NL Vol 28-No2 - V.08May20b · In 2003, Dr. Harran amazed the synthetic world with his synthesis of the toxin, diazonamide A. This toxin is produced in nature by Diazona angulata,

Designer Enzymes

Chemists use quantum mechanical calculations to explore chemical reactions.

Page 14

Seaborg 2007 & 2008

Gala event honoring R. Stanley Williams & announcement of 2008 winner Joan S. Valentine.

Page 11

Awards

Research and academic recognition for outstanding accomplishments.

Page 3-5

New Faculty

Our distinguished faculty gets even better.

Pages 1, 2 & 6

Synthesis Star - 1st Cram Chair After an extensive search, the Cram Chair selection committee announced the selection of the first Donald J. and Jane M. Cram Chair in Organic Chemistry. The chair was endowed by the late Donald Cram, Professor of Chemistry at UCLA and the 1987 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Professor Patrick Harran, currently the Bell Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, has accepted the offer and will become the first Cram Chair on July 1, when the UC approval process is completed. Professor Ken Houk, who chaired

the Cram Chair Search Committee, describes Harran as a leading synthetic organic chemist who will immediately raise the profile of UCLA

organic chemistry in the U.S. “Patrick is a wizard at constructing complex targets, and he develops methods and uses synthesis to study new structural types from nature, to probe small molecule assembly in general, and to drive research in biochemistry and cell biology. He moves us ahead in Chemical Biology, as well,” says Houk.

Harran was raised in upstate New York, studied at Skidmore College (BA 1990), Yale (PhD Ziegler, 1995), and was then an NIH postdoctoral fellow with Paul Wender at Stanford. Harran joined the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 1997, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2005.

Professor Harran was a Sloan Fellow, an NSF CAREER awardee, an Eli Lilly Grantee, won an AstraZeneca Excellence in Chemistry Award, the Pfizer Award for Creativity in Organic Synthesis, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Skidmore College, and the Merck Chemistry Council Award. In 2005 he was awarded the E. Bright Wilson Prize from Harvard University and named the Mar Nell and F. Andrew Bell Distinguished Chair in Biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. In 2007 he received the Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research from the Robert A. Welch Foundation.

In This Issue Page

...............Chair’s Message 2 ...........................Awards 3-5

....................Happenings 6-7...........Giving & Donors 8-10

.........Seaborg Symposium 11 ..............Winstein Lecture 12

................Sigman Lecture 13...............Kivelson Lecture 13..............Faculty Research 14

...................In Memoriam 15 .....................Graduation 16

Professor Patrick Harran

Spring 2008Volume 28 - Number 2

ChemistryN E W S L E T T E R

&BiochemistryDepartment of

The AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize

Awarded to Dr. Omar Yaghi(more on page 3)

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 - S p r i n g 2 0 0 8

- 2 -

It’s Been Great...On July 1st I step down as chair of our department to return full time to research and teaching. I have learned much as chair and I am grateful for the opportunity that this has provided for me to strengthen my ties with many colleagues across the department who have provided so much help and support. Much of my

interaction with colleagues has been in pursuit of our faculty hiring campaign, and I am delighted, in this my last Newsletter message, to be able to announce both the inaugural appointment to our Cram Chair (see cover story), as well as an outstanding new appointment to the Assistant Professor ranks in Physical Chemistry.

Patrick Harran, our new Cram Chair, is a chemical biologist who pursues biology at the interface with chemistry using a variety of exciting approaches. In one of these approaches he devises creative new synthetic routes to the construction of complex biologically active organic molecules, and he then studies how these molecules affect biology. In 2003, Dr. Harran amazed the synthetic world with his synthesis of the toxin, diazonamide A. This toxin is produced in nature by

Diazona angulata, a sea squirt that lives anchored to rocks, using the toxin to repel predators. Diazonamide A was soon shown to kill cancer, and a race to synthesize it in the laboratory ensued. In record time, Dr. Harran determined its structure, carried out a spectacular 19-step synthesis, identified its target in living cells, elucidated its role in fighting tumor proliferation, and co-founded a new company, Joyant Pharmaceuticals, to develop diazonamide and its analogs as anti-cancer drugs.

In another approach to chemical biology Dr. Harran creates new kinds of molecules that are not found in nature but which mimic the actions of natural proteins. He uses these to study cell biology and as pharmaceuticals to attack disease. In a new assault on cancer, Dr. Harran has recently designed small molecules with unprecedented effectiveness in triggering tumor cells to self-destruct. Called Smac mimetics, these small molecules mimic a native protein and hijack a natural biological mechanism for

getting rid of unwanted tissue. These Smac mimetics are aimed directly at cancer cells, sensitizing them to apoptosis, which triggers their self-destruction. Clinical trials are underway.

Finally, employing an approach he terms “processive synthesis,” Dr. Harran plans to use semi-automatic methods to create large numbers of entirely new organic molecules that have never before been imagined. He will then screen these molecules for useful properties that can be used to study biology and cure disease.

In Physical Chemistry, our new Assistant Professor is Louis Bouchard. Dr. Bouchard obtained a M.Sc. degree in Medical Biophysics from the University of Toronto in his native Canada in 1999. Then he came to the United States for a PhD program in Chemical Physics at Princeton University under the guidance of Warren Warren, studying the theory and applications of the distant dipolar field in magnetic resonance. From 2005 until now, Dr. Bouchard has been carrying out postdoctoral research with Alex Pines at the University of California, Berkeley. There he has

pioneered innovative and influential methods in several research areas of NMR and MRI. Two of these major endeavors, “low-field mobile

NMR” and “para-hydrogen induced polarization,” have resulted in publications of substantial impact and have launched exciting new research opportunities. Dr. Bouchard’s results push the current limits of high-resolution NMR spectroscopy in weak and inhomogeneous fields and illustrate for the first time the application of para-hydrogen-induced polarization to gas-phase MRI, resulting in 300-fold enhanced sensitivity.

