Alpha Chi Sigma is the nation's only professional chemistry fraternity and UCLA hosts the Beta Gamma Chapter with Professor Craig Merlic as the chapter advisor.  The Beta Gamma chapter at UCLA is now

celebrating its semisesquicentennial (75th) year. The fraternity held a workshop for PITA Day (Promoting Individuality Through the Arts) to further

chemistry and the field of science in order to help and inspire low-income inner city kids from gang-ridden areas with low literacy rates.  Alpha Chi Sigma hopes to motivate these children to obtain higher level degrees, especially in the area of chemistry and science in general by showing them that science can be fun and interactive through unique learning opportunities. Alpha Chi Sigma also held it's annual Glenn T. Seaborg Banquet (Not to be confused with the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry’s Seaborg Symposium & Medal Award Dinner, shown below) to award this year's Glenn T. Seaborg Award to Professor Paula Diaconescu for her contribution to the field of chemistry with her research on uranium complexes and chemistry.  This year's banquet involved a dinner cruise around the Marina del Rey aboard the beautiful boat “Dream On”.  Many of Professor Diaconescu’s research students were able to attend and she gave a lecture on her research program.  In addition to celebrating Professor Diaconescu’s achievements, fraternity members Brian Le, Melissa Chandra, and John Adricula were awarded Alpha Chi Sigma Member of the Year Awards.

ChemistryN E W S L E T T E R

&BiochemistryDepartment of

Graduation: June 12, 2010

2009 Seaborg Symposium & Medal Award Dinner Photos

For more photos and information about the Seaborg Symposium & Medal Award Dinner, please visit www.seaborg.ucla.edu

UCLA Alpha Chi Sigma

Kevin Rodriguez, Brian Le, Melissa Chandra, John Adricula & Craig Merlic

UCLA Alpha Chi Sigma at PITA Day

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Arthur C. Cope & Alfred Bader AwardsProfessor Ken Houk and Professor Joan Valentine were honored at the Awards Ceremony in March 2010, during the 239th ACS National Meeting in San Francisco. The ACS presented Ken Houk with the Arthur C. Cope Award and Joan Valentine with the Alfred Badar Award.

Tolman MedalProfessor Ric Kaner was presented with the Richard C. Tolman Medal at the Tolman Award dinner on May 11, 2010. The Medal is awarded each year by the SCALACS in recognition of the medalist’s outstanding contributions to chemistry.

NSF Career AwardsProfessor Xiangfeng Duan

and Professor Neil Garg have been awarded 2010 NSF

Career Awards.

Boehringer IngleheimNeil Garg was the recipient of the Boehringer Ingelheim 2009 New Investigator Award in Organic Chemistry.

Development AwardsLecturers Dr. Steve Hardinger, Dr. Laurence Lavelle, and Dr. Eric Scerri have received Professional Development Awards, which will be used for curriculum development in 2010.

March of DimesProfessor Margot Quinlan has been awarded with the March of Dimes Foundation’s Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award.

ACS Division of Chemical EducationDr. Arlene Russell was elected to a three-term of Chair-Elect, Chair and Past Chair of the American Chemical Society’s Division of Chemical Education.

NSF Graduate FellowshipsAaron Green (Diaconescu Group), Grace Chiou (Garg Group), Nic Matsumoto (Maynard Group), and Yue ( Jessica) Wang (Duan Group) have received prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowships. As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the program has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers. Past fellows include U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu and Google founder, Sergey Brin.

NOBCChE FellowshipTehetena Mesganaw (Garg Group) has been named the 2010 NOBCChE recipient of the Lendon N. Pridgen, GlaxoSmithKline Graduate Fellowship Award. Visit www.nobcche.org for more information.

Foote FellowshipsFourth-year graduate students Sarah Bronner (Garg Group), Kyle Quasdorf (Garg Group), and Felix Perez (Jung Group) have been selected as the Foote Graduate Fellows by the Organic Division in recognition of their excellent accomplishments in graduate studies and research, and their performance on the Qualifying Examination for the Ph.D. The Christopher S. Foote Graduate Fellowship in Organic Chemistry was established by his former coworkers and faculty members at UCLA on the

occasion of Chris Foote's 70th birthday. Later, Chris and his wife, Judi Smith, donated their condo in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to UCLA to fully fund the endowment. Chris Foote, an outstanding contributor to the department for more than 40 years, died in 2005. It was a loss to every member of our department in many ways. In honor of Christopher S. Foote, the Organic Division was able to give fellowships to the most promising applicants to our graduate program. This year, two-year Foote Fellowships have started being awarded to our most outstanding graduate students upon completion of their qualifying examination.

AWARDS & HONORS

Margot Quinlan

Ken Houk (left, with award) & Joan Valentine (right, with award) at the 2010 ACS Spring Meeting in San Francisco, CA

Sarah Bronner

Kyle Quasdorf

Felix Perez

Christopher Foote

National Academy of SciencesProfessor Ken Houk has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. The wonderful acknowledgement of Ken Houkʼs groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of reactivity and the nature of the all-important transition state bring great credit upon the department. The election was held on April 27, 2010 during the 147th annual meeting of the academy. The department held a reception on May 7, 2010 to honor and congratulate Ken Houk for his recent election into the Academy.

