Fall - UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry

Chemistry and Biochemistry
Fall 2007
Volume 28 Number 1
Inside This Issue
Dr. R. Stanley Williams, Seaborg Medalist
Chair’s Message....................
..2
Happenings...........................3
..3
In Focus..................................4
..6
Commencement 2007..............
..7
Alumni News...........................6
12
In Memoriam..............................
12
Faculty Research...................13
13
Recent Donors........................14
14
Seaborg Registration.........15
Fraser Stoddart Honored
R. Stanley Williams
The Department of Chemistry and
Fraser Stoddart received
the King Faisal International Prize
for science from Prince Sultan bin
Abdul Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia
at a ceremony in March 2007. The
award recognized Fraser for his
pioneering work in the development of a new field in chemistry
dealing with nanoscience and, in
particular, his work in molecular
recognition and self-assembly.
“I am both elated and excited
by this honor,” Fraser says. “The
King Faisal International Prize in
science recognizes only the highest stratum of scholars and scientists from universities, scientifi c
societies, and research centers
throughout the world. The list of
previous recipients is dauntingly
impressive. They have steered the
course of science in their time and
now occupy a place in history. It is
a humbling experience for me to be
joining their ranks.”
The winners received their
awards in a special ceremony held
in Riyadh under the auspices of the
King of Saudi Arabia.
Biochemistry takes great pride in announcing that Dr. R. Stanley Wiliams
will be awarded the 2007 Glenn T. Seaborg Medal. The award, established in
1987, celebrates outstanding achievement in chemistry and biochemistry.
Stan is an HP Senior Fellow at
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories and
founding Director (since 1995) of the
HP Quantum Science Research (QSR)
group. He received his B.A. degree in
Chemical Physics in 1974 from Rice
University and his Ph.D. in Physical
Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1978.
He was a member of the technical staff
at AT&T Bell Labs from 1978-80 and a
distinguished member of the faculty at
the UCLA Department of Chemistry and
Biochemistry from 1980-95.
His primary scientific research
during the past 30 years has been
in the areas of solid-state chemistry
and physics and their applications to
technology. This has evolved into the
areas of nanostructures and chemically
assembled materials, emphasizing the
thermodynamics of size and shape.
Most recently, he has examined the
fundamental limits of information and
computing, which has led to his current
research in nanoelectronics and nanophotonics. He has received numerous
awards for business, scientific and academic achievement, including the 2004
Herman Bloch Medal for Industrial Research, the 2000 Julius Springer Award
for Applied Physics, the 2000 Feynman
Prize in Nanotechnology, a Dreyfus
Teacher-Scholar Award, and a Sloan
Foundation Fellowship. He has been
awarded 57 U.S. patents with more than
40 pending, and has published over 300
papers in professional scientific journals. One of his patents was named as
one of five that will “transform business
and technology” by MIT’s Technology
Review in 2000.
Three distinguished experts in
nanomaterials and nanotechnology will
also speak at the Seaborg Symposium.
Louis Brus spent nearly 25 years
at Bell Labs, where his research on
semiconductor nanocrystals brought
him acclaim. A member of the National
Academy of Sciences, he has held the
Thomas A. Edison Chair in Chemistry
at Columbia University since 1996. His
research focuses on the physical chemistry of materials including interfaces,
nanocrystals and nanotubes.
Like Stan, Mostafa El-Sayed and
James Heath have close ties to UCLA.
Mostafa, a member of our faculty for 33
years, is the Julius Brown Chair and Regents’ Professor at Georgia Tech and is
also a member of the National Academy
of Sciences. As director of the Laser
Dynamics Laboratory, he has pioneered
the use of optical methods to study the
fundamental electronic properties of
nanocrystals and has focused as well
on nanoparticles in technological and
medical applications. James Heath,
the Gilloon Professor of Chemistry at
Caltech, is a world leader in the development of molecular electronics. Jim’s
research now aims to attack challenges
in cancer and immunology by developing rapid diagnostic tools integrating
nanotechnology and microfluidics.
The Department of Chemistry and
Biochemistry invites faculty, students,
alumni, and friends to join us in celebrating Stan’s achievements. The Seaborg
Symposium and Medal Award Dinner
will take place on Saturday, November
3rd (see page 15 to register.)
Chair’s Message
Harold G. Martinson
I am delighted once again to be
able to begin my newsletter message
by welcoming a new faculty member!
Margot Quinlan will be joining us as
an assistant professor on July 1, 2008.
Margot will be the inaugural holder
of a newly endowed, five year term
chair—the Alexander and Renee Kolin
Endowed Professorship of Molecular
Biology and Biophysics.
As a graduate student at Penn,
Margot focused on the fascinating
mechanism of force production by the
molecular motor protein, myosin. Myosin generates force in muscle cells, and
shuttles cargo around cells by moving
along actin filaments. Myosin grasps
an actin filament using two arms, and
Margot asked whether the myosin then
moves along the actin in an inch worm
fashion or instead by a stepping motion.
To answer this she developed a novel
microscope that can monitor changes
in fluorescence polarization in real time
and thereby monitor the orientations of
single molecules as they move. She
found that myosin employs a humanlike walking motion to move along filaments of actin.
As a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF
Margot shifted her focus to actin—and
to cell biology, where she studied the
mechanisms regulating the dynamic
assembly and disassembly of actin
filaments in the cell. Actin filaments, as
major components of the cytoskeleton,
give the cell its shape, help it to move,
and provide for intracellular transport.
Margot scored a major discovery here
by identifying “Spir,” which regulates
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the assembly of actin filaments and
which, even at the earliest stages of
embryogenesis, is vital for establishing the proper polarity of the embryo.
Margot plans to expand her research on
Spir when she sets up her independent
research program here at UCLA.
Congratulations to Yung-Ya Lin!
Promoted to associate professor as
of July 1st this year, he is a formidable
addition to the tenured ranks of this
department. As a teacher Yung-Ya is
second to none, inspiring passionate
and eloquent praise from students at
all levels. In research Yung-Ya is best
known for creating entirely new ways of
thinking about complex issues—issues
that others have thought about for decades. Yung-Ya works at the interface
of sophisticated physical chemistry
and cutting-edge medical imaging.
Everyone knows that nuclear magnetic
resonance (NMR) is a classic part of
physical science, having long played a
cornerstone role in the determination of
molecular structure. More recently, it
has occupied center stage as the basis
for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
in medicine.
Yung-Ya’s research has introduced
a totally new and powerful approach to
MRI. Through a combination of theory
and experiment, he has harnessed
non-linear nuclear spin dynamics to
enhance both sensitivity and contrast.
Essentially all monographs and all current NMR characterizations and MRI
applications deal exclusively with the
linear nature of spin dynamics. The
basic idea of Yung-Ya’s research has
been to control the chaotic behavior of
spins that is caused by non-linear effects such as “radiation damping” and
“distant-field” interactions. Yung-Ya
has exploited these effects to enhance
contrast and make possible earlier and
surer detection of cancer tumors and
disease lesions. This approach has
already been tested in mice with very
promising results.
