminar Series Your help is needed to support our world-renowned departmental seminar series! Each division has an outstanding seminar program. Lecturers from all over the globe visit the department and share their cutting-edge research. Students, post-docs, and faculty have the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with famous academic and industrial researchers. This is not only crucial to their education, but also to their future careers, as the seminar series allows them to make vital contacts. Your funds will support these exciting and critical lectures, allowing the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry to maintain its competitive edge and reputation for academic excellence. Your gift, however large or modest, is greatly appreciated. To make your contribution, visit https://giving.ucla.edu/ChemAndBioChem. If you are interested in permanently endowing a seminar series in honor of someone special in your life, please contact Kerri Yoder (Director of Development, Division of Physical Sciences) at (310) 794-9045 or by email at kyoder@support.ucla.edu for more information.

*For more information about events, please visit www.chem.ucla.edu or contact the Chair’s Office at 310-825-3958.

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Our Newsletter is Available Online! To minimize our impact on the environment, we have made the newsletter available on our new Web site: www.chem.ucla.edu. Please support this effort by updating your email address via: http://alumni.ucla.edu/chemupdate and/or setting up your UCLA lifetime e-mail forwarding via: https://www.bol.ucla.edu/cgi-ssl/accounts/setforward. Please also visit our new alumni page: http://www.chemistry.ucla.edu/alumni-0. Please let us know if you would like to receive a hard copy of our newsletter by contacting the Chair’s Office at 310-825-3958 or chair@chem.ucla.edu.

F o r a l l d o n a t i o n i n q u i r i e s , C a l l K e r r i Y o d e r

D i r e c t o r o f D e v e l o p m e n t D i v i s i o n o f P h y s i c a l S c i e n c e s

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Harold Varmus1989 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine (with Michael Bishop), Director of the National

Cancer Institute

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