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SPRING 2010
A New Weapon Against Viruses
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bunyaviruses, paramyxoviruses and flaviviruses — viruses responsible iruses are notoriously tricky to kill: They mutate, form new for diseases like AIDS, West Nile virus, Hepatitis C, Ebola, Rift Valley strains, refuse to cooperate with antibiotics. It doesn't help fever and yellow fever. What's more, it could potentially treat newly that most antiviral drugs attack only one specific virus. A emerging enveloped viruses. more efficient weapon would be a "broad-spectrum" "Most antivirals work against only one or, at most, two viruses, antiviral that targets several viruses at once. whereas LJ001 targets many, many viruses. That's very unusual," says Luckily, that's exactly what a research team led by scientists at Jung, whose group made all of the compounds included in the study UCLA —including principal investigator Dr. Benhur Lee of the and helped to determine the mechanism of action of the drug. David Geffen School of Medicine and our own department's Dr. While a few other broad-spectrum antivirals do exist, they Michael Jung and his group — have been developing and testing. In a invariably cost too much and cause unwanted side effects. In proof-of-concept study constrast, LJ001 has so far shown to published online this January be "not toxic to normal cells at in Proceedings of the National concentrations that kill viruses," Academy of Sciences, they says Jung. That's not to say the describe an antiviral small work is over. "We have already molecule, LJ001, effective started making new analogues against an entire class of that are even better than the viruses with one feature in original LJ001 in inhibiting the common: lipid envelopes. growth of viruses. Hopefully we Basically, lipid-enveloped can find very active compounds viruses are surrounded by that are non-toxic and could be Jung Group membranes that help viruses enter and infect host cells. In used as antivirals." order to prevent virus-cell fusion, LJ001 disrupts these envelopes — The study, whose co-authors include scientists from Harvard, which, unlike healthy cell membranes, cannot repair themselves. Cornell, the University of Texas at Galveston and the U.S. Army Though still early in the game, these findings are extremely Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, is available online promising. The compound, a rhodanine derivative, could work at www.pnas.org/content/early2010/01/27/0909587107. against HIV-1, Influenza A, filoviruses, poxviruses, arenaviruses,
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Seaborg Symposium & Medal Awards Dinner 2009 honoring Mostafa A. El-Sayed
AW AR D S & H O N O RS Arthur C. Cope Award Professor Ken Houk was 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.
Alfred Bader Award Professor Joan Valentine was presented with the Alfred Badar Award during the 239th ACS National Meeting in San Francisco.
Tolman Medal Professor 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 Awards Professor Xiangfeng Duan and Professor Neil Garg have been awarded the 2010 NSF Career Awards. Neil Garg also received the 2009 New Investigator Award in Organic Chemistry awarded by Boehringer Ingelheim.
Senior Scientist Mentor Emeritus Professor Charles Knobler has been selected as the 2010 Senior Scientist Mentor by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.
Development Awards Lecturers 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 Dimes Professor Margot Quilan has been awarded with the March of Dimes Foundation’s Basil Margot Quinlan O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award. 2!
S p r i n g 2 0 1 0 N e w s l e t t e r!
Ken Houk & Joan Valentine at the 2010 ACS Spring Meeting in San Francisco, CA
ACS Division of Chemical Education Dr. Arlene Russell was elected to a threeterm of Chair-Elect, Chair and Past Chair of the American Chemical Society’s Division of Chemical Education.
NSF Graduate Fellowships Aaron Green (Diaconescu Group), Grace Chiou (Garg Group), Nic Matsumoto (Maynard Group), and Yue ( Jessica) Wang (Duan Group) have received the 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 numerous Nobel Prize winners, U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu and Google founder, Sergey Brin.
Laureates from June 27 to July 2, 2010, at Lindau, Germany. This is a very prestigious meeting that allows the world's top graduate students to interact with Nobel Prize winners. The meeting’s organizers Tanya Petrossian describe it as providing “a globally recognized forum for the transfer of knowledge between generations of scientists.”