In closing, I would like to provide
an update on two events reported in the
Spring 2006 Newsletter and an interesting connection between them. The
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
first of these events was the two-day
remembrance of Chris Foote, which
included science, music, and a banquet
in October of 2005. Chris Foote was
a faculty member at UCLA for over
forty years, and he created the field of
singlet oxygen organic chemistry that
is of great importance to atmospheric,
materials, and biological chemistry. As
Chair of our department and contributor
to numerous university activities, as well
as an outstanding teacher and textbook
author, he positively influenced every
aspect of our university community.
Moreover, our department continues to
benefit enormously from the generosity of the late Chris Foote and his wife,
Judi Smith, who, together with a host
of their colleagues, friends, and former
students endowed the Christopher S.
Foote Graduate Fellowships in Organic
Chemistry. As described on page 5,
the fellowships support outstanding
students during their graduate careers
and help UCLA attract the best to our
department.
I mentioned that there were two
events from the Spring 2006 Newsletter that deserved updates, and that
there was an interesting connection.
The second event was the arrival of
Omar Yaghi, who came to us from the
University of Michigan. Omar is one of
the most highly cited chemists in the
world today and was recently selected
as one of Popular Science Magazine’s
“Brilliant 10” scientists and engineers
in the nation. Omar has already had
a tremendous impact on UCLA and
the California NanoSystems Institute,
where he is director of the Center for
Reticular Chemistry. The connection
is that an endowed chair was established specifically for Omar, and it was
named the Christopher S. Foote Chair
of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Thus, the Foote Fellowships for
superior graduate students and the
Foote Chair for outstanding faculty
will perpetuate our memories of Chris’
contributions and achievements now
and forever into the future.
Happenings
Graduate Student Rebecca Nelson and Mentor David Eisenberg Win the
ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry
Rebecca Nelson, together with
her graduate mentor David Eisenberg,
will receive the American Chemical Society’s 2008 Nobel Signature Award at
the Society’s annual meeting next April
in New Orleans. This award recognizes
her dissertation as highly distinguished.
The work is being published in a series
of research papers and reviews. Two
of the papers appeared in the journal
Nature while two reviews appeared
in Advances in Protein Chemistry and
Current Opinion in Structural Biology,
respectively.
Rebecca’s work is on the atomic
structure of the amyloid state–the
fibril state of proteins associated with
various diseases including Alzheimer’s
and Parkinson’s. The structure of the
amyloid state has resisted elucidation
because fibrils are not well enough
ordered to crystallize.
Fortunately, in 2001 UCLA Chemistry graduate student Melinda Bal-
birnie found that only seven residues
hold protein molecules together in a
particular yeast amyloid and was able
to grow tiny crystals of this segment.
Rebecca went on to determine the
structure using X-ray diffraction, aided
by her coworkers, David Eisenberg,
and Staff Research Scientist Michael
R. Sawaya. Because the crystals were
exceptionally small, the scientists had
to travel to the European Synchrotron
Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France,
to use specialized equipment.
What Rebecca and her coworkers found was that the amyloid state
consists of two beta sheets, with tightly
interdigitating sidechains, and no water
between the sheets. The team calls this
type of structure, not seen before in
proteins, the “dry steric zipper.”
The ACS Nobel Laureate Signature
Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry was established in 1978 and is the
highest honor accorded to a graduate
David Eisenberg and Rebecca Nelson
student in the field of chemistry. It
consists of cash awards to the student
and his or her preceptor, and plaques
inscribed with the signatures of Nobel
laureates: one for the awardee, and one
for permanent display in the institution’s
chemistry department. Rebecca is the
first of our graduates to receive this
award.
The Chemistry and Biochemistry
Postdoctoral Awards ceremony was
held on May 9, 2007 in 159 Boyer Hall in
order to honor outstanding postdoctoral
researchers. Steven Claypool, Mara
Duncan, Cory Evans, Ian Henderson,
Yue Liu, Lilitika Mandal, and Vladimir
Ramirez-Carrozzi received Research
Excellence Awards. Mara received the
Boyer-Parvin Award while Lilitika and
Vladimir received the Boyer-Peter and
Amgen Awards, respectively.
Photo: Todd Cheney, UCLA Photography
Postdocs Honored
Front row (l to r): Cory Evans, Lolitika Mandal, Vladimir Ramirez-Carrozzi, Mara Duncan, Yue Liu, Ian
Henderson, Steven Claypool Back row: Professors Volker Hartenstein, Stephen Smale, Paul Boyer,
Stephen Hitchcock, Steven Clarke, Charles West, Harold Martinson, Greg Payne, and Arnold Berk
Biochemistry Seeks Funding for Endowed Chairs
The Biochemistry Division is currently raising funds to endow six faculty
chairs in the names of our emeriti. It
is hard to imagine a chemistry department without biochemists, but a
generation ago, biochemistry was not
taken seriously by most chemists.
A few insightful pioneers within
our department persevered and assembled what is now considered one
of the top biochemistry divisions in the
world. While helping to create a 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 all
enhanced the lives of their colleagues
and their students.
We would like to honor their impor-
tant contributions to science, teaching
and the department by creating chair
positions in each of their names:
Dan Atkinson, Paul Boyer, Richard
Dickerson, Roberts Smith, Verne
Schumaker and Charlie West.
For more information please
contact Robert Wise: rwise@support.
ucla.edu.
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
3
Photo: Penny Jennings
Happenings
Marjorie A. Bates accepts plaque
Marjorie Bates Retires
“Margie” Bates, Senior Lecturer
in Biochemistry, has retired after almost
20 years with the department. More
than 60 people attended a reception in
her honor in the Winstein Café Commons on July 11th.
Margie was an occasional lecturer
for the department from 1987-93 after
which she took a hiatus. She returned
in 1995 as a full-time lecturer with more
than 1000 students each year.
Sylvia Daoud Kinzie, one of her
former TAs, writes, “I knew Dr. Bates in
the capacity of a mentor while working
as a TA...I consider Margie to be one of
my greatest mentors and hold her very
dear to my heart. She set the standards
very high for both her students and TAs
and by doing so inspired us to rise to the
occasion and be the best we can be.”
Margie constantly sought new
ways to engage her students and to
make her large classes interactive and
stimulating. She developed elaborate
animated computer illustrations of complex processes, collaborative learning
and problem solving sessions (CLAPS),
analogies, “micro-discussions” (in
which students talked over questions
raised in class), imaginative and entertaining classroom demonstrations,
original biochemistry songs, ungraded
diagnostic quizzes, a 180-page course
compendium (also used as a class notebook), and a 164-page problem book.
The recipient of many teaching
awards, including the University Distinquished Teaching Award, Margie
believes the most important aspect of
a college education is the development
of analytical and critical thinking. Her
classes gained a reputation for being extremely difficult, although many
students loved her teaching style and
recommended her class to friends.
As departmental liaison during her
last year at UCLA, Margie wrote part of
the Departmental Review Statement
on behalf of the instructional faculty,
worked to enhance the instructional
faculty’s image and departmental role,
and spearheaded the establishment of
the new Instructional Division as an official division of this department.
“I’d like to send my thanks to all who
helped to make the July 11th reception
such a joyous occasion and contributed
to the generous gifts,” Bates says. “I
especially want to express my deep
appreciation to the staff, faculty, and
teaching assistants who helped and
supported me over the years.”