Both Patrick Harran and Louis Bouchard will be coming in July of this year. But they are not the only ones! Also scheduled to arrive is Margot Quinlan who decided last year to join us, but who postponed arrival until this July when she will occupy her newly renovated labs in Boyer Hall (see article on page 6). And in addition to these three, there are other exciting hires still to be made in our faculty recruitment campaign. I would love to talk about some of these now, but the final signatures are not in place. So I leave the pleasure of introducing the next round of faculty additions to the new chair, who will be introduced in the next Newsletter!

CHAIR’S MESSAGE

“Dr. Harran has designed molecules that trigger cancer cells to self-destruct.”


- 3 -

AWARDS

Nanotechnology PioneerRobin Garrell received the Gold Medal in the 2007 Pioneering Nanotechnology Competition sponsored by Masscal Scientific Instruments of Orlando, Florida, for technical innovation in microfluidic devices.

The Pioneering Nanotechnology Competition was established to encourage and reward the highest level of research into understanding the behavior and characteristics of materials being used in nano-scale applications such as advanced electronics, fuel cells, medical implants and even environmental monitoring. Competition winners were determined by an international panel of experts who awarded prizes based on technical merit and positive impact upon society.

The Gold Medal award recognizes research by the Garrell group to develop miniature “laboratory on a

chip” devices that can quickly and inexpensively perform a sequence of (bio)chemical manipulations on the pico- to microliter scale. In most lab-on-a-chip devices, liquids are transported as streams in

channels, but in Garrell’s work, solutions are moved as discrete droplets.

The Masscal award will enable Garrell to carry out new research to learn how the droplets being transported interact with the polymeric materials used to make the devices. While one goal is to enhance our fundamental understanding of how liquids wet surfaces, her work may also lead to new instrumentation that combines mass sensing with calorimetric analysis as tools for designing new types of devices and improving the sensitivity of lab-on-a-chip assays.

Fixing Global WarmingOmar Yaghi and co-authors El-Kaderi, Hunt, Mendoza-Cortés, Côté, Taylor, and O'Keeffe have been awarded the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize for their amazing paper published in Science last year: “Designed Synthesis of 3D Covalent

Organic Frameworks.” Omar was invited to the AAAS meeting in Boston to receive the prize and medal.

In the push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, some of the biggest challenges have been finding ways to use methane or hydrogen as alternative fuels, and to trap carbon dioxide from smokestacks before it reaches the atmosphere. Omar has been attracting increasingly enthusiastic international attention for his assault on these problems.

Beginning in the early 1990s, Omar set about creating large three-dimensional chemical structures using building blocks. To do this he followed a rigorously rational approach, like an architect creating blueprints for construction of buildings, and thus he created the entirely new field of reticular chemistry. Omar’s first creations were metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs. MOFs have been described as crystal sponges, riddled with nano-size pores for storing gases—such as hydrogen and methane—for usage and transport.

Last year, based on the principles of reticular chemistry, Omar designed a new class of structures, the covalent organic frameworks, or COFs, the first ever crystalline porous networks constructed entirely from strong covalent bonds. COFs have higher thermal stability, higher surface areas and lower densities than MOFs and are even better suited for storage of the huge amounts of gas required for use in alternative energy technologies.

One member of this series, COF-108, has the enormous total internal surface area of more than 4,500 meters per gram which, if spread flat, would cover the surface of approximately 30 tennis courts! It was the Science paper describing COFs that won the Newcomb Cleveland Prize. The excitement of reticular chemistry

and the ability to construct chemical structures from molecular building blocks has totally captivated Omar. “What kind of new chemistry and basic science concepts will these new materials inspire?” he asks. “What kind of new properties will be uncovered? What kind of new applications will be developed? And what

immense pleasure will be derived in addressing these questions…”

Crystal structure of COF-108. Synthesized only from light elements (H,B,C,O), COF-108 is the lowest-density crystal ever produced.

Omar YaghiRobin Garrell

1uL water-in-oil droplet on micofluidic device


- 4 -

Steve Clarke & Miguel Garcia-Garibay were elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in October 2007 in recognition of their contributions to science and technology. Steve and Miguel were formally recognized at the annual meeting of the AAAS in Boston on February 16, 2008.

Sabeeha Merchant New American Society of Plant Biologists Fellow

The American Society of Plant Biologists has named Sabeeha Merchant a fellow of the society in recognition of her distinguished and long-term contributions to the field of plant biology and service to the society. The award will be presented at the society’s awards ceremony in Mérida, Mexico on June 27, 2008.

Jim Gimzewski Awarded Honorary DoctorateThe Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France has awarded Jim Gimzewski an honorary doctorate, Dr. Honoris Causa, from the University of the Mediterranean, Aix-Marseille II, France. Jim will be honored at a ceremony in Marseille on November 27, 2008.

Herb Kaesz - Elected International Committee ChairProfessor Kaesz was elected as the Chair of the Academy of Sciences U.S. National Committee for IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) in 2007. He will preside over the annual meetings in Washington, D.C., which are usually held in November, as well as at each of the American Chemical Society national meetings. Every two years, the USNC sends a delegation to the IUPAC General Assembly to deliberate and vote upon various items of IUPAC business. The last one was held in Beijing in 2007, and the next will be in Glasgow in 2009.

Laurence Lavelle and Eric Scerri received Professional Development Awards for 2007-2008 sponsored by the Office for Faculty Diversity at UCLA. Laurence will use his award to purchase software to develop instructional materials while Eric plans to travel to Turkey, where he has been invited to speak about his book, The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance, at an international conference on chemical education.