NOBCChE Fellowship Tehetena 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
Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings Tanya Petrossian, a Ph.D. student in Professor Steven Clarke’s laboratory, has been selected to attend the 60th Interdisciplinary Meeting of Nobel
Tanya’s research focuses on bioinformatic and biochemical methods for identifying novel methyltransferases, enzymes that catalyze the transfer of methyl groups from S-adenosylmethionine to DNA, RNA, proteins, lipids, and small molecules. Although many of these reactions are known, there are many more that remain to be identified, particularly in humans. She is especially interested in finding new biochemical pathways that may be important in preserving the human health span. Visit www.lindau-nobel.de for more information
Christopher S. Foote Fellowships Fourth year graduate students Sarah Bronner (Garg Group, Top), Kyle Quasdorf (Garg Group, Middle), and Felix Perez (Jung Group, Bottom) 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. In honor of Christopher S. Foote, an outstanding contributor to our department for more than 40 years, 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. 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, gave 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. UCLA is fortunate to benefit from the continuing outstanding service of Judi Smith, who is Professor of Physiology and the UCLA Dean and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.
Happenings National Academy of Sciences Professor 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 transistion 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.
Robin Garrell, Ken Houk & Paul Weiss at the departmental reception
Journey to the Middle East Professor 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
Ric Kaner & Family in Egypt
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 Rafi Levine (who spends part of his time in our department) 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 ElKady, 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.
Christopher Foote Spring 2010 Newsletter
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CALENDAR 6
Foote Lecture
Prof. Dan Singleton Dept. of Chemistry, Texas A&M University: Non Statistical Rates and Selectivities in Simple Organic Reactions***
Prof. Yiying Wu Dept. of Chemistry, Ohio State University: Oxides, graphene and their composites for Li-ion batteries and dye-sensitized solar cells**
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Prof. Albert Lee Dept. of Chemistry, Hong Kong Baptist University: CaSH and SCI: New Functionalities for Organocatalysis***
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Ken Houk, Judith Smith & Dan Singleton
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Bernstein Lecture
Sigman Lecture
Prof. Susan Lindquist: Prion Proteins: One Surprise After Another Susan Lindquist 4:00 P.M., 100 Moore Hall
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Department of
Chemistry Biochemistry
Prof. Daniel Seidel Dept. of Chemical & Chemical Biology, Rutgers University: Redox Neutral Reaction Cascades and New Concepts in Asymmetric Catalysis***
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Prof. Nathaniel Finney Graduate School of Chemical and Molecular Sciences, University of Zurich: Exploring New Signaling Mechanisms for Fluorescent Probe Development***
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Prof. Amar H. Flood Dept. of Chemistry, University of Indiana: Strong CH Hydrogen Bonds and the Photo-Controlled Regulation of Anions***
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Prof. Daniel Neumark, Dept of Bioengineering, UC Berkeley: Some www.mbi.ucla.edu/Sigman/ Chemistry & Richard Assembly Required: Sigman10_Announcement.pdf 12 Bernstein Mechanics & Biochemistry 2010 Dynamics of the Actin Prof. Andrew Spakowitz Departmental 24 Cytoskeleton* Dept. of Chemical Graduation Ceremony Engineering, Stanford Court of Sciences, Prof. Jim Wuest University: Theoretical Study of 13 Reception 4:00 P.M., Department of the Weaving of Clathrin into Graduation Ceremony 5:00 P.M. Chemistry, University of Nanoscale Baskets* Montreal: Using Principles of Crystal Engineering to Help Dr. Kai C. Hultzsch 26 Guide the Search for New Dept. of Chemistry & Molecular Materials*** Chemical Biology, Rutgers University: Group and UCLA Alumni Day Early Transition Metal Catalysts 15 ucladay.ucla.edu/2010/ for the Asymmetric Hydroamination of Alkenes** Prof. Nicholas Curro, 17 Dept of Physics, UC Davis: Probing Novel * 4:00 P.M./2033 Young Hall Electronic Ground States with **4:30 P.M./3440 Mol. Sci. Bldg. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance* ***5:00 P.M./3440 Mol. Sci. Bldg.
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2010-SPRING NEWSLETTER FACULTY, STAFF & CONTRIBUTORS Editorial Board Miguel Garcia-Garibay, Heather Maynard, Al Courey Direction & Design Stephen S. Naczinski Editing & Production Jin Lee College Policy & Relations Silvia Orvietani Busch, Kerri Yoder Contributors Steven Clarke, Steve Hardinger, Kendall Houk, Mike Jung, Ric Kaner, Laurence Lavelle, Robert Scott, Mandy Bell, Tami Fertig, Jane Kim, Penny Jennings, Joe Lemon
UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
607 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles, California 90095-1569
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