Foote Graduate Fellowships Established
On the occasion of Christopher
Foote’s 70th birthday, his former coworkers and faculty members at UCLA
created the Christopher S. Foote Graduate Fellowship in Organic Chemistry.
Chris and his wife, Judi Smith, made a
generous bequest that fully funded the
fellowship in 2005.
Chris, an outstanding colleague
in our department for more than 40
years, died in 2005. His loss was felt
throughout our community as he had
a positive influence on every aspect of
our department. UCLA is fortunate to
benefit from Judi’s continuing outstanding leadership and service as Professor
of Physiological Science/Neuroscience
and the UCLA Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.
The Foote-Smith gift allows our
department to award fellowships to
the most promising applicants to our
graduate program, to further improve
the quality of our outstanding graduate
program, and to keep Chris close in our
memories.
The four Foote Fellows are Karina
Heredia, Gregory Glover, Khin Chin
and Jason Spruell. Karina’s research
with Heather Maynard focuses on controlled radical polymerization techniques
to create protein-polymer bioconjugates
for applications in biotechnology and
medicine. Greg is also in the Maynard
The Foote Fellows
(left to right):
Karina Heredia,
Gregor y Grover,
Khin Chin, and
Jason Spruell
4
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
lab, and is focusing on the synthesis
and application of protein-polymer
conjugates for use as therapeutics
and materials. Khin began research in
organic chemistry as an undergraduate
at UCLA in the lab of Chris Foote. His
graduate research with Miguel GarciaGaribay centers on the spectroscopy
of solid-state nanocrystalline systems
and the photophysics of novel fullerene
derivatives. Jason is Fellow in the NSF
Materials Creation Training Program
as well as a Foote Fellow. He works
with Fraser Stoddart and Ken Houk,
developing nanomachines and molecular muscles.
Happenings
Faculty & Student Achievements
co-authored two books: Hoeger, C.,
Lavelle, L., Ma, Y. Chemical Principles
Instructor’s Solutions Manual (2007),
and Krenos, J., Potenza, J., Lavelle, L.,
Ma, Y. , Hoeger, C. Chemical Principles
Student’s Study Guide and Solutions
Manual (2007).
The Loo Lab’s presentation at the
2007 Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities Conference in Tampa,
Florida from March 31-April 3, 2007
won a best poster award. The poster,
“Slippery when Translated: Extensive
Programmed Ribosomal Frameshifting
Revealed by Proteomics,” by Loo, R.
R. Ogorzalek, Yang, Y., Mouttaki, H.,
McInerney, M., Gunsaus, R., and Loo,
J.A., describes a collaborative study
involving Chemistry & Biochemistry’s
Loo Lab, the Gunsalus Lab in UCLA’s
Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Department, and the
McInerney Lab of the University of
Oklahoma’s Department of Botany &
Microbiology.
Heather Maynard received an
NSF Career Award and the Alpha Chi
Sigma Seaborg Award from the Beta
Gamma (UCLA) Chapter of Alpha Chi
Sigma.
Eric Scerri’s book, The Periodic
Table: Its Story and Its Significance,
continues to perform extremely well.
The following students received the
2007-08 Dissertation Year Fellowships
from the UCLA Graduate Division: Marcin Apostol, Molly Cavanagh, Hakan
Gunaydin, Karina Heredia, Kur t
Januszyk, Catherine Kaddis, Scott
Korlann, Chris Liu, Adam Lunceford,
Frank Rigo, Dyna Shirasaki, James
Wilking, and Aron Yoffe.
David Eisenberg and Donald
Crothers of Yale University won the
Emily M. Gray Award of the Biophysical Society for “signifi cant contributions to education through creating
rigorous, ground-breaking text enriching generations of biophysicists.”
Ken Houk has been appointed the
Chair of the National Institutes of Health
Synthesis and Biological Chemistry
Study Section A for fiscal year 2008.
This is one of the study sections that
reviews organic chemistry and chemical
biology proposals.
Carla Koehler received the American Heart Association Established
Investigator Award for her work in
mammalian systems and zebrafish on
developing models for mitochondrial
diseases.
Laurence Lavelle received the
Hanson-Dow Award for Excellence in
Teaching and a UCLA Professional
Development Award. Laurence also
It has been reprinted for the 3rd time
after just nine months of being first
issued. Eric has also been invited to
speak on his book in Santiago, Chile
and Barcelona, Spain, the latter at
the 100th anniversary of the death of
Mendeleev as part of Spain’s “year of
science” initiative.
Sadaf Sehati has won an Academic Senate’s Distinguished Teaching
Assistant Award for 2006-07. Sadaf
is one of only five graduate students
throughout the entire campus who was
chosen to receive this award. Each
award carries an honorarium of $2,500
and will be presented to the recipients
at the “Night to Honor Teaching” which
will be held in October 2007.
Fraser Stoddart was awarded
the Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in
Organic Chemistry for 2007. In addition, he was the recipient of the 2008
Arthur C. Cope Award. This prestigious award from the ACS recognizes
outstanding achievement in the field
of organic chemistry. Both awards
were announced at the ACS National
Meeting in Boston on August 19, 2007.
Fraser also received the 2007 “Albert
Einstein” World Award of Science. The
award ceremony took place at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Leónin
Monterrey, Mexico.
In keeping with its tradition of excellence in undergraduate and graduate
teaching, the department has formed
an instructional division. It was first
led by biochemistry senior lecturer
Margie Bates. When Margie retired,
Steve Hardinger, a senior lecturer in
organic chemistry, took over and currently guides the division’s efforts.
The Instructional Division was
formed in recognition of the critical
role lecturers play in the department’s
educational enterprise and as a means
to provide a more effective voice in
departmental affairs for this group of
our faculty. The division is principally
involved in matters relating to student
instruction, such as lecture and labora-
Photo: Penny Jennings
Chemistry & Biochemistry Instructional Division Formed
Lecturer Laurence Lavelle, a member of
the newly formed Instructional Division
tory courses, training and management
of teaching assistants, and advising for
our majors and our service courses.
In addition to playing a major role
in departmental instructional issues,
the division seeks to further enhance
instructional resources and the reputation of the department, both inside and
outside the UCLA community.
Division members include lecturers and academic coordinators in all
departmental disciplines. Activities of
division members are not limited to
classroom lectures but also include
research in physical biochemistry
and the philosophy of chemistry, K-12
teacher training, educational outreach
for the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), and major writing projects
such as textbooks, laboratory guides,
and supplementary material for lecture
courses.
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
5
Photos: Steve Hardinger
In Focus
Left: Melissa Sondej at the Themo LTQ-FT-ICR mass spectrometer in the Proteomics Lab; Right: Coreg Khitrov at the IonSpec ESI-7T-FT-ICR mass spectrometer in the Mass Spectrometry Lab; Below: Dafni Amirsakis at the Bruker AV600 NMR spectrometer in the Magnetic Resonance Lab
UCLA Molecular Instrumentation Center
The Department of Chemistry
and Biochemistry has a long history
of shared instrumentation facilities operation where large, complex, and
expensive instrumentation is made
available to researchers based on need.