2008 UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award Ben Schwartz was one of six faculty recipients of the 2008 Distinguished Teaching Award. This is a great honor and brings further recognition to the Department's commitment to and effectiveness in teaching throughout a broad range of undergraduate courses and graduate programs. Ben will receive his award in the fall at the annual Andrea L. Rich Night to Honor Teaching.

Chancellor's Award for Postdoctoral ResearchClaude Legault, a member of Ken Houk’s research group, is one of six UCLA scholars to receive the 2008 UCLA Chancellor's

Award for Postdoctoral Research for his studies on the Pd-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of heterocycles, the asymmetric Staudinger synthesis of beta-lactam antibiotics, and for the creation of CYLview, an increasingly popular visualization program to assist in the rapid evaluation,

analysis, and representation of structures. Chancellor Block presented the award at a ceremony at the UCLA Faculty Center on March 12.

Faculty Recognition AwardsAlf Bacher, Manashi Chatterjee, Miguel Garcia-Garibay, Bill Gelbart, Maher Henary, Steve Kim, Laurence Lavelle, Johnny Pang, Yves Rubin, Arlene Russell, Eric Scerri and Sarah Villa received Faculty Recognition Awards from the UCLA Academic Advancement Program (AAP) for their work with AAP students and tutors at an AAP Faculty Recognition Reception on January 16, 2008.

Sabeeha Merchant

Ben Schwartz

AWARDS

Claude Legault & Chancellor Gene Block


- 5 -

AWARDS

Alumni Association AwardFred Wudl is the recipient of the 2008 UCLA Alumni Association Professional Achievement Award. Established in 1962, the Award pays tribute to the superior achievements of Bruin alumni in their chosen fields of endeavor. Fred earned both his BS (’64) and PhD (’67) in Chemistry at UCLA. A member of our faculty from 1997 to

2007, he held the Dean M. Willard Chair before re-joining the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara. While at UCLA, he directed the Exotic Materials Institute and was Principal Investigator on the National Science Foundation IGERT Materials Creation Training Program (MCTP), which has transformed interdisciplinary graduate education in materials chemistry and engineering at UCLA.

Fred’s research interests span physical organic and polymer chemistry, with a particular focus on the electronic properties of organic materials. While at UCLA, his team developed the first self-mending polymers: materials that if cracked, can be repaired simply by applying heat.

In recognition of his extraordinary achievements, Fred has received many professional honors, including election as Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award and Award for Chemistry of Materials, the Giulio Natta Medal from the Italian Chemical Society, the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain, and the Tolman Medal from the Southern California Section of the ACS.

Graduate AwardsExcellence in First Year Academics and Research

Jonah Chang Timothy Dong Gregory Kuzmanich Peng Liu

Excellence in Teaching David Britt Timothy Dong Jonathan Furuyama Matthew Gard Carlin Hsueh Amir Kazerouninia Mary Jane Knight Marisa Monreal Benny Ng Haider Rasool Frank Rigo Darcy Wanger

Excellence in Research Ralph & Charlene Bauer Award

Colin Carver

George Gregory Award Hakan Gunaydin

Majeti-Alapati Fellowship Marino Resendiz

John M. Jordan Memorial Award Michael Allen

Ernest F. Hare, Jr., Memorial Scholarship Monty Liong

John Stauffer Fellowship Frank Rigo

Chemistry & Biochemistry Departmental Awards CeremonyNovember 5, 2007

Fred Wudl

Undergraduate AwardsStone Prize for Excellence in General Chemistry

Tadeh Vartanian

Faculty Awards Hanson-Dow Award

Heather Maynard

Herbert Newby McCoy AwardsFor Contribution to Scientific Discovery in Chemistry & Biochemistry

Max Kopelevich

The Greatest Discovery of the Year in Chemistry & Biochemistry

Ric Kaner Sarah Tolbert

See page 10 for more information on IGERT-MCTP.


- 6 -

New Books by Our Faculty

Professor Courey has authored this new book about transcription, the first and perhaps most important step in decoding the information encoded in our DNA. The accurate regulation of this

process is at the heart of everything that occurs in living organisms, including growth, development, and adaptation to a changing environment. Mechanisms in Transcriptional Regulation is inspired by the transcription course that Professor Courey has taught almost every year for the last 17 years (Chem. & Biochem. C159B/C259B). This book brings together the fundamental concepts taught in that course and it provides the needed background for understanding these concepts and tackling the primary literature in the transcription field.

Following the success of his book on the Periodic Table with Oxford University Press, Eric Scerri was invited to produce another book, this time, by Imperial College Press in London. The new book, consisting of his selected papers on the Philosophy

of Chemistry, will appear in June. Eric is one of the founders of this relatively new field and is the editor of the journal Foundations of Chemistry, now in its tenth year of publication.

HAPPENINGS

New Faculty Margot QuinlanOn July 1, 2008, Dr. Margot Quinlan will join the department as the inaugural holder of a newly endowed, five-year term chair—the Alexander and Renee Kolin Endowed Professorship of Molecular Biology and Biophysics. When asked what sparked her interest in science, she reflects, “I am fascinated by things that move - at many levels, but

especially at the molecular level. One of my favorite assays is reconstitution of actin-myosin motility. Watching myosin push individual actin filaments around is exciting every time I see it. From there I have continued to be interested in regulation of the cytoskeleton and this actually led me back to watching things move. Spire and Cappuccino, my current favorite proteins, can make new actin filaments and build a mesh that regulates cytoplasmic streaming in Drosophila oocytes.

Watching that streaming is also amazing, every time. I plan to continue studying the mechanism of actin nucleation by Spire and Cappuccino, in vitro. I will also study their role in cell polarity using Drosophila as a model organism and cytoplasmic streaming as an assay.“

“Dr. Quinlan works at the interface of biophysics and molecular biology and has done outstanding work in both disciplines," comments Chair Harold Martinson.“We expect her to become one of the best young independent scientists of her generation, and we are absolutely delighted that she chose to join us.

