Department of
&
Chemistry
Biochemistry
N
E
W
S
L
E
T
T
In This Issue
Robin L. Garrell Makes Great Strides in
Graduate Education in her First Year as Dean
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
Robin L. Garrell
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
E
R
Page
Chair’s Message................2
Awards...........................3-5
Happenings....................5-7
Graduation 2012............8-11
Distinguished Lectures...12-13
Research......................13-18
Calendar..........................19
Materials Creation
Training Program, and as a
faculty member of the
Chemistry-Biology
Interface Training
Program. She served as
Fall 2012
co-chair of the UCLA
Volume
32 - Number 1
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)
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
C H A I R’ S M ES S A G E
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
- 2-
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - Fall 2012
A WA RD S
Xiangfeng Duan Wins IUMRS - MRS Singapore
Young Researcher Award, the JMC Lectureship,
and the DuPont Young Professor Award
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.
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
Xiangfeng Duan
(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
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 Environmental 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
Yi Tang
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.
Sabeeha Merchant Receives Darbaker Prize in
Phycology
Sabeeha Merchant
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
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
Steven G. Clarke
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 Raissi
Editing & Production Kady Bell-Garcia
College Development & Alumni Relations Silvia Orvietani Busch, Kerri Yoder
Contributors 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 & Biochemistry
607 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles, California 90095-1569
- 3-
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
A WA RD S
Awards (continued from p. 3)
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
Louis Bouchard
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
Heather Maynard
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 and
Applications,” 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
Neil Garg
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
Craig Merlic
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.
- 4-
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - Fall 2012
A WA RD S /H A P P EN IN G S
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Welcomes Competitive Fall 2012 Incoming
Graduate Class Dissertation Year Fellowship Awardees
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
Eugene V. Cota Robles Awardees:
applicants had higher GPA
Melissa Sandoval, Jose Medina,
averages and more
and Alexandra Mendoza
competitive GRE scores
(Diana Yugay is not pictured)
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.
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)
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
Source: Melissa Woehrstein
Adam Goetz Receives ACS Division of Organic
Chemistry Graduate Fellowship
Adam Goetz
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.
Alexander D. Huters
- 5-
Alexander D. Huters, a Ph.D. student in
Professor Neil Garg’s lab, was chosen as a
recipient of one of five 2012-2013 BristolMyers 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.”
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
H A P P ENING S
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 dualring 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
Professor Neil Garg with UCLA undergraduate
students at the InnoWorks Academy program,
held on July 30-August 3, 2012.
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
Anne Andrews
chemistry from American University in
1993. She also attended George Washington University’s SinoSoviet 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.
- 6-
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - Fall 2012