In recognition of the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of modern research
and to increase visibility and access to
modern instrumentation for molecular
characterizations for the larger research
community, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry led the creation
of the UCLA Molecular Instrumentation
Center (MIC), a campus-wide core facility. Of equal importance to instrument
access is the availability of technical
staff to provide operation, training,
consulting, maintenance, and repair of
the equipment. Dr. Jane Strouse, who
has been developing shared instrumentation in chemistry and biochemistry for
over twenty-five years, serves as the
Director of the MIC, with administrative
assistance from Dr. Dafni Amirsakis.
The MIC Magnetic Resonance
Laboratory together with the biostructural NMR instruments includes one
EPR and ten NMR spectrometers
ranging in frequency from 300 to 800
MHz, which can be used to observe
a large range of nuclei in liquid and
solid samples over a large temperature
range. Two full-time staff scientists,
Dr. Robert Taylor and Dr. Ping Yang,
and one half-time graduate student assistant, Gardner Creech, maintain the
MIC instruments.
The J.D. McCullough X-ray Laboratory is made up of two single-crystal
6
diffractometers with low temperature
capability and three powder diffractometers with a variety of accessories,
e.g. high temperature furnaces, an area
detector, and autosamplers. Currently,
the laboratory is operated by Dr. Saeed
Khan, with active recruiting underway
for a second staff member in X-ray
diffraction.
The Mass Spectrometry Laboratory contains a variety of instruments
with several ionization methods and
analyzers. Sample service is available
or users may be trained to acquire
their own mass spectra. This laboratory has recently been reorganized
and rearranged to optimize the space
available. Currently, the staff is made
up of one full-time mass spectrometrist,
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
Dr. Gregory Khitrov, and a half-time
graduate assistant, Chris Henry. Active
recruiting is underway for a second staff
scientist and for a MIC associate director for Mass Spectrometry.
The Materials Characterization
Laboratory consists of a scanning
electron microscope, atomic force microscope, light scattering particle analyzers, thermal analysis equipment, and
many more small instruments useful for
materials synthesis and characterization. This laboratory is managed by Dr.
Ignacio Martini.
The Proteomics Laboratory, managed by Dr. Melissa Sondej, is made
up of electrophoresis equipment, a
spot cutter, gel imagers, and several
mass spectrometers. The Biochemistry
Instrumentation Facility, maintained by
Dr. Martin Phillips, has a substantial
list of equipment for the physical characterization of biochemical systems.
Elemental Analysis and Speciation,
operated by Dr. Amir Liba, includes
ICP-MS, ICP-OES, both with autosamplers, HPLC, and an elemental analyzer
for light elements. Sample preparation
consultation and digestion services are
available.
Funding for this endeavor has been
provided by the Division of Physical
Sciences and Life Sciences of the College of Letters and Science, the David
Geffen School of Medicine, and the
California NanoSystems Institute. The
MIC web site contains an up-to-date
equipment list along with full contact
information for all staff. We invite you to
have a look at www.mic.ucla.edu.
Commencement 2007
Congratulations Graduates!
Clockwise from the top: The Class of 2007;
an aerial view of the ceremony; (left to
right) PhD recipients Carlos Hernandez,
Philip Haussmann, Scott Gilje, Daniel
Ess and Armando Durazo; PhD recipients
Dyna Shirasaki and Heather Shepherd. All
commencement photos were taken by Bob
Knight Photo.
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
7
Commencement 2007
Graduate and Undergraduate Awards
Ken Houk presenting the Scrubs
Summer Research Fellowship to
Osvaldo Gutierrez
Robert Boschan (center) with recipients
of the Alumni Undergraduate Summer
Research Fellowship: Ivan Tochitsky (l)
and Hamilton Tsang (r)
Margy Kivelson presenting the
Daniel Kivelson Undergraduate
Summer Research Fellowship to
Zhe James Hui
Ben Schwartz presenting the Gold
Family Foundation Award to Van
Thanh Mai
Fraser Stoddart presenting the Saul
& Sylvia Winstein Award to Cari
Pentecost
Ruthie Kadota presenting the Yoshie
Kadota Undergraduate Research
Fellowship to Tuyet Ngoc Ho
Graduate Student Dissertation Awards
The Saul & Sylvia Winstein Award was presented by Fraser Stoddart to Cari Pentecost
The Physical Chemistry Dissertation Award was presented by Tom Mason to his student Carlos Hernandez
The Biochemistry Dissertation Award was presented by Shimon Weiss to his student Fabien Pinaud
The Inorganic Chemistry Dissertation Award was presented by Jeff Zink to his student Franklin Ow
The Thomas and Ruth Jacobs Award was presented by Ken Houk to Paul Ha-Yeon Cheong
Undergraduate Student Awards
Alumni Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship to Ivan Tochitsky, Hamilton C. Tsang
Ronald S. Gabriel, M.D./Scrubs Unlimited Summer Research Fellowship to Osvaldo Gutierrez
Yoshie Kadota Undergraduate Research Fellowship to Tuyet Ngoc Ho
Daniel Kivelson Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship to Zhe James Hui
Arthur Furst Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research to Bryan Tsutomu Harada
Dolores Cannon Southam Award for Excellence in Research to David Lawrence Ang, Nathaniel Patrick Gutzwiller
Dunn Award for Excellence in Biochemistry to Kevin Lee Chang, Dennis Hong Lee, Laura Zhang
Geissman Award for Excellence in Organic Chemistry to Alexander B. Santanilla, Meera M. Iyer, Audrey G. Ross
Ramsey Award for Excellence in Physical Chemistry to Lily Ching Ting Huang, Shahin Manoochehri
Hypercube Scholar to Audrey G. Ross
Gold Family Foundation Award to Van Thanh Mai
Ethel Terry McCoy Award for Excellence in Chemistry and Biochemistry to Mei Na Chan, Tina Ah-Ting Ho,
Toni Marie Lee, Suhn Rhie, Patricia Yung-Hwa Sun, Joyce Ann Wei, Yue Zhang
Merck Index Award to Christopher Behrens, Joel Matthew Brothers, Babak Hassanzadeh, San Ngoc Khong,