For more information on Dr. Quinlan's research, go to: http://www.biochemistry.ucla.edu/biochem/Faculty/Quinlan/quinlanLab/

Louis BouchardSee Chair’s Message on page 2.

Patrick HarranSee cover story and Chair’s Message on page 2.

Margot Quinlan

Al Courey Eric Scerri

http://www.biochemistry.ucla.edu/biochem/Faculty/Quinlan/quinlanLab/





- 7 -

HAPPENINGSACS NanoPower

UCLA graduate students organized a highly successful symposium on NanoPower at the American Chemical Society meeting in New Orleans in April.

This is the latest in an initiative launched in 2004 by the ACS Division of Chemical Education in which a group of graduate students at a selected university is chosen to organize a symposium of their choosing. This year’s symposium, “NanoPower: Creating Energy for the Future” was a fabulous success. It took more than a year for the UCLA students to put together a symposium focusing on the impact of nanoscience in developing cleaner and more efficient energy technologies.

“We came into this project with only a vague idea of what planning a symposium entailed,” noted Kirsten Griffiths from the Stoddart group, who served as chair for the UCLA team. “But I think as a group we’ve all left with a better idea of how ACS works, how scientific meetings come to be, and how we can really make a difference using

our individuals talents.” The UCLA students chose a theme, invited the speakers, set up the meeting program in ACS’s online data base, raised funds for travel and for food and drink, advertised their symposium, and dealt with on-site meeting logistics.

For the New Orleans meeting, the UCLA group set up what turned out to be a stellar all-day symposium complete with lectures, a panel discussion, and an evening reception. The 10 invited speakers included notable researchers in the fields of solar cells, artificial photosynthesis, and materials science. Nobel Laureate Alan J. Heeger of UC Santa Barbara spoke about self-assembled polymeric nanomaterials for fabricating low-cost solar cells. This and other talks can be seen on the NanoPower website: http://nanopower.chem.ucla.edu/

The importance of the subject and the prestige of the speakers led ACS President Bruce E. Burstein to select NanoPower as a Presidential event. It was a great success, with a standing-room crowd of about 200 people packed into the meeting room.

“We are all really proud of how our symposium went”, committee member Sarah Angelos from the Zink group said, “Prior to the meeting we were excited by the caliber of speakers who had agreed to participate. And at the meeting it was rewarding to see how well attended the symposium was. The opportunity to organize and host a symposium at a national meeting helped each of us to feel like integrated, contributing members of ACS.”This story is based upon an article by Stephen K. Ritter in the May 5, 2008 issue of Chemical and Engineering News. The full article may be found at - http://www.cnsi.ucla.edu/news/item?item_id=507849 or at http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/86/8618sci3.html

Houk65 SymposiumComputational Chemistry: Orgo, Bio, Nano - June 27-28, 2008

The Houk65 Symposium will honor Professor K. N. Houk on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Over the last four decades, Houk’s group has

explored organic reactions, biological catalysis, and organic materials with computational methods, including quantum mechanics and molecular dynamics. The symposium will take place on campus in the CNSI auditorium. It will feature lectures by world leaders in computational chemistry and organic synthesis, areas of Houk’s interests and collaborations over the years, and by distinguished alumni of the Houk group. Keynote speakers include Professors Wes Borden (North Texas U.), Bill Jorgensen (Yale), Paul Schleyer (U. Geoergia), Donald Truhlar ( U. Minnesota) and Paul Wender (Stanford).

For more information about the symposium and banquet, please visit the event website: http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/houk/houk65.htm or contact Laura Strom (310/206-0515).

Power Bunch members who organized the NanoPower symposium in New Orleans are (clockwise from top left): Bo Wang (Yaghi), Sarah Angelos (Zink), Kaushik Patel (Stoddart), Christopher Kolodziej (Maynard), Kirsten Griffiths (Stoddart), Robert Kojima (Kaner). [Courtesy of Steve Ritter/C&EN]

Kendall Houk

http://nanopower.chem.ucla.edu




http://www.cnsi.ucla.edu/news/item?item_id=507849







- 8 -

GIVING OPPORTUNITIES

The Undergraduate ExperienceThese are just some of the ways your generous gifts can enhance undergraduate education.

The essence of the matter ................Small scale distillation set-up $150

Weighty matters......................New analytical balance $2,000

Parallel processingMultichannel pipettor to speed

....................biochemistry experiments $900Vaporware

.....Rotary evaporator for organic lab $4,000

Virtual stateRaman spectrometer for analytical

.............................and p-chem labs $15,000

Peer networking24-student laboratory information

........................management system $20,000

You make it possible! All of us in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at

UCLA thank you for your generous support over the years. Each contribution helps provide undergraduate and graduate students an outstanding educational experience, create opportunities for students to develop as scholars and professionals, and preserve a research environment that enables our faculty, postdoctoral scholars and students to create new knowledge that will benefit society.

The articles in this newsletter tell the story. Our graduate students are superb scientists, and also leaders. Our faculty continue to garner prestigious awards, publish papers that capture the world’s attention, and write books that will expand the horizons of laymen, students and scholars for years to come. And we continue to attract the brightest new minds to our ranks.

We are committed to continuing this tradition of excellence, even in the face of challenging economic conditions. As you know, although UCLA is a public university, only a fraction of our support comes from the state. That level of support continues to decline in the face of competing needs and limited resources. In this new environment, we must do what private institutions do: depend on the generosity of our friends and alumni to help us in our tripartite mission of research, education and service.

