Chemistry and Biochemistry

2017-18 General Catalog

Chemistry and Biochemistry Department
230 Physical Sciences Building
(831) 459-4125
http://chemistry.ucsc.edu

Program Statement | Course Descriptions


Faculty and Professional Interests

Professor

Ilan Benjamin
Theoretical chemistry, molecular dynamics of chemical reactions in liquids and at interfaces

Rebecca Braslau
Synthetic organic chemistry: new synthetic methodologies using free radicals; nitroxides, nitroxide mediated “living” polymerizations: design and functionalization of tailored polymers for biomedical applications and nanotechnology, profluorescent nitroxides as sensors, synthetically modified polymers, development of non-migratory plasticizers

Shaowei Chen
Synthesis, characterization, and manipulation of novel functional nanomaterials (metals and semiconductors); surface engineering of nanoparticles; nanoscale electron transfer; applications in fuel cells, photocatalysis, photovoltaics, and nano optoelectronics

Ólöf Einarsdóttir
Time-resolved spectroscopy; biophysics and bioenergetics; heme-copper oxidases; electron transfer and ligand binding; application of photolabile NO and 02 donors; molecular dynamics simulations of ligand access channels in heme-copper oxidases

Theodore R. Holman
Biochemistry and bioinorganic chemistry; lipoxygenase enzymology, protein engineering, inhibitor discovery, computer inhibitor design, mass spectroscopy, electron paramagnetic resonance

Joseph P. Konopelski
Synthetic organic chemistry; heterocyclic chemistry, bioorganic chemistry

R.Scott Lokey
Organic chemistry; combinatorial synthesis, biotechnology, molecular cell biology

John MacMillan, Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry
Natural products chemistry, chemical biology, structural elucidation, cancer biology, microbial natural products

Pradip Mascharak
Bioinorganic chemistry, design of antitumor drugs, modeling of active sites of metalloenzymes, design of catalysts for hydrocarbon oxidation, studies on intermediates in non-heme oxygenase chemistry, design of NO-donors for photodynamic therapy

Glenn L. Millhauser
Electron paramagnetic resonance; nuclear magnetic resonance, protein structure and function, peptide synthesis, prions, melanocortin signaling

Scott R. Oliver
Materials chemistry: nanoporous inorganic and metal-organic materials for environmental cleanup of water, desulfurization of fuel and biomaterials

Seth M. Rubin
Biomolecular mechanisms of cell-cycle regulation and cancer; structural biology and biochemistry; macromolecular x-ray crystallography; nuclear magnetic resonance

William G. Scott
Structure and function of RNA, proteins, and their complexes, origin of life

Bakthan Singaram
Organic synthesis, organoborane chemistry, heterocyclic chemistry, organometallic chemistry, asymmetric synthesis, biosensors, and natural products chemistry

Jin Z. Zhang
Design, synthesis, characterization, and application of nanomaterials, including semiconductors, metals, and metal oxides; ultrafast dynamics and laser spectroscopy;  cancer diagnosis and therapy; solar energy conversion; surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)

Associate Professor

Yat Li
Experimental physical chemistry, nanomaterials, energy conversion and storage, microbial fuel cell technology

Carrie Partch
Biochemistry and biophysics, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy; molecular mechanism of circadian rhythmicity

Michael Stone
Molecular basis of telomere length and telomerase-related diseases; biophysical characterization of nucleic acid-associated molecular motors; development of novel approaches for imaging enzymes in cells

Assistant Professor

Alexander Ayzner
Experimental physical chemistry; organic semiconductors; molecular spectroscopy; electron transfer dynamics; X-ray scattering and spectroscopy

Yuan Ping
Theoretical and computational materials chemistry; solar energy conversion; electronic, optical and carrier transport properties of transition metal oxides and nanomaterials; heterogeneous catalysts; solid/liquid interfaces

Jevgenij Raskatov
Chemical biology, organic chemistry, molecular modeling, chemotherapy, inflammation

Nikolaos Sgourakis
Modeling protein complexes from sparse NMR data; hybrid methods in structural biology; antigen processing and presentation; viral immune regulation mechanisms

Chemistry and Biochemistry Research Professors

Philip O. Crews
Marine natural products chemistry, bioorganic chemistry, organic structural analysis by NMR, natural products of marine macro- and microorganisms

David S. Kliger
Time-resolved laser spectroscopy, biophysics, studies of visual transduction, protein function, and protein folding

Chemistry and Biochemistry Emeritus Faculty

Roger W. Anderson
Design of anti-reflection graded refractive index coatings for solar energy collection, achromatic focusing of molecules with external electric fields, discrete orthoganol polynomials in molecular collision theory, and semiclassical asymptotic analysis of Racah and Hahn polynomials

Frank C. Andrews

Claude F. Bernasconi
Kinetic studies of fast reactions, organic reaction mechanisms, acid-base catalysis, proton transfers, nucleophilic reactions, organometallic reactions, ab initio molecular orbital calculations

Roberto A. Bogomolni
Biophysical chemistry, photobiology, light energy conversion and signal transduction in biological systems

Joseph F. Bunnett
Physical organic chemistry, with special attention to mechanisms of aromatic nucleophilic substitution 

Thomas W. Schleich
Biomedical magnetic resonance spectroscopy, magnetic resonance imaging, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, biophysical chemistry 

Eugene Switkes
Quantum theory applied to problems in chemistry and biochemistry; visual information processing, spatial vision, color vision

Stanley M. Williamson

W. Todd Wipke
Molecular engineering for drug discovery; computational chemistry in improving cancer chemotherapy, solar energy conversion, and continuous glucose monitoring 

Chemistry and Biochemistry Lecturers

Caitlin Binder

Randa Roland

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Adjuncts

Christopher H. Becker (Protein Metrics Inc.)
Biological mass spectrometry, therapeutic protein development, biomarker development, chemical physics

William L. Fitch (Stanford, Roche Palo Alto)
Organic mass spectrometry, drug metabolism, metabolomics, bioanalytical chemistry

Jinghua Guo (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Nanostructured materials, interfacial structure and chemistry in energy conversion, energy storage, and catalysis; electronic structure and synchrotron radiation based soft X-ray spectroscopy

Greg L. Hura (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Mechanisms of biological macromolecules inspire nanoscale engineering strategies and provide insights into disease; biochemistry and biophysics

Thomas Webb (SRI Biosciences)
Medicinal and synthetic chemistry, drug design, pharmacophore methods, natural product analogs, enzymes for organic synthesis and drug discovery, anticancer and antiviral drug discovery, spliceosome chemical biology, and new therapeutic targets in cancer

Affiliates

Phillip Berman (Biomolecular Engineering)
Drug development vaccines, AIDS, monoclonal antibody therapeutics, immunology, molecular cell/biology, recombinant protein production (commercial scale)

Manel Camps  (Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology)
Molecular mechanisms of reactive DNA methylation toxicity

Donald R. Smith (Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology)
Neurotoxicity, cellular and organismal responses to environmental toxins

Phillip Berman (Biomolecular Engineering)
Drug development vaccines, AIDS, monoclonal antibody therapeutics, immunology, molecular cell/biology, recombinant protein production (commercial scale)

Holger Schmidt (Electrical Engineering)
Optofluidics, atom photonics, hollow-core photonics for biomedicine and quantum optics, nanomagnetism, nanomagneto-optics, single-particle spectroscopy, ultrafast optics

Revised: 09/01/17