H A P P ENING S
Departmental Promotions
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
Xiangfeng Duan
Neil Garg
Heather Maynard
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 cowinner 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
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.
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
- 7-
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
G RA D U A TI O N 20 1 2
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.
Doctor of Philosophy
Lital N. Adler
(Steven G. Clarke, Advisor)
Ian Paul Andrews
(Ohyun Kwon, Advisor)
Gregg A. Barcan
(Ohyun Kwon, Advisor)
Lisa Dudek
(Sarah Tolbert, Advisor)
Selma Duhović
(Paula Diaconescu, Advisor)
Sarayoot Eaimkhong
(James Gimzewski, Advisor)
Jonathan Erde
(Joseph Loo, Advisor)
Ben Boal
(Neil Garg, Advisor)
Sarah Marie Bronner
(Neil Garg, Advisor)
Becky (Pik Kay) Chan
(Joan Valentine, Advisor)
Jonah J. Chang
Michael Matthew Fryd
(Thomas Mason, Advisor)
Recipient of the Physical
Chemistry Dissertation Award,
presented by Professor Thomas
Mason
Erin Rochelle Greiner
(Joseph Loo, Advisor)
(Michael Jung, Advisor)
Meghan Elizabeth Johnson
Eric Kuan-Jai Chen
(Carla Koehler, Advisor)
(Kendall Houk, Advisor)
Julio Marcelo D’Arcy
(Richard Kaner, Advisor)
Hexiang Deng
(Omar Yaghi, Advisor)
Timothy Allen Dong
(Michael Jung, Advisor)
Scott Arne Johnson
(Kendall Houk, Advisor)
Christopher Byung-hwa Kang
(Sarah Tolbert, Advisor)
Top: Carolee Winstein and Neil Garg with the
Saul and Sylvia Winstein Dissertation Awardee, Kyle
Quasdorf
Bottom: Robin Genchel with the Dolores Cannon
Southam Award recipients, Kristina Woodruff (left) and
Kristal McCarty (right)
Andrew T. Lech
(Richard Kaner, Advisor)
Soohong Kim
(Shimon Weiss, Advisor)
Yueh-Jung (Cynthia) Lee
(Guillaume Chanfreau, Advisor)
Yuen A. Lau
(Jeffrey Zink, Advisor)
(continued on p. 9)
Watermark Photo Credit: Yves Rubin
- 8-
Photo Credit: GradImages®
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - Fall 2012
G RA D U A TI O N 20 1 2
Heather Thomas McFarlane
Yuewei Sheng
(David Eisenberg, Advisor)
(Joan Valentine, Advisor)
Tehetena Mesganaw
Veronica Strong
(Neil Garg, Advisor)
(Richard Kaner, Advisor)
Kevin Miller
Courtney R. Thomas
(Paula Diaconescu, Advisor)
(David Eisenberg, Advisor)
(Jeffrey Zink, Advisor)
Recipient of the Inorganic Chemistry
Dissertation Award, presented by
Professor Jeffrey Zink
William Morris
Cortnie S. Vogelsberg
Andrew Min
(Miguel Garcia-Garibay, Advisor)
Recipient of the Thomas L. and Ruth F.
Jacobs Dissertation Award, presented by
Professor Kendall Houk
(Omar Yaghi, Advisor)
Sonya E. Neal
(Carla Koehler, Advisor)
Top: Dean Joseph Rudnick with Gold
Family Foundation Award
recipient Agape Awad
Bottom: Robert Boschan with Alumni
Undergraduate Summer Research
Fellowship recipient Hui Tsui
Jonathan K. Wassei
Benson Ngo
Courtney Lynn White
Geoff Nosrati
(continued from p. 8)
Travis Anthony Pecorelli
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
(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)
Breeyawn Ririe Lybbert
(Michael Jung, Advisor)
Master of Science
Bala Krishna Pathem
Doctor of Philosophy
(Jeffrey Zink, Advisor)
(James Gober, Advisor)
(Kendall Houk, Advisor)
(Paul Weiss, Advisor)
Zongxi Li
(Richard Kaner, Advisor)
(Harold Martinson, Advisor)
Alexander Wayne Schammel
(Neil Garg, Advisor)
Rock J. Mancini
(Heather Maynard, Advisor)
Johnny Cai
Lisa Cao
Nikolay Dimitrov
Xin Guan
Christopher Byung-hwa Kang
Tun-Min Maung
Christian Vaca
Kristina Woodruff
Chu Ran Zheng
Bachelor of Science
Susan Zaher Abbaszadeh
Ebenezer Abdella
Ahmed Mohammed Abdulkarim
Gamaliel Isai Acevedo
Hannah Ghong-Ju Ahn
Sean Shaho Akhavan
Jose Eduardo Alonso
Edward Albert Amador
Ramela Amirian
Athena Kimberly Aus
Sean M. Badal
Sunna Bae
(continued on p. 10)
Watermark Photo Credit: Yves Rubin
- 9-
Photo Credit: GradImages®
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
G RA D U A TI O N 20 1 2
Bachelor of Science
(continued from p. 9)
Katarzyna Marta Banas
Nora Lena Bedrossian Φ
Dana Ben Yehuda
Daniel Callahan Ben-Zvi
Rebecca Zoe Bennett
Max Rutherford Berger
Gilberto Bernal, Jr.