You can help. One-time and endowed fellowships enable us to attract and train the very best graduate students. Support for departmental seminars and student travel to scientific conferences gives students opportunities to develop their communication and networking skills. Support for undergraduate education, whether to purchase new laboratory instruments or for summer research scholarships, helps us continue to provide young scholars with excellent preparation for advanced study and 21st century jobs. Endowing a faculty chair makes it possible for us to recruit and retain the very best professors. And unrestricted gifts, small and large, support education, research, service and outreach. These funds are very important, as they give us the ability to meet urgent and critical needs as they arise.

We invite you to consider how you can make a difference. We value your friendship and your support, and look forward to building a great future together.

If you need help or have questions please contact the Chair’s office at (310) 825-3958.

“...although UCLA is a public university, only a fraction of our support comes from the state.”

Gifts Made to Measure

The Graduate ExperienceEnhance UCLA’s competitivenessFellowship add-in to recruit outstanding

...................................................graduate students $3,500

Budding careersGraduate student travel award to underwrite

............................presentation at an ACS meeting $1,000Please contact the Chair’s office to designate your gift for these or other opportunities not noted on the enclosed envelope.


- 9 -

SEABORGIUM (Over $999)AnonymousBlack and DeckerCarter, Robert & Mae Dote, Janis & Nagumo, MarkEisenberg, David S.Gabriel Family FoundationGelbart, William & NinaInami, Harry & KayJordan, Ann SodjaKollmeyer, Willy & BarbaraLau, RonLewis Fund, Sheldon & SuzanneLo, Frederick & Chan, PollyMarott, Janet E.Nguyen, TienRobbins Foundation,Inc.Scrubs UnlimitedShell Oil CompanySweet, JackTrifunovich, Ivan D.Tsay, Shyr-Jin (Jim)Wilson, Raymond A. & Dorothy

PLATINUM ($500 - $999)Craig, Richard & AngelaKatz, Shoshannah & Schraven, KevinMerck & Co. FoundationRemy, David C.Stout, RobertTyssee, Donald A.

GOLD ($250 - $499)Boeing CompanyChiang, Glenn & JunaDo, Khai X. Flom, Michael S.Gu, Chee-LiangThe Greiner Family TrustKatz, Howard & MarionMarvin, DeanSmith, Roberts A.Smith, Robert R.

SILVER ($100 - $249)Air Liquide USA Badie, Benham Biddle, Andrea K. Bingham, Carleton D.Bloom, La Vonne Bloomfield, Jordan Blumenkopf, Todd A.Blumstein, NancyBoyd, StevenBP Foundation Broene, Richard D. Burton, Zachary F.Cappielllo, CamilleDunne, ThomasFuhrman, RandyFung-Tomac, JoanGanz, PeterGrove, DavidIBM CorporationJuster, Norman & MarianHays, Auda K.Henrichs, PaulHolzer, Margaret E.Hwang, Rong & Maggi

Kaesz, Herbert D.Kim, JuneKwan, Reginald & JaniceLamb-Sanford, SandraLapporte, Seymour J.Leitereg, Theodore & MarianneMacPhail, Richard A.Margerum, Suzanne C.Maverick, EmilyMcNall, Lester R.Mitchell, DennisMiyada, Don S.Mork, H. CraigNew America Alliance InstituteNishimura, NobukoNomi, Akio & TakakoOgawa, Yasushi Pritt Jr., Alfred T.Rao, LinRichman, Beatrix H.Roitman, James N.Rosman, Edwin J.Rowen, Scott J.Shum, IdaSilver, Joel S.Singler, Robert E.Smith-Poling, SandraSteelink, CorneliusSteichen, Dale S.Tran, UyenphuongVenerable II , Grant DelbertWaiss, Jr., Anthony Weiller, Bruce & Shari Weisman, Gary R. Weiss, Milton Zheng, Shijun Ziegler, Stanley M.

COPPER ($1 - $99) Abelt, Christopher J. Becket, Elinne Bethel, Heidi L. Cho, Ji Hyun Delphy, CraigEble Jr., Bernard Fujimura, Stanley Gillan, Edward G. Glick, Betty Joan Ha, Chrysanthy Hu, James K. Hurley,James F.Kim, Jennie J. Levy, EmilyMacDonald, David J.Macropol, KatherineMargerum, SuzanneMitchell, Dennis K.Motwani, Sabin Nabat-Mama, Ryan Pfizer Foundation Inc.Ray, DennisRothschild, Wayne J.Roy, KevinRull, Romeo & GloriaSamar, BrianScanlon, William J.Seltzer, JoanneStephens, MaryVan Laarhoven, Peter Wallace, Charles H.West , Charles A.Won, KimberlyWu, Theodore & Chin-Hua Zink, Jeffrey I.These Gifts received from September ’07 to May ’08.

OUR GENEROUS DONORS

Elizabeth Whitney Gift Establishes Janis Okida Hashimoto Endowment

The Chemistry & Biochemistry Department expresses its sincere appreciation to Elizabeth Whitney for her gift of $50,000. Her gift established the Janis Okida Hashimoto Endowment for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Research (ALS). We are pleased to add that this gift will support graduate or undergraduate students conducting research on neurodegenerative diseases and affected anatomical systems related to ALS.

Raymond A. & Dorothy A. Wilson Endowment

The Chemistry & Biochemistry Department expresses its sincere appreciation to Raymond (BS '43) and Dorothy Wilson for their $100,000 gift toward faculty and undergraduate and graduate student support. Their gift has been added to the Raymond A. and Dorothy A. Wilson Endowment Fund, which supports the department's efforts to maintain and enhance its academic excellence.

Funds from the Wilson Endowment have most recently allowed the department to bring visiting professor Dr. Richard Hsung from the University of Wisconsin, Madison to UCLA in winter '08. He taught a course in "Strategy and Design in Organic Synthesis."

The course covered strategies on the design and synthesis of complex organic molecules, such as natural products, bioactive molecules, and pharmaceuticals.

