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Coping with memory impairment during the holidays

School of Biological Sciences Dean Frank La Ferla offers advice for family members

<p>Francesca Toma (left) and Guiji Liu of the Chemical Sciences Division have developed a new artificial photosynthesis device that converts CO2 emissions into ethylene and hydrogen fuels, photographed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, 11/04/2021.</p>

New Device Advances Commercial Viability of Solar Fuels

A research team has developed a new artificial photosynthesis device with remarkable stability and longevity as it converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into two promising sources of renewable fuels – ethylene and hydrogen.

<p>Vittal Yachandra, left, and Philipp Simon over laid on a microscopy image of plant cells.</p>

Biological Science

Chloro-phylling in the Answers to Big Questions

Photosynthesis – the enzyme-based process of converting carbon dioxide into food, using water and sunlight – is literally the foundation of life on Earth, and understanding the reaction at an atomic level could lead to vast production of renewable fuels made from greenhouse gases sucked out of the air. A Berkeley Lab team has been uncovering precise, step-by-step details of photosynthesis for years. We spoke to two members, co-lead author and senior scientist Vittal Yachandra and co-first author and postdoctoral researcher Philipp Simon, about their latest study, shooting stuff with lasers, and why they chose this field.

Biological Science

UCI interdisciplinary team receives $2 million grant to study ancestral differences in skin

<p>An artificial metalloenzyme based on the natural enzyme called P450 (gray structure). UC Berkeley chemists created a heme molecule (magenta) with an embedded iridium atom (red) that, in E. coli, was incorporated into P450 to execute a reaction unknown in the natural world. (UC Berkeley image by Brandon Bloomer)</p>

Biological Science

A New Way to Make Chemicals Not Found in Nature

Adapted from a UC Berkeley news release. Synthetic biologists have successfully engineered microbes to make chemicals cheaply and more sustainably. However, researchers have been limited by the fact that microbes can only make molecules using chemical reactions seen in nature. A collaboration between scientists at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley has engineered the microbe E.