Anasheh Boghozian
Gregory Aaron Braggin
James Kentalo Bridgewater
Kelly Midori Brown
Adam David Brunell Φ
Christian Bustillos
Bolun Cao
Lisa Ann Cao*
Alexander Castillo
Lauren Nicole Cerulle
Jennifer Chan
Elbert Kai Chung Chao
Lawrence Kai Yiu Chau
Luxi Chen Φ (Recipient of
the Ethel Terry McCoy
Award for Excellence in
Chemistry & Biochemistry)
Matthew Hon Chen
Richard Kuanta Chen
Sabrina Shiyu Chen
Sean Chen
Xumin Chen
Yihu Chen
Ho Shan Cheung
Jason Tang Kong Cheung
Tammy Wing Sam Chew
Vicky Chiang Φ
Lubna Chitalwalla
Soo H. Cho
Suk Jin Cho
Alice Ye Seul Choi
Christine Jeeun Choi
Hye Min Choi
Kevin Long Chu
Tiffany Mei Chu
Francisco Chung
Hannah Elizabeth Clauson
Kevin Michael Cone
Tylor Douglas Connor
Edgar Corona
Daria Alekseevna Cubberley
Andrew George Dadour
Shayla Phuong Diem Dang
Bryant L. Dao
Spenser Lawrence Davis
Roland Davoudi
Avelino Apostol De Leon, Jr.
Nikolay Dimitrov Dimitrov
Φ*(Recipient of the Merck
Andrew Kim
Dae Woong Kim
Erica Sungeun Kim
Hyojoo Kim
Isaac Jungyoon Kim
Jin Ki Kim Φ
Keun Won Kim
Pil Heon Kim
Sang Jun Kim
Seok Hyun Kim
Yena Kim
Young Jin Kim
Yu Ji Kim
Fred Fred Kobzeff (Recipient
Index Award)
Jane Jing Ding
Sora Do
Stephanie D.Eaneff
Andrew Wayne Eddy
Chengcheng Fan
Weiwei Fang
James Hao Fann
Nadia Medina Fatahi
Nouran Felo
David Foo
Austin Daniel Gable
Laura M. Galindo
Kaycee Gelera
Soheil Kalimi Gidaniyan
Thomas Joseph Gintjee IV
Jian Gong
David Hilario GonzalezMartinez
Dylan Jake Goodrich
Xin Ning Guan * (Recipient
of the Whitcome Summer
Undergraduate Research
Fellowship)
Eun Byul Erica Koh
Michael Andrew Krak
Jonathan Lan Kuo
Jiyoung Kwak
Ming Ho George Kwong
Yin Mon Kyaw
Andrew Paul Laffin
Tak Wa Lam
Alexander William Lamb
Roger Lau
Leo Le
Nga Hoang Le
Sarah Elizabeth Lechner
Albert Lee (Recipient of the
of the Ethel Terry McCoy
Award for Excellence in
Chemistry & Biochemistry)
Antony Edward Guglielmone
Rajat Gupta
Joanna Ellen Haight
Gemmy Hannsun Φ
(Recipient of the Merck
Index Award)
Geissman Award for
Excellence in Organic
Chemistry)
Matthew David Hecht
Khuong Hoang
Shen Bang Hu
Shiwei Huang
Vivian Sui Nam Hui
Kung-Ping Hung
David Huynh
Khanh Ngan Thanh Huynh
Mioy Tan Huynh
Hey Min Hwang
Jee Youn Hwang (Hypercube
Christopher Sang Jin Lee
Jinwon Lee
Michael Jaehoon Lee
Minyi Lee
Miri Kim Lee
Sarah Susie Lee
Seul Ah Lee
Yan Chi Lee
Xiaoyi Li
Jeffrey Lo
Anastasia Lomova
Jamie Lu
Michael D. Lu
Song Luo
Yiwen Luo
Toan T. Ly
Brian Ma
Danning Ma (Recipient of the
Scholar)
Jong Pil Hwang
Eunchi Hyun
Yuliya Ilyushenko
Eoon Hye Ji
Richard Mark Jin
Katherine Joanne Johnson
Yong Ha Jung
Neda Kalali
Chulsoo Kang
Hyun Sik Kang
Ju H. Kang
Gurpreet Kaur
Sukhpreet Kaur
Sabeen Asia Kazmi
Ethel Terry McCoy Award
for Excellence in Chemistry
& Biochemistry)
Mia Grace Mackowski
Alexander 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 Masamori
Tun-Min Oo Maung *
Kyle Russell McCarthy
Krystal Nicole McCarty
(Recipient of the Dolores
Cannon Southam Award for
Excellence in Research)
John Miller
Hagop Jack Mkroyan
Natalie Ann Moffett
Marco A. Molina
Nikolaos Mouchtouris
(Recipient of the Merck
Index Award)
Patrick Adam Nack-Lehman
Chang Hyun Nahm
Akash Naidu
Elizabeth Nam
Yoonsun Nam
Nicolas Gregory Nelson
Alexander David Newton
Jimmy Ngo
Andrew M. Nguyen
Hoang Anh Phu Nguyen
Hoang Nhat Nguyen
Phuong Vy Nguyen
Vu Phan H. Nguyen
Jennifer Rose O'Connor
Makoto Oe
Stephanie Yukari Ohara
Jennifer Serah Okafor
Megan Paz Olaguer
Matt Christian Ordonez
Ongoco
Jose Ortega-Collazo
Garabed Ohannes Ourfali
Clint Cody Owens
Kush Kishorchandra
Panchani
Robinpreet Singh Pannu
Steven V. Panotes
Hae Lim Park
Jae Wook Park
Jinyi Park
Sung Yeun Park
Jaesung Park
Nikita Kalpesh Patel
Andrew Pham
Jonathan Theodore Pham Φ
(continued on p. 11)
Watermark Photo Credit: Yves Rubin
- 10 -
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
Bachelor of Science
(continued from p. 10)
Quynh Vo Bao Pham
(Recipient of the Ethel
Terry McCoy Award for
Excellence in Chemistry &
Biochemistry)
Steven Viet Pham
Tuo Piao
Laura Powell
Aaron Luz Puertollano
Haili Qiu
Austin Quach
Ryan Vincent Quiroz Φ
(Recipient of the Merck
Index Award)
Joan Danielle Ramos
Aman Rangan
Parastou Rastegar
Neal Gregory Rice
Andres Rafael Rodriguez
Patricia Beatriz Rodriguez
Xiao Mei Ruan
Stephanie Anne Runke
Jennifer Joy Russell
Kazuhiro Shamim Sabet
Takafumi Sakurai Φ
Shida Salehi
Mikhail Delorey Schumacher
Tomer Schwartz
Danny Segura
Amin Seyedkazemi
Shandy Shahabi
Nowsheen Shahnaz
Maya S. Shehayeb (Recipient
of the Merck Index Award)
Nai-Wei Shih
Sergey Shnitkind
(Recipient of the Alpha Chi
Sigma Achievement Award)
Jocelyne Noella Siewe
Tientcheu
Jaklin G. Simonian
Nainwant Kaur Singh
Leah Marie Sitler
Chanrith Siv
Brian David Smith
Brent Francis Solomon
Catherine Ong Soneda
Paul Song
Yun Song
Carolina Lia Sonu
Idean Sotoudeh Deilamy
Myron Halili Soyangco
Derek James Spitters
Victoria Roe Su
Zhiqiang Sun
G RA D U A TI O N 20 1 2
Hae Lim Sung
Tiantian Tang
Pawarid Techathaveewat
Zaw Thura
Randy Thien To
Ashley Kristine Tobin
Andrew Tran
Anh Hoang Tran
Dang Minh Tran
Thai Quan Tran
Tri Nha Tran
Yee Tsang
Derick Seanhow Tsaoi
Hui Su Tsui (Recipient of the
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]
Alumni Undergraduate
passionate about,” to “be persistent,”
Summer Research
and to not “neglect [their] personal
Fellowship)
lives.”
Anna Fisher and
Christopher Lawrence Turner
Dressed in her own M.D.
Albert J. Courey
Vladimir Ufimtsev
graduation regalia, she was an
Jennifer Oliveros Uyan
example of UCLA-bred success.
Thu To Van
Fisher received her B.S. degree in
Justin Espiritu Viloria
chemistry in 1971, an M.D. in 1976,
Tramy Thi Vo
and an M.S. in chemistry in 1987,
Hubert Wang
all from UCLA, but she said
Linda Wang
becoming an astronaut resulted from
Ze Qiang Wang
the “adventure of life” and her
David Isaac Weiss Φ
forays down several different paths.