Prior to Dr. Hsung, the Wilson Endowment supported the efforts of two outstanding graduate students: Hao Duong, now a post-doctoral student at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Neurobiology and Jose Núñez, who received a PhD from UCLA in 2007, is now a post-doctoral student with Professor John Gladysz at Texas A & M.


- 10 -

MORE GIVING OPPORTUNITIES

New Biochemistry Endowed Chairs

The Department is raising funds to endow six faculty chairs in the names of our biochemistry faculty emeriti. Fifty years ago, biochemists were a rarity in chemistry departments. At UCLA, a few insightful pioneers assembled what is now

considered one of the top biochemistry divisions in the world.

While helping grow and shape this new field, two became members of the National Academy of Sciences, one built a major pharmaceutical company, and one brought a Nobel Prize to UCLA. All made major discoveries and enriched the lives of their colleagues and students. We would like to honor their important contributions to science, teaching and the

department by creating chaired positions in each of their names: Daniel Atkinson, Paul Boyer, Richard Dickerson, Roberts Smith, Verne Schumaker and Charles West.

We invite you to contribute to this effort, using the enclosed donor envelope and indicating your gift is for the Biochemistry Emeriti Chairs Fund.

Thank you!

DanielAtkinson

Richard Dickerson

PaulBoyer

RobertsSmith

Verne Schumaker

Charles West

If you would like more information on how you can help sustain and broaden participation in this innovative program, please contact Robin Garrell ([email protected]).

2007-2008 MCTP Fellows, October 3, 2007 Top row (L-R) Matthew Allen, Jeffrey Wright, Li-Min (Raymond) Chen; 2nd row (L-R) Zachary O'Brien, Gregory Kuzmanich, Steven Jonas; 3rd row (L-R) Iris Rauda, Danny King; 4th row (L-R) Michael Kahn, Cortnie Vogelsberg, Dyanara Parra, Laura Saldarriaga-Lopez, Sabah Bux; 5th row (L-R) Emil Song, Wyatt Nelson. Not pictured are Augustin Hong, Alexander Tucker-Schwartzb.

The UCLA IGERT-MCTP trains 2nd and 3rd-year chemistry, physics and engineering graduate students in all aspects of the design, synthesis, fabrication and marketing of new materials and nanoscale devices. It has proven highly successful in developing students’ teamwork, communication and leadership skills.


- 11 -

SEABORG SYMPOSIUM & DINNER

Seaborg Symposium & Medal Presentation was held on November 3rd, in CNSI Auditorium and the Covel Commons. R. Stanley Williams was awarded the 2007 Seaborg Medal. He is a HP Senior Fellow at Hewlett-Packard Labs and founding Director (since 1995) of the HP Quantum Science Research (QSR) group. He was a vital member of the faculty at the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry from 1980-1995.

Ken Houk, R. Stanley Williams, Robin Garrell and Harold Martinson

Bo Wang, Ruiwen Shi of Allergan

Harold Martinson presenting a certificate from Los Angeles County to R. Stanley Williams

Bill Gelbart, Mostafa El-Sayed, Carol West and Nina Gelbart

R. Stanley Williams

2007 R.Stanley Williams

2008The Next Glenn T. Seaborg Award will be presented to our own Professor Joan S. Valentine, in recognition of her many important contributions to biological inorganic chemistry. The symposium and medal dinner will be held on November 1, 2008. The theme of the Symposium will be “Frontiers in Metallobiochemistry.” In addition to Professor Valentine, speakers will include Professors Harry B. Gray, Founding Director of the Beckman Institute at Caltech, Yi Lu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Sabeeha Merchant, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA.

Joan S. Valentine

For information on the Seaborg events, please contact Cynthia Allen at: [email protected] or phone (310) 267-5123

Photos by William Short


- 12 -

DISTINGUISHED LECTURESFifth Annual Winstein Lecture

The Organic Division hosted the Fifth Annual Winstein Lecture and Dinner on February 20, 2008. The Saul Winstein Lecture has become an annual UCLA event, sponsored by the Winstein family and UCLA through the Winstein Chair. Saul Winstein was the greatest physical organic chemist of his generation. The lecture pays tribute to his achievements by honoring outstanding physical organic chemists, many who have strong ties to UCLA.

This year, the organic chemists honored David Reinhoudt from the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Reinhoudt’s Winstein Lecture was titled, “Non-Covalent Chemistry of H-Bonded Supramolecular Systems.”

Winstein was an undergraduate at UCLA, receiving his degree in 1934. After his PhD at Caltech, NRC postdoc at Harvard and one year as Instructor at IIT he returned to UCLA as an instructor in 1941. He became a Full Professor in 1947. During his 28-year

career at UCLA, he created many of the concepts that guide our understanding of reactions in solution. Members of Winstein’s family continue to be major supporters of activities in our department.

Professor Reinhoudt received his Ph.D. at Delft in 1969, then worked at Shell Oil, where he started the crown ether research program. In 1975, he was appointed professor at the University of Twente. His research involves supramolecular chemistry and technology, nanofabrication, molecular recognition, and noncovalent combinatorial synthesis. Professor Reinhoudt is the founder and first director of the MESA+ Research Institute for Nanotechnology. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of NanoNed, the Dutch program for Nanotechnology.The event dinner was attended by 75 students and faculty. They heard about Saul Winstein and his achievements from Ken

Houk, which was followed by a talk from honoree David Reinhoudt describing his scientific career and discoveries.

Contributions to help assure the future of the lecture series can be made by writing Winstein on your donation form and/or check.