David Nguyen, Hamilton C. Tsang
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UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
Commencement 2007
Ph.D. Degrees Conferred
Chuautemoc Arellanes (Paulson) Measurements of Reactive
Oxygen Species in Ambient Particulate Matter
Kevin Barnese (Valentine) Manganese, the Superoxide Detoxifier
Morgan Beeby (Yeates) Comparative Genomics and Application
to Specific Biological Systems: Hyperthermophily and Shell-Forming
Proteins
Sabrina Benchaar (Reisler) Mapping the Interaction of Cofilin
with G-Actin
Paul Ha-Yeon Cheong (Houk) Quantum Mechanical Studies into
the Mechanisms and Selectivities of Synthetic Organic Reactions
Andrew Clark (Tolbert) Semiconducting Polymers as Templates
for Hybrid Nanostructured Optoelectronic Materials
Arun Divakaruni (Gober) Control of Morphogenesis in Caulobacter Crescentus
Darren Dumlao (S. Clarke) A Yeast Small Molecule Methyltransferae Involved in Its Amino Acid Starvation Stress Response
Armando Durazo (Valentine & Faull) Hydrogen/Deuterium
Exchange Studies on Superoxide Dismutase 1
Daniel Ess (Houk) Computational and Theoretical Investigations
Left to right: Thomas Miller, Jennifer Luft and Edward Leverich
Susan Pieniazek (Houk) Quantum Mechanical Studies of
of 1,3-Dipolar and Bis-Pericyclic Cycloaddition Reactions
Kinetics and Thermodynamics of Diels-Alder Reactions Involving
Heteroaromatic Dienes
Scott Gilje (Kaner) Chemical Manipulation of Graphite for Polymer
Fabien Pinaud (Weiss) Peptide-Coated Semiconductor Quan-
Composite and Nanoelectronic Applications
Philip Haussmann (Stoddart) Dynamic Synthesis of Rotaxanes
tum Dots and Their Applications in Biological Imaging of Single
Molecules in Live Cells and Organisms
the Production of Monodisperse Colloids: LithoParticles
Megan Plotkowski (Bowie) The Transmembrane Domain of
Myelin Protein Zero Can Form Dimers: Possible Implications for
Myelin Construction
Jamie Im (Houk) The Total Synthesis of Laurenditerpenol
Erik Richman (Tolbert) Orientation Control of Mesoporous
Kurt Januszyk (Clubb) Biochemical and Structural Character-
Systems
Carlos Hernandez (Mason) Novel Lithographic Techniques for
ization of RNA Binding Domain in the LINE-1 Retrotransposition
System
Joyce Sayegh (S. Clarke) Identification and Characterization
of Human Protein Arginine Methyltransferases
C. Steve Joiner (Stoddart) Nanotube-Based Biosensors and
Damon Scoville (Reisler) Structure and Dynamics of the Actin
Molecular Borromean Rings
Hydrophobic Loop Determines Filament Structure
Steven Karlen (Garcia-Garibay) Design, Synthesis and Charac-
Heather Shepherd (Garrell) Application and Characteriza-
terization of Aphidynamic Materials
tion of Polymer Coatings for Droplet Microfluidics and Corrosion
Protection
Kristen Koch (Koehler) Biochemical and Biophysical Characterization of the Mitochondrial Import Pathway
Chrissie Lee (Chanfreau) Novel Examples of Post-Transcriptional Regulations of Gene Expression in the Yeast Saccharomyces
Cerevisiae
Edward Leverich (Koehler) Regulation of the Mitochondrial Bio-
Dyna Shirasaki (Loo & Tobin) Probing the Protein Partners of
Huntingtin Using a Novel BAC Transgenic Model of Disease
Catherine Skibo (Gimzewski) Room Temperature Scanning
Tunneling Microscopy Studies of Organic Molecules on Copper
Surfaces
genesis of Multiple Organisms
Courtney Stanton (Houk) Computational Investigations of
Jennifer Luft (Houk) Computational Investigations of Organic
Enzymatic Mechanisms of pKa Predictions Using QM, MM and
QM/MM Methods
Reaction Mechanisms and Stereoselectivities
Thomas Miller (Fukuto & Valentine) The Regulation of Soluble
Guanylate Cyclase by Nitrogen Oxides and Thiols
Jose Nuñez (Garcia-Garibay) Toposelective Synthesis of a Triply-Bridged Molecular Gyroscope and Polymorphogenic Behavior
of Alkylated Rotors
Franklin Ow (Zink) Gas-Phase Photofragmentation and Multiphoton Ionization of Transition Metal and Lanthanide Coordination
Compounds
Cari Pentecost (Stoddart) Molecular Borromean Rings and
Solomon Links
Adam Stieg (Gimzewski) From the Bottom Up: Instrumentation
Design and Nanoscale Studies in Scanning Probe Microscopy
UyenPhuong Tran (C. Clarke) Characterization of Coq2 and
Coq7 Proteins, Dual Function Polypeptides in Saccharomyces
Cerevisiae Coenzyme Q Biosynthesis
Sarah Villa (S. Clarke) Envrionmental Stress Response of Protein Repair L-Isoaspartyl Methyltransferase and Its Physiological
Role in Repairing Age-Damaged Proteins in Higher Plants
Lisa Wesoloski (Gimzewski) Low Temperature Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Studies of Surfaces and Molecules
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
9
Commencement 2007
Master of Science Degrees Awarded
Nathaniel Patrick Gutzwiller
Toni Lee
Marc Rodriguez
William Thieu
Bachelor of Science Degrees Awarded
Bachelor of Science
Highest Honors
Christopher Behrens
Joel Matthew Brothers
Mei Na Chan
Kevin Lee Chang
Bryan Tsutomu Harada
Babak Hassanzadeh
Charles Jia-Haur Hu
Meera Mangalam Iyer
Aarya Kafi
San Ngoc Khong
In Mo Koo
Dennis Hong Lee
David Nguyen
Patricia Yung-Hwa Sun
Hamilton C. Tsang
Joyce Ann Wei
Laura Zhang
Yue Zhang
Bachelor of Science
Honors
Josephine S. Aguilar
David Lawrence Ang
Jonathan Bolotin
Rachel Marie Brewer
Alexander Buitrago Santanilla
Christopher K. Cheng
Mario King Long Cheung
Matthew Yankin Cho
Nathaniel Patrick Gutzwiller
Tina Ah-Ting Ho
Cheung-Fai Lau
Wesley H. Lin
Vincent H. Luong
Shahin Manoochehri
Huong Kim Nguy
Suhn Rhie
Heather Christine Rocha
Audrey G. Ross
Ori Schnitzer
Claudia Sevilla
Jenny Wan
Sara Wang
Lai Yi Wu
10
Bachelor of Science
Sam Abbassi
Rana Afrasiab
Arash Afsahi
Josephine S. Aguilar
Samira Ahantab
Christopher Michael Allan
Richard Joseph Alvarez
David Lawrence Ang
Irina Aroustamian
Ivonne Vanessa Arroyave
Brian D Aspell
Linda Phyu Aye
Afshin Badii
Cyril Chidjac Baida
Tenny Balabegians
Bobby Askari Baravati
Christopher Behrens ∆ Φ
Konstantin Belevich
Meredith Kollman Bell
Gurvinder Singh Bhatti
Aaron Thomas Birge
Jonathan Bolotin
Rachel Marie Brewer
Joel Matthew Brothers
Ann Thuy Bui
Alexander Buitrago Santanilla
Muhnad Cahla
Ashley Rose Calvi
Carl Campos
Efren Acevedo Carrasco, Jr.