(Recipient of the Dunn
“The detours and missteps that
The commemorative collage
Award for Excellence in
you
encounter can often turn out to
Biochemistry)
from Astronaut Fisher includes
have
positive impacts,” Fisher said.
Anita Wen
a small California state flag
“And although I didn’t realize it at
Marlyn Anne Widjaja
and crew patch that traveled
first, everything I learned here at
Jordan Ryan Williams
on the Discovery, as well as
Kenneth Chung-Ming Wong
photographs from the mission. UCLA, and the confidence I gained
from successfully completing very
Kristina Pan Woodruff Φ*
rigorous programs in chemistry and
(Recipient of the Dolores
Cannon Southam Award for medicine, prepared me so well for all of the new things I would need to
Excellence in Research)
learn to be a successful astronaut.”
Kingsley Yu Wu
Fisher shared several memories of her ten years at UCLA, noting the
Nancy Wu (Recipient of the
time her quantum chemistry professor, Dr. McMillan, reviewed her
Ramsey Award for
midterm and helped her calculate the best time to view shooting stars –
Excellence in Physical
before dawn. “Now every time I see a shooting star, I think of Dr.
Chemistry)
McMillan and the time he took with each of us,” Fisher said. “But I bet
Wei Hang Wu
he never expected me to be looking down on the meteorites, as I did
Meisi Xiao
from the space shuttle.”
Weihong Yan
After her speech, Fisher presented former chair Albert J. Courey
Esther Sophia Yang
with a commemorative collage, documenting her mission into space,
Ting-Chiang Yang
for display in Young Hall. Fisher was part of the crew on the space
Brian Gerard Yep
shuttle Discovery, STS 51-A, which launched from Kennedy Space
Christopher Jin-Yong Yoon
Center, Florida, on November 8, 1984 and returned on November 16,
Diana Yu
1984. Fisher’s graduation address is available on YouTube:
Anoosh Zadfar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1HUQ9Ra1NY.
Chengqian Zang
If you would like to suggest an alumnus/a for a future Alumni
Yi Zeng
Award, or if you are interested in endowing the award, please contact
Lei Zhao
the chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Miguel Garcia-Garibay, via eChu Ran Zheng *
mail (chair@chem.ucla.edu). Potential awardees should have made
Wen Bin Zhou
outstanding contributions to their fields (not necessarily in chemistry
*Departmental Scholars
and biochemistry) and cannot have received the Seaborg Medal.
Φ Phi Beta Kappa
Watermark Photo Credit: Yves Rubin
- 11 -
Photo Credit: GradImages®
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
D I S TI N G U I S H ED L EC TU RES
Celebration of the 100th Birthday of Saul
Winstein
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
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
Joan Winstein, Carolee Winstein,
since then, and was followed
and Kip Thorne blowing out the
by a reception and banquet
candles of Saul Winstein’s cake at at the UCLA Faculty Center.
his 100th birthday celebration,
Winstein collaborators
held October 6, 2012
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. Seventytwo students obtained their Ph.D. degrees
under his supervision, and eighty-six
Saul Winstein
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
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
Robert J. McMahon
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
Orville L. Chapman
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.
Winstein’s 100th Birthday Celebration Photo Credit: Arne Dieckmann, Lufeng Zou
- 12 -
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
D I S TI N G U I S H ED L EC TU RES /RES EA RC H
Please Participate in Establishing the Charles and
Carolyn Knobler Lectureship
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
Heather Maynard
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
Quantum Mechanics and Molecular Dynamics of people will recognize is Sea-Monkeys — the “novelty aquarium pet”
introduced in 1962. Sea-Monkeys can be purchased as kits that
Organic and Biological Reactivity Workshop
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
Professors Anastassia Alexandrova and Kendall N. Houk (center)
protein)
and to heat than did the protein with no additives.”
with the speakers featured at the “Quantum Mechanics and
The research team found that attaching the polymer covalently to
Molecular Dynamics of Organic and Biological Reactivity”
the protein — that is, forming a protein-polymer conjugate —
Workshop, held June 21-23, 2012.
stabilized the protein to lyophilization better than adding the nonProfessors Anastassia Alexandrova and Kendall N. Houk hosted a conjugated polymer at the same concentration. The team also found
that the polymers stabilized lysozyme significantly better than the
workshop on “Quantum Mechanics and Molecular Dynamics of
currently used excipients trehalose and polyethylene glycol.
