Faculty

New research: Paving the Way for a New Class of Antibiotics

New research: Paving the Way for a New Class of Antibiotics

March 14, 2024

Harvard University chemist Daniel Kahne has spent much of his career studying the fundamentals of how bacteria thrive and evade attack.

His lab has a special interest in gram-negative bacteria, which have an outer membrane that many antibiotics cannot cross.

Among these bacteria is carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, or CRAB. Designated by the World Health Organization as a “critical priority” for antibiotic development, CRAB kills hundreds of critically ill patients in the U.S....

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Yoshito Kishi, Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus

FAS Memorial Minute for Yoshito Kishi, 85

March 12, 2024

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on March 5, 2024, the following tribute to the life and service of the late Yoshito Kishi was spread upon the permanent records of the Faculty.

Yoshito “Yoshi” Kishi was a renowned chemist whose scientific advances in organic chemistry were among the most impactful in the history of the field.

Although Kishi left Japan for Harvard only a few years into his independent career, he made major contributions to his native land through his mentorship of several generations of Japanese synthetic chemists, many of...

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David A. Evans

FAS Memorial Minute for David Albert Evans, 81

February 27, 2024

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on Feb. 6, 2024, the following tribute to the life and service of the late David Albert Evans was spread upon the permanent records of the Faculty.

David Albert Evans was one of the most influential organic chemists in the history of the field, and his impact was felