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Chemistry and Biochemistry

A rainbow of prescriptions drugs with white bottles on a black countertop.
Photo Credit
Debreny via iStock
Peptides have found use in over 80 drugs worldwide since insulin was first synthesized in the 1920s.

Scientists unlock a massive new ‘color palette’ for biomedical research by synthesizing non-natural amino acids

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A coronal mass ejection shoots off from the sun.
Photo Credit
NASA

UCSB scientists bottle the sun with liquid battery
Oil droplets suspended in water.
Photo Credit
Carther via iStock
Small, naturally occurring droplets could have accelerated the development of early life.

Electrifying biology in a bubble
molecules in blue
Photo Credit
Anusorn Nakdee/iStock

Designing better catalysts for cleaner, more efficient chemistry
woman in suit
Photo Credit
Jeff Liang
UCSB's Grace Han’s research centers on solar fuels that capture sunlight and convert it into usable heat.

Chemist Grace Han named Moore Inventor Fellow
cell images
Photo Credit
Dorit Hanein
Dorit Hanein’s team and collaborators captured Rac1, a tiny molecular switch, rapidly building and breaking cellular scaffolds, revealing how cells swiftly reshape their skeletons to move and adapt.

Dorit Hanein honored for research revealing the cellular roots of disease
concept illustration of a biomolecule

New catalysis method can generate a library of novel molecules for drug discovery
scientists use robotics
Photo Credit
Juan Manuel Urueña Vargas

NSF renews $19.8M for UCSB and UCLA to lead U.S. innovation in AI-driven biomaterials
Five sliced bagels are linked in a chain on a yellow background.
Photo Credit
Matt Perko
Linking single sugars into short-chain carbohydrates, called oligosaccharides, has proven surprisingly difficult.

New method to synthesize carbohydrates could pave the way to biomedical advances
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Biochemist Yang Yang becomes UCSB’s first Freeman Hrabowski Scholar
Rare earth element names with suffix “ium.”
Photo Credit
Matt Perko

A simple filter for rare earth elements will ensure a clean domestic supply of these crucial metals
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Andrea S. Carlini recognized for her work on bio-compatible soft materials
concept illustration of amino acid chains that form proteins
De novo protein design involves sequencing amino acids to produce proteins with the desired structures and functions

Enzymes from scratch
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