Jocelyn Peccei, David Reinhoudt and Roberto Peccei, Vice-Chancellor for Research


- 13 -

Sigman Lecturership Honors McKnight On February 7th, 2008 Steven L. McKnight, from the

Department of Biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center was, feted as the 6th annual David S. Sigman Memorial Lecturer at UCLA. He presented a talk entitled “Transcriptional Regulation of Hippocampal

Neurogenesis.” His talk was followed by a reception and poster session highlighting the work of UCLA graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the field of chemical biology. McKnight received his undergraduate education at the University of Texas and carried out doctoral studies at the University of Virginia. The first

15 years of his independent career were spent at the Department of Embryology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington where he used molecular biological and biochemical methods to study how genes turn on and off in mammalian cells. In 1991, he co-founded a biotechnology company to develop drugs that work via

the regulation of gene expression. In 1996, Dr. McKnight moved to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas where he now chairs the Department of Biochemistry. Dr. McKnight is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine.

The David S. Sigman Memorial Fund, established in 2002, honors individuals for their significant contributions to chemical biology. David S. Sigman was a faculty member in Chemistry and Biochemistry, and in the department of Biological Chemistry in the UCLA School of Medicine. His discovery of chemical nucleases stands as an important contribution to the field of enzymology. Born in New York City in 1939, he graduated magna cum laude from Oberlin College with his BS in Chemistry in 1960. Sigman received his PhD in 1965 from Harvard. After postdoctoral work, he served briefly as an instructor at Harvard before joining the UCLA faculty in 1968. His research bridged the fields of organic chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology. Sigman was one of the founding members of the UCLA Molecular Biology Institute, serving as its associate director from 1994-2001. He died in 2001, at the age of 62.Contributions to help assure the future of the lecture series can be made by writing Sigman on your donation form and/or check.

DISTINGUISHED LECTURES

Steven Clarke, Steven McKnight, Marian Sigman

and Michael Grunstein

Emily Carter Presents Kivelson LectureThe 6th Annual Daniel Kivelson Lecture entitled “Ab Initio Treatment of Strongly Correlated Electron Materials, from Spintronics to Corrosion,” was given by Professor Emily Carter of Princeton University, on January 7, 2008. As a close friend of Daniel’s, Emily talked to us about some of her favorite memories of him and of the many

ways in which his friendship and support made such a big difference to her during her years at UCLA and beyond.

Each Kivelson Lecture has been a high point for the department because of the special feelings we will always have for Daniel, and because each of the lecturers has been both a close friend of Daniel’s and of the department’s.

Initial funding for the Kivelson Lectures was established in 2002, to honor Daniel who – although at the time several years past his retirement – was still as active as ever pursuing his creative and exciting researches in the area of liquid state dynamics and the theory of the glass transition. The idea was to bring friends and collaborators of Daniel’s to the department on an annual basis whom he would be particularly eager to see and from whose expertise his colleagues in the department could regularly benefit. Unfortunately, Daniel became seriously ill just months before the first lecture (January 6, 2003), and was unable to attend; he died weeks later, on January 23, 2003.

Emily joined our department as Assistant Professor in 1988, and was quickly promoted through the ranks to Professor, serving as one of our best teachers and most effective researchers until her departure for Princeton in 2004. She had been trained as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley (BS ‘82), and received her PhD degree at Caltech in 1987, where she worked with Bill Goddard on a variety of small-molecule quantum chemistry/electronic structure problems. During a short postdoctoral stage at the University of Colorado, with Casey Hynes, she “retrained” as a molecular dynamicist. Since moving to Princeton, Emily has focused her novel multi-scale computational approaches on the mechanical and chemical failure of materials under extreme conditions and on new strategies for solar energy conversion. Her work has been recognized widely by many awards over the years, including the Peter Mark Memorial Award of the American Vacuum Society (1995), Fellowship in the American Physical Society (1998), American Association for the Advancement of Science (2000) and the American Institute of Physics (2004), the American Chemical Society Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research (2007), and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to the National Academy of Sciences (2008).

Next year’s (2009) Kivelson Lecturer will be Andrea J. Liu, Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania, former colleague of ours at UCLA, and also a close friend of Daniel’s. We are already looking forward to her visit!

Contributions to help assure the future of the lecture series can be made by writing Kivelson Lectureship on your donation form and/or check.

Emily Carter


- 14 -

FACULTY RESEARCHUCLA Chemists Design Active Sites for New Enzymes

A major milestone in computational chemistry and protein engineering has been reported by the UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry group led by Professor Kendall Houk, working in

collaboration with a University of Washington group headed by biochemist David Baker. Their success was reported this spring in

the leading journals Nature and Science, and is the culmination of a three-year collaboration between their groups and others in a program supported by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency, known as DARPA.

Houk notes, “The goal

of our research is to use computational methods

to design the arrangement of groups inside a protein that

will cause any desired reaction to occur.” David Baker and his group then use their

computer programs to design a sequence of

amino acids that fold to

produce an active site like those the Houk group has designed. Bacteria are then engineered to do the protein synthesis. “When it works, we get a new catalyst

that makes the reaction occur very rapidly,” reports Jason DeChancie, a graduate student working with Houk.

Natural enzymes are the catalysts that control the reactions that sustain life. Enzymes are proteins that have many features that

are attractive for industrial, therapeutic, and synthetic applications. They deliver dramatic rate enhancements for a wide variety of chemical reactions while maintaining exquisite selectivity for

reactant and product. Enzymes are the ultimate “green” catalysts, as they can accelerate reactions under ambient conditions in water.

The collaboration began “when David approached me to

provide the ‘inside’ in this ‘inside-out’ approach to enzyme design,” said Houk. Houk’s team of 30 computational chemists use

quantum mechanical calculations to explore chemical reactions with UCLA, NSF, and Defense Agency computers. Quantum mechanics is the fundamental theory that can predict all chemistry, but to solve the necessary equations for proteins and chemical

reactions requires massive computer resources. “Previous reports of designed enzymes have not been very

successful, and some have been withdrawn,” said Houk. “That is

hardly surprising, considering the challenge of designing in days or weeks what Nature has perfected over billions of years of evolution. The rate enhancements by our designer enzymes are

modest and hardly competitive so far with those observed for natural enzymes. There are still many frontiers to push back!”