Alan King Yan Cee
Krista Anne Celentano
Henry Cespedes
Mei Na Chan
Aishwarya Chandhiramouli
Kevin Lee Chang Φ
Soo Chang
Yu Chen
Christopher K. Cheng
Hani Cherazaie
Caroline Man Ting Cheung
Mario King Long Cheung
Sara Kwai-Lan Chew
Annie Chu Chi
Matthew Yankin Cho Φ
Gina Choi
Sanghoon Choi
Nina Chu
April Renee Corpuz
Anthony Joseph Covarrubias
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
Michael Alan Cummings
Dina Hadi Dabbous
Minh-Tu Do
Tu Huy Do
Julie Phuong Doan
Shadi Doroudgar
Peter Andrew Doyle
Christine Du
Jennifer Eng
Rana Abbas Feidi
Ashley Clare Gamayo
Justin Patrick Golovato
Daniel Larry Greenfield
Nadia Guardado
Nathaniel Patrick Gutzwiller*
Merissa Halim
Bryan Tsutomu Harada Φ
Anna C. Harris
Babak Hassanzadeh Φ
Jessica Isabel Helman-Cubilla
Stevanie Hermawan
Heidy Marytza Hernandez
Justina Hii
Linda Kalin Him
Tina Ah-Ting Ho
Ngoc-dung Thi Hoang
Dae Kon Hong
Douglas M. Hong
Ellen Hong
Grace Weiyown Hsu
Maung Ye Htut
Charles Jia-Haur Hu
Jim Huang
Lily Ching Ting Huang
Zhenwei Huang
Angela Huynh
Susanna Ling Hwee
Maximiliano David Hyon
Soo Jeong Im
Meera Mangalam Iyer Φ
Dazy S. Johnson
Kyung Won Joo
Aarya Kafi Φ
Angela Kang
Min Kyung Kang
Yon Ju Kang
Ryuto Kawai
Daisuke Kawauchi
Yuliya Khokhlova
San Ngoc Khong
Commencement 2007
Bachelor of Science (cont.)
Bora Kim
Hyun Kim
Robert S. Kim
Joann Chao-Min Ko
In Mo Koo
Christopher Lee Kuhlman
Tony C. Kwok
Jean Gacusana Laguatan
Cherie Lam
Ieng Seng Lam
Cynthia Rae Larkins
Austin Will Lau
Cheung-Fai Lau
Diem Hong Le
Mark Le
Dennis Hong Lee
Kyu J Lee
Renee C. Lee
Chung Kin Li
Jingjing Li
Shannon Li
Xian Li
Xiaofeng Liang
Rachel Jia-Hway Lin
Wesley H. Lin Φ
Yushiu Lin
Wutt Yie Linn
Wai Man Lio
Ling Min Loh
Vivian Lu
Konstantin I. Lunskiy
David Tung Luong
Vincent H. Luong
Bill D. Ly
Mahsa Mahmoudi
Shabnam Majidian
Shahin Manoochehri
Anne Maokhampio
Leo Mariscal
Kevin Kaveh Mikail
Mouna Aref Mikati
Tanesha Nicole Moss
Ching Yee Ng
Marida Ngov
Huong Nguy
Anthony Nguyen
Caitlyn Phuong Nguyen
David Nguyen Φ
Hannah Hai Yen Nguyen
Thuy-Tien Thi Nguyen
Nicholas Niiro
Kristine Sachiko Nishiyama
Lena Brooke Niuniava
Howard Y. Noh
Joanna Marie Olsen
Willy Pandi
Left to right: Kristen Koch, Steven Karlen, Steven Joiner and Kurt Januszyk
Dalnam Park
Soo Kyung Park
Younkyung Park
Martha Katherine Pastuszka
Arjun Vinod Patel
Shruti S. Patel
Edwin Abelardo Perez
Christine Uyen Pham
Duy Phung
Erline D. Poerwanto
Parinaz Pourbahrami
Jason Michael Reich
Suhn Rhie
Heather Christine Rocha Φ
Fabian Joseph Rodriguez
Sueyeon Roh
Audrey G. Ross
Tomomi Saga
Ori Schnitzer
Danielle Elizabeth Schramm
Aaron R. Scott
Andrea L. Seid
John Seto
Claudia Sevilla Φ
Norman Shih
Lindsay Sarah Short
Shellvia Siti
Marissa Sosa
Andrew Joseph Spiro
Gracejeet Kaur Sroya
Shea Michele Stella
Ashley Xiaoying Sun
Patricia Yung-Hwa Sun Φ
Shih-Fan Sun
Lorillee Carlos Tallorin
Xiaojie X. Tamida
Bill Tan
Calvin Tan
Shi Tang
Daniel Hale Thompson
Ryan Tov
Linh Huyen Tran
Minh Trinh
Amy Ha Hong Thi Truong
Hamilton C. Tsang Φ
Paula Marie Tsoi-A-Sue
Lisa Claire Vampola
Joey Garcia Villanueva
Diana Maria Edith Villwock
Jenny Wan
Sara Wang
Yili Wang
Joyce Ann Wei
Todd Matthew Weldon
Melissa Louise Westermann
Melissa Lauren Wong
Lai Yi Wu
Huiyu Xia
Yang Xu
Sean Yee
Kevin Jia-Chian Yen
Yukari Yonemura
Ji Hyun Yoon
Kwang-Chae Yoon
Laura Zhang Φ
Yue Zhang
Lih Kandy Zheng
* Departmental Scholar
Φ Phi Beta Kappa
∆ Computing Specialization
At press time, we did not have a complete
list of all students receiving graduate degrees. For a complete list go to:
www.chem.ucla.edu/news/acb.html.
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
11
Alumni News
Sandra I. Lamb, BA’54, PhD’59
(Young), The California Los Padres
Section of the American Chemical Society has established the Sandra Lamb
Award for Service to the CALPACS
Section and the Chemical Community (formerly known as the Founders
Award). Sandra was one of the founders of the Los Padres Section, which
has served Ventura, Santa Barbara and
San Luis Obispo Counties since 1995.
As a lecturer, Sandra ran the organic
chemistry labs at UCLA from 1976 until
her retirement in 1993. She was instrumental in running the Seaborg Medal
Banquet and was very involved with
the UCLA Chemists’ Association and
Alpha Chi Sigma. From 1993-99, she
was laboratory coordinator at UC Santa
Barbara. At her ACS fifty-year membership recognition ceremony in 2003, she
received the Founders Award.
Bruce Rickborn, BA’56, (UC Riverside), PhD’60 (Cram) has received the
first Sandra Lamb Award for Service to
the CALPACS Section and the Chemical Community. Bruce was an assistant
professor at UC Berkeley before joining the faculty at UC Santa Barbara in
1962. He has co-authored one book
and about 90 journal articles and has
mentored over 30 doctoral students.
His research has included mechanistic
studies and organic chemistry—especially using D tracers in stereochemistry and searching for novel reactions.
Currently retired, he received his ACS
fifty-year membership recognition
award in 2003.
Gordon W. Gribble, BS’63, (UC
Berkeley), PhD’67 (Oregon) postdoc
’68 (Anet), the Dartmouth Professor
of Chemistry, an endowed chair at
Dartmouth, spent a sabbatical year
(2006-07) at Gettysburg College, where
he wrote a monograph, Naturally Occurring Organohalogen Compounds
– a Comprehensive Survey. This year
saw the publication of Palladium in
Heterocyclic Chemistry, A Guide for the
Synthetic Chemist, 2nd edition (Elsevier), which he coedited with J. J. Li. He
writes that “my lab work these days is
confined to my basement where I have
been making wine since 1978.”
Howard E. Katz, BS’78, (MIT),
PhD’82 (Cram), is professor of materials
science and engineering at Johns Hop-
kins University and will become department chair in 2008. He was president of
the Materials Research Society in 2004
and will become president of the International Union of Material Research
Societies in 2009. He leads a research
group at Hopkins pursuing organic and
hybrid electronic and photonic devices
with applications in circuits, sensing,
energy conversion, and bioimaging.
Donald R. Blake, BS’78, PhD’84,
(UC Irvine) is professor of chemistry
at UC Irvine and currently chair of its
chemistry department. The focus of his
research is atmospheric chemistry.
Tien C. Ko, BS’82, MD’86, did
postdoctoral work at the University of
Texas and then at UC San Francisco.
He is now professor, chief of surgery,
and vice-chairman, surgery, at the
University of Texas Health Science
Center at Houston. Ko is a Fellow of the
American College of Surgeons.
Karrie Tomiska Amor, BS’03, and
her husband, Courtney Amor, BS’03,
have completed their medical training at
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, and are now
doing residencies in Houston, Texas.
In Memoriam
has established the Leonard Greiner
Memorial Scholarship Fund to assist
undergraduates.
Frances Thornton Thieriot,
BS’84, died February 13, 2007, aged
53. She was a member of the UCLA
National Honor Society. Franci attended Loyola Marymount University and
received a Junior Top Scholar Award
and degree in Computer Science. She
was elected to the Board of Governors
of the Mathematical Associations of
America. Franci supported numerous
charities and organizations dedicated
to helping children. She founded Macy
Ready Mix Company and served as
CEO and president. She was involved
in archeology and participated in an
Etruscan excavation in Northern Italy.
Later in life, Franci started a career in
music, composing songs and playing
the piano.
Helen Young, widow of William G.
Young, died December 3, 2003, aged
100. William, for whom Young Hall
is named, was an organic chemistry
professor and Chair of the department
(1940-48), Dean of Physical Sciences
(1948-57), and Vice Chancellor for
Planning (1957-70). He died in 1980.
Nancy C. McMillan, widow of William G. McMillan, professor of physical chemistry and chair 1959-65, died
August 25, 2006, aged 81.
Irving S. Bengelsdorf, BS (Illinois), PhD’50 (Chicago), died June 22,
2007, aged 84. He started work as a
research chemist with General Electric
and then in 1960 moved to U. S. Borax
in Southern California.
In the early 1960s he left U. S.
Borax to become science editor of the
Los Angeles Times where he developed a column “Of Atoms and Men.”
He was praised for making arcane
scientific issues understandable to the
average reader. During this period, he
also taught in the UCLA Department
George H. Carter, BS’35, died
March 19, 2007, aged 94, at his home
in Prosser, Washington. From 1955
to 1975, he was a food chemist for
the Department of Agriculture at the
Washington State University research
station in Prosser. Carter is described
as a key person in the development of
the modern Washington wine industry.
When many people believed the state
could not produce quality wine, he and
Walter Clore promoted the idea of
making world-class wine in Washington
with European varieties. Carter is also
credited with impressing upon Washington wine makers the importance of
malolactic fermentation to make a more
palatable acidity.
Merlyn W. Heddon, BS’42, died
October 21, 2006, aged 88.
Leonard Greiner, BS’43, died May
3, 2007, aged 85. His son Seth BS’83
Continued on page 14
12
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
Photo: Reed Hutchinson, UCLA
Faculty Research
Ric Kaner
UCLA Chemists Develop a
New Ultra-Incompressible,
Superhard Material
by Ric Kaner
Superhard materials are used for
everything from cutting tools to drill for
oil and dig tunnels to scratch-resistant
coatings for precision instruments. In a
recent issue of the journal Science (316,
436, 2007), Ric Kaner, Sarah Tolbert,
and their students, along with JennMing Yang from Materials Science and
Engineering and Abby Kavner from
Earth and Space Science, reported a
promising new approach to designing
ultra-incompressible, superhard materials. Their idea is to combine dense
transitional metals, which are often soft
due to metallic bonding, with small main
group elements to form short, strong
covalent bonds. This has led to rhenium
diboride (ReB2), a material capable of
scratching diamond.
Diamond is the hardest known
material because its carbon atoms form
very short covalent bonds, resulting in
a material that is exceedingly resistant
to plastic deformation. While diamond
is an extremely useful abrasive, it does
have limitations. For example, diamond
is not used to cut steel due to reactions
that occur between the carbon in diamond and the iron in steel. Other light
elements, such as boron and nitrogen,
can be combined to mimic the properties of diamond by maintaining the
short covalent bonds responsible for
its high hardness. The result, cubic boron nitride, is often used as a diamond
substitute since it also has a very high
hardness (although only half that of
diamond) and it is capable of cutting
steel. However, cubic boron nitride is
not found in nature and must be made
synthetically under extreme pressures
and temperatures resulting in a material that is even more expensive than
diamond. Hence, new materials that can
be made under less extreme conditions
are desirable.
To this end, the UCLA team has
developed methods for making ReB2
without the need for pressure. Normally,
rhenium is a soft metal, easily deformed
by bending, as one would unfold a paper
clip. However, rhenium is dense and
quite incompressible. By incorporating boron into the network of rhenium
atoms, short covalent bonds form to
create ReB2, a material that is both
highly incompressible and very hard. In
fact, in one direction rhenium diboride
has been found to be as incompressible as diamond. Although its average
hardness is considerably less than that
of diamond, when oriented in the proper
direction, ReB2 is capable of scratching
diamond. Rhenium diboride has also
been found to withstand the highest
differential stresses ever measured (up
to 12.9 GPa). The UCLA team is now
trying to develop related materials that
use less expensive transition metals.
This research is funded by the
National Science Foundation. Special
thanks are also due to alumni Ray and
Dorothy Wilson and the late George
Gregory and his wife Gerry who have
generously supported Ric Kaner’s research over many years.
A fascination with soft materials
and just about anything dispersed in a
liquid drives the research of Tom Mason, the John McTague Chair. Since he
joined our department about four years
ago, Tom and his group have been making new kinds of multi-phase materials,
including ‘LithoParticle dispersions’ and
‘nanoemulsions’, as he calls them.
LithoParticles, custom-shaped
particles that range in size from microscale to nanoscale, are made using lithographic technology, the same
technology used to create electronic
circuitry for computer chips. Tom’s
group is the first on campus to install
and operate an advanced lithography
exposure system, known as a ‘stepper’.
The stepper system uses robots, automation, and ultraviolet light to rapidly
print very detailed patterns onto silicon
wafer surfaces. Tom’s group applies
this technology in unusual ways to
mass-produce new kinds of particles
and release them from a solid substrate
into liquid solution. LithoParticles can
be made from a wide variety of solid
materials, including polymers, metals,
and inorganics, and they can have a
multitude of different shapes. A striking example of LithoParticles recently
made the cover of the March 29, 2007
issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry C.
Tom and graduate student Carlos
Hernandez made the world’s first ‘colloidal alphabet soup’, composed of
microscale versions of all 26 letters of
the English alphabet in 1/100th point
font. (This article uses 9-point font.)
Photo: J. N. Wilking
Tom Mason: Big Success with Little Particles
Tom Mason
The random thermal ‘Brownian’ motion of the letters is significant, so they
rotationally and translationally diffuse,
as is easily seen using optical microscopy. By incorporating fluorescent
dyes into these polymer letters, the
Mason group is creating new types of
biomarkers that can be detected by their
shape and not just their fluorescence
Continued on next page
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
13
Recent Donors
In Memoriam (cont. from page 12)
Seaborgium
Silver
Copper
Amgen, Inc.
Guillaume Chanfreau
Chevron Phillips Chem. Co.
Eli Lilly and Co.
Genentech, Inc.
Ron Lau
Michael Sekera
The Wilson Trust
Steven Clarke
David Eisenberg
Harold Ellis
Millie M. Georgiadis
Gordon Gribble
John Hanson
Kendall Houk
Robert Neuman, Jr.
Joseph Pinto
Charlene Sundgren
Jean Trueblood
Xue Wang
Frances Wattenberg
Chin-Hua Wu
Rachel Brewer
Ashley Calvi
Song-Yang Chan
Craig Delphey
Linda Forrest
Leon Goodman
Richard Kaner
Charles Knobler
Ohyun Kwon
Martin Liberman
Norm Marcovitch
Phyllis Matzkin
Craig Merlic
Edwin Moon
Yasushi Ogawa
Robert Scott
James Sinclair
Michele R. Weinhouse
Roy Whiteker
William Zwick
Platinum
Allergan, Inc.
James Bowie
In Mo Koo
Gold
Andrew Fortney
Bruce Garner
Carlyn Gin
Alexander Greer
Charles Grudzinskas
June Y. Kim
Maly Leng
Gary Strathearn
Thank you
for your
generous support!
Mason (continued from page 13)
signatures. This work has been recognized twice by Nature, as a research
highlight and as a technology feature
[“Down to the Letter”, Nature 446 940
(2007)]. The striking image of colloidal
alphabet soup will also appear in the
catalogue of “Design and the Elastic
Mind” exhibit at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York City in 2008. In addition to developing and optimizing new
methods of mass-producing particles,
Tom’s group is currently exploring ways
of manipulating and assembling the
particles in a controlled manner to build
tiny structures.
The Mason group is also interested
in nanoemulsions, aqueous dispersions
of nanoscale oil droplets, stabilized
against coalescence by a surfactant.
Nanoemulsions are similar to ordinary
microscale emulsions in composition,
but their synthesis requires extreme
conditions (high mechanical flow or
shear) to effectively rupture larger droplets into nanoscale emulsion size. To
achieve such high flow rates, Tom relies
14
on high-pressure microfluidic technology. White, liquid-like microscale emulsions fed into the microfluidic device
emerge as a transparent, solid-like
cream. Graduate student Jim Wilking has shown that nanoemulsions
can have a very high elasticity even
at very small droplet volume fractions,
A LithoParticle Label
implying most of the emulsion is water,
not oil. Nanoemulsion elasticity is a
product of the nanoscale droplet size
and is not found in microscale and
larger emulsions. This research about
nanoscale mayonnaise, also known as
‘nano-naise’, was recently published
[“Irreversible Shear-Induced Elastic Vitrification of Nanoemulsions by Extreme
Droplet Rupturing,” J.N. Wilking and
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
of Chemistry and then was an adjunct
professor at USC. Later, he was a
contributing science columnist for the
Herald-Examiner. After Bengelsdorf
moved to Oceanside in the early 1990s,
he continued do consulting work for the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Daniel Koshland, Jr., BS’41 (UC
Berkeley), PhD’49 (Chicago), died July
23, 2007, aged 87. A long-time professor of molecular and cell biology at UC
Berkeley and editor of Science from
1985-95, he was our 14th Seaborg
medalist in 2000 and a contributor to
the Seaborg medal fund. (Koshland
actually worked with Seaborg on the
Manhattan Project during WWII.) He
was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the
National Medal of Science among many
other honors.
Note: When reporting the death of
an alumnus, we would appreciate more
information than just the date of death so
we can report on the life and activities of
the deceased.
T.G. Mason, Phys. Rev. E 75 041407/15 (2007)].
Tom’s invited review article about
nanoemulsions [“Nanoemulsions: Formation, Structure, and Physical Properties,” T.G. Mason, J.N. Wilking, K.
Meleson, C.B. Chang, and S.M. Graves,
J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 18 R635R666 (2006)] is among the top papers
of 2006, having been downloaded more
than 300 times in three months. Tom is
interested in deploying nanoemulsion
technology in cosmetics, food products,
and pharmaceuticals.
Tom is grateful to John McTague
for funding the McTague Career Development Chair and for supporting young
faculty at UCLA. Due to the five-year
term of the chair, Tom is looking ahead
for continuing support of the stepper
system and clean room that is housed
in our department. Readers interested
in more information and possibly supporting this work are encouraged to
visit http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/
Faculty/Mason/.
Seaborg Registration Form
Dr. R. Stanley Williams will present
“Making and Using Functional Nanostructures”
November 3, 2007
Seaborg Symposium: 1:30 p.m. at the California NanoSystems Institute Auditorium
Reception (6:30 p.m.) and Medal Award Dinner (7:30 p.m.) at Covel Commons
Please Indicate the Number of Attendees Below:
________ Symposium: No charge
________ Reception and Medal Award Dinner: $70 per person ($40 per ticket is tax deductible)
________ Medal Award Dinner Tables of Eight: $500 per table ($260 per table is tax deductible)
________ Student Medal Award Dinner Support: $50 per student (fully tax deductible)
________ I am unable to attend, but enclosed is a contribution of $ ________ to help support the work of
________ the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Method of Payment:
________ My check made payable to The UCLA Foundation is enclosed.
________ Please charge my:
____MasterCard
____Visa
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____Discover
________ Name on Card (Please Print)_________________________________Amount to be Charged Now $ ____________
________ Credit Card No.___________________________________________Date of Expiration_____________________
Name______________________________________________________Title/Organization___________________________
Name□ This is a joint gift. Spouse/Partner Name____________________________________________________________
Address_________________________________________________________________City/State______________________
s □ Home □ Work
Zip__________________Telephone________________________Email___________________________________________
s □ Home □ Work
Names of Symposium Guests___________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Names of Dinner Guests___________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Please respond by 10/19/07. See insert envelope for Disclosure Statements. Please send the payment and form to:
Seaborg Event Coordinator
UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Box 951569
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569
Photo: Yves Rubin - http://rubinphoto.com
For questions contact Cynthia Allen - [email protected] or 310-267-5123
6904
LS058
Dear Alumni,
We would like to know what you have been up to, how your career is going, and about
your latest achievements. Please contact us if you would like to help with future alumni
events, either here or in your own area, or if you would like to participate in lectures,
symposia, social events, career networking, or graduate student recruitment.
When you send updated news about yourself, please indicate whether you give us
permission to use your information in Chemistry and Biochemistry publications or any
alumni directory. We cannot use your information without your explicit permission. Address changes and other updates can be sent to:
External Affairs Office
UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Box 951569
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569
(310) 267-5123 E-mail: [email protected]
Web address: http://www.chem.ucla.edu
UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
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2007-2008 CALENDAR OF EVENTS
2007 Seaborg Symposium and Medal Award Dinner: November 3, 2007, 1:30 p.m.
Departmental Awards Ceremony: November 5, 2007, 4:00 p.m. Reception at 5 p.m. in the Court of Sciences
Commencement Ceremonies: June 13 and June 14, 2008
UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Box 951569
Los Angeles, California 90095-1569
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UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry l Fall 2007
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