Journey to the Middle EastProfessor Ric Kaner spent this past winter on sabbatical at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. He worked with Prof. Reshef Tenne on new nanostructured layered materials ranging from molybdenum oxide and bismuth telluride to graphene. Traveling throughout the country, Ric presented seminars on conducting polymer nanofibers and graphene at all the major Israeli institutions of higher education including the Technion in Haifa, Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beʼer Sheva, Bar Ilon University in Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv University, the Weizmann Institute, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem where fellow department member Raphael Levine was one of his hosts. Ric was also invited to speak on nanostructured thermoelectric materials at the 75th national meeting of the Israel Chemical Society. One highlight of the trip was a week spent in Egypt that included a plenary lecture at the 5th International Conference on Scientific Research and Applications at the University of Cairo. Ricʼs host was the Dean of the Faculty of Science, Prof. Dr. Ahmed Galal. One of Dr. Galalʼs top masters students, Maher El-Kady, has now joined Ricʼs research group with a full graduate fellowship from the Egyptian Ministry of Education. While in Egypt, Ric and his family visited the pyramids and the Sphinx outside Cairo as well as the Valley of the Kings and the ancient temples in Luxor. They also visited one of the modern wonders of the world in Jordan, the lost city of Petra.

Happenings

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Robin Garrell, Ken Houk & Paul Weiss at the departmental reception

Ric Kaner & Family in Egypt

A New Weapon Against Viruses Viruses are notoriously tricky to kill: They mutate, form new strains, and refuse to cooperate with antibiotics. It doesn't help that most antiviral drugs attack only one specific virus. A more efficient weapon would be a “broad-spectrum” antiviral that targets several viruses at once. Luckily, that's exactly what a research team led by scientists at UCLA — including principal investigator Dr. Benhur Lee of the David Geffen School of Medicine and our own department's Dr. Michael Jung and his group — have been developing and testing. In a proof-of-concept study published online this January in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they describe an antiviral small molecule, LJ001, effective against an entire class of viruses with one feature in common: lipid envelopes. Basically, lipid-enveloped viruses are surrounded by membranes that help viruses enter and infect host cells. In order to prevent virus-cell fusion, LJ001 disrupts these envelopes — which, unlike healthy cell membranes, cannot repair themselves. Though still early in the game, these findings are extremely promising. The compound, a rhodanine derivative, could work against HIV-1, Influenza A, filoviruses, poxviruses, arenaviruses, bunyaviruses, paramyxoviruses and flaviviruses — viruses responsible for diseases like AIDS, West Nile virus, Hepatitis C, Ebola, Rift Valley fever and yellow fever. What's more, it could potentially treat newly emerging enveloped viruses. "Most antivirals work against only one or, at most, two viruses, whereas LJ001 targets many, many viruses. That's very unusual," says Jung, whose group made all of the compounds included in the study and helped to determine the mechanism of action of the drug. While a few other broad-spectrum antivirals do exist, they invariably cost too much and cause unwanted side effects. In constrast, LJ001 has so far shown to be "not toxic to normal cells at concentrations that kill viruses," says Jung. That's not to say the work is over. "We have already started making new analogues that are even better than the original LJ001 in inhibiting the growth of viruses. Hopefully we can find very active compounds that are non-toxic and could be used as antivirals." The study is available online at pnas.org/content/early2010/01/27/0909587107.

Foote LectureProf. Dan Singleton  

Dept. of Chemistry, Texas A&M University: Non Statistical Rates and Selectivities

in Simple Organic Reactions

Bernstein Lecture Prof. Daniel Neumark,

Dept. of Bioengineering, UC Berkeley: Some Assembly Required: Mechanics & Dynamics of the Actin Cytoskeleton

Prof. Jim WuestDept. of Chemistry,

University of Montreal: Using Principles of Crystal Engineering to Help Guide the Search for New Molecular

Materials

UCLA Alumni Dayucladay.ucla.edu/2010

Prof. Nicholas Curro, Dept. of Physics, UC

Davis: Probing Novel Electronic Ground States with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Prof. Yiying Wu        Dept. of Chemistry,

Ohio State University: Oxides, Graphene and Their Composites for Li-Ion Batteries and Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Prof. Albert LeeDept. of Chemistry,

Hong Kong Baptist University: CaSH and SCI: New Functionalities forOrganocatalysis

Sigman LectureProf. Susan

Lindquist, Member, Whitehead Institute; Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Department of Biology, MIT: Prion Proteins: One Surprise After Anotherwww.mbi.ucla.edu/Sigman/Sigman10_Announcement.pdf

Prof. Andrew SpakowitzDept. of Chemical

Engineering, Stanford University: Theoretical Study of the Weaving of Clathrin into Nanoscale Baskets

Dr. Kai C. Hultzsch  Dept. of Chemistry &

Chemical Biology, Rutgers University: Group and Early Transition Metal Catalysts for the Asymmetric Hydroamination of Alkenes

Prof. Daniel Seidel Dept. of Chemical &

Chemical Biology, Rutgers University: Redox Neutral Reaction Cascades and New Concepts in Asymmetric Catalysis

Prof. Nathaniel Finney Graduate School of

Chemical and Molecular Sciences, University of Zurich: Exploring New Signaling Mechanisms for Fluorescent Probe Development

Prof. Amar H. Flood Dept. of Chemistry,

University of Indiana: Strong CH Hydrogen Bonds and the Photo-Controlled Regulation of Anions

2010 Departmental Graduation Ceremony

Court of Sciences, Reception 4:00 P.M., Graduation Ceremony 5:00 P.M.

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2010-SPRING NEWSLETTER FACULTY, STAFF & CONTRIBUTORS

Editorial Board Miguel Garcia-Garibay, Heather Maynard, Al CoureyDirection & Design Stephen S. Naczinski Editing & Production Jin LeeCollege Policy & Relations Silvia Orvietani Busch, Kerri YoderContributors Steven Clarke, Steve Hardinger, Kendall Houk, Mike Jung, Ric Kaner, Laurence Lavelle, Craig Merlic, Robert Scott, Mandy Bell, Tami Fertig, Jane Kim, Penny Jennings, Joe Lemon

UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry607 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles, California 90095-1569

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