The creation of two new enzymes—one for the Kemp elimination, which involves breaking a carbon-hydrogen bond, and

the other for a retro-aldol reaction that involves breaking a carbon-carbon bond—has been an exciting development in the field of computational design. “Most scientists thought this would be

impossible,” said Fernando Clemente, a postdoctoral fellow who worked on the aldolase, “and we felt the same way after many failures. But improvements in design and sophistication eventually

led to success.” Clemente is now at Gaussian Inc., a company that created the software used in the Houk group’s work.

“These reactions were chosen based on their synthetic relevance,” said DeChancie, “but in the future, we plan to expand

the new enzymatic reaction toolkit for targets that are therapeutically important.”

Both studies were funded by DARPA, with additional support

from the National Science Foundation.

Professor Kendall Houk at the center of his Research Team


- 15 -

IN MEMORIAMDorothy A. Seymour

was a member of our

department staff for more than 30 years, died February 26,

2008, aged 71. She came to the department in 1960

as secretary to Daniel Kivelson and Bob Scott, and then became secretary to the vice-chairman before leaving briefly in 1966. She returned to the

department in 1967 to become our first undergraduate counselor. At that time, there were just a few hundred

undergraduate majors; when she retired in 1993, there were over 1000. Dorothy played a major role in establishing our

counseling program, which served as a model for many other departments. In 1982, Dorothy received the prestigious Pat Stern Award for Counselors. She had a

deep concern for students and served them and the department with understanding, expertise and patience. She will be missed

by the many friends she had among the staff and faculty.

Robert L. PecsokBA’40 (Harvard), PhD’48

(Harvard), a faculty member in our department for 23 years, died August 19, 2007, aged 88. Bob

came to UCLA in 1948 as an analytical chemist, and served as vice chair from 1965-70. In 1971, he left for the University

of Hawaii, where he served as chair of the department of chemistry and later as dean of natural sciences before retiring in 1991.

Marvin H. Gold BS’37, PhD’40 (Illinois), died

October 21, 2007, aged 92. Gold had a distinguished career at Aerojet General Corporation, first

in Azusa and later in Sacramento. He received 88 patents for inventions in organic chemistry and found pharmaceutical uses

for Aerojet products. In the 1960s, he founded the People to People Council of Sacramento, which fostered international understanding by welcoming foreign visitors

to town. For a number of years Gold and his wife funded a scholarship to encourage a deserving student in our department. His

family hopes that this can be continued from the Marvin H. and Sophye M. Gold Family Fund.

Charles P. NashBS’52 (UC Berkeley), PhD’58 (McMillan), professor emeritus at UC Davis, died July 15, 2007,

aged 75. Nash, who spent his entire career at Davis, was the first faculty member to serve two consecutive terms as

chair of the campus Academic Senate and was an activist leader on faculty issues. He was a leader in the Davis Faculty Association and after retirement he served

on an emeriti committee.

Rimmon C. FayBS’53, PhD’61 (Atkinson), a marine scientist and social activist, died January 1, 2008, aged 78.

Starting as a lifeguard, Fay became a professional diver, making four to six dives a day, doing his own research and

collecting live specimens for biochemical researchers around the world. He spent six years on the California Coastal Commission and became active in the

movement to clean up coastal waters, particularly Santa Monica Bay. Although Fay saw some improvements, he believed

that long-term trends had transformed local waters from a major fishing area into an industrial dump. He succeeded in stopping

the dumping of DDT and was involved in achieving several settlements that mitigated pollution problems.

Paul R. HastingsBS’70, died December 7, 2006,

aged 60. Hastings owned Colorado Roller and Wheel in Boulder, Colorado, which made

and repaired rollers for large equipment.

For 25 years, he worked as a volunteer with kids, and established county high school volleyball (41 teams) for the state.

Mark SmucklerBS’91 (Wesleyan), MS’07 (Hawthorne),

died April 30, 2008, aged 38, after a nearly five-year battle with a brain tumor. Smuckler worked at DuPont in Boston for

several years before becoming a PhD student at UCLA. After the diagnosis, he took time off for treatment. He returned

while the tumor was in remission and earned his master’s degree. After twelve years in Los Angeles he returned to Marblehead, Massachusetts where he had

grown up.


Department Leads Nation in Grads For ten of the past eleven years, the Department of Chemistry

and Biochemistry at UCLA has awarded more Bachelor of Science degrees than any of more than 600 institutions reporting, according to the ACS Committee on Professional Training Annual Reports for

1996 through 2006. UCLA produced 2.0% of the national total. Our number of PhDs awarded always ranked in the top 25.

Your generous gifts are more valuable than ever! Please use the gift envelope inside or contact us to learn more about how you can help keep us the national leader.

HELP KEEP US GREAT!

U C L A - D E P A R T M E N T O F C H E M I S T R Y & B I O C H E M I S T R Y 607 Charles E. Young Drive EastLos Angeles, California 90095-1569

Check Out Our New Website!Don't forget to bookmark our new address:

www.chemistry.ucla.edu

Our Commencement Ceremony is Saturday, June 14 at 5 PM in the Court of Sciences. Please join us in celebrating the achievements of our new graduates. It’s a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with our faculty and your fellow Bruins!

C a l l S t e v e R a m i r e zD i r e c t o r o f D e v e l o p m e n t

( 3 1 0 ) 7 9 4 - 9 0 4 5

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage

PAIDUCLA

Documents

NL Vol 28-No2 - V.08May20b · In 2003, Dr. Harran amazed the synthetic world with his synthesis of the toxin, diazonamide A. This toxin is produced in nature by Diazona angulata,