Organic and Biological Reactivity” at UCLA on June 21-23, 2012.
The Maynard research group is currently exploring the use of
Twenty-seven speakers came from universities and companies all
their polymer as a stabilizer by attaching it or adding it to FDA–
over the United States and from Germany, Japan, Korea, Singapore,
approved protein therapeutics. In addition, they are investigating the
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. There were 24 mechanism of how the polymer stabilizes proteins.
posters by additional attendees from UCLA and other universities.
The research team included recent Ph.D. (continued on p. 17)
This was a satellite meeting of the International (continued on p. 17)
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
Carolyn and Charles Knobler
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.
- 13 -
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
RES EA RC H
Juli Feigon discovers how key enzyme involved in
aging, cancer assembles
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
The RNA backbone of telomerase (multicolored) is
shown interacting with three different parts of the
p65 protein (shown in gold, blue, and light green).
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
- 14 -
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
RES EA RC H
Todd Yeates builds molecular “cages” to fight disease
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.
Todd Yeates and Yen-Ting Lai
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
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.”
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.
- 15 -
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
RES EA RC H
Kendall Houk Provides New Insights into How the
Most Iconic Reaction in Organic Chemistry Really
Works
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 Houk
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
Photo Credit: Reed Hutchinson
- 16 -
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
RES EA RC H
Paul Weiss and Co-workers create highly transparent
solar cells for windows that generate electricity
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 solutionprocessed 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 TzeBin 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.
Visibly transparent polymer solar cells
produced by solution processing
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 buildingintegrated 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
Source: UCLA Newsroom
Maynard develops a way to strengthen proteins
with polymers (continued from p. 13)
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
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.
- 17 -
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
RES EA RC H
Garrell makes great strides in graduate education
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.
(continued from p. 1)
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
- 18 -
UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry - FALL 2012
C A L EN D A R
2012-2013 Upcoming Events
in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Nov.
5
Nov.
19
Nov.
29
Jan.
Scott Lecture, Presented by Professor Daan
Frenkel, University of Cambridge, England
17
November 5, 2012 (Young Hall, Room 2033, 4:00
p.m.)
Jan.
Annual Department Awards Ceremony
November 19, 2012 (Court of Sciences, Room 24, 4:00
p.m.)
24
Jan.
Bristol-Myers Squibb/UCLA Lectureship,
Presented by Dale Boger, Scripps Research
Institute
31
November 29, 2012 (Molecular Science Building,
Room 3440, 5:00 p.m.)
Dec.
7
Jan.
17
Seaborg Symposium & Medal Award
Banquet, Honoring Harold Varmus
Feb.
28
December 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
Amgen/UCLA Lectureship, Presented by
Matt Francis, UC Berkeley
January 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 Wisconsin
January 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 University
January 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)
May
2
January 17, 2013 (Lecture: CNSI Auditorium,
12:00-1:30 p.m., Poster Session & Reception: CNSI
Lobby, 1:30-2:30 p.m.)
Supporting our Seminar Series
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)
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.
- 19 -
UCLA-DEPARTMENT OF
CHEMISTRY & BIOCHEMISTRY
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
PAID
UCLA
405 Hilgard Avenue
Box 951569, Molecular Sciences Bldg., Suite 4505A
Los Angeles, California 90095-1569
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.
ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED
For all donation inquiries, Call
Kerri Yoder
Director of Development
Division of Physical Sciences
(310) 794-9045
kyoder@support.ucla.edu
SEABORG 2012
December 7, 2012
Register Now
HONORING
Harold Varmus
1989 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine
(with Michael Bishop), Director of the National
Cancer Institute
www.seaborg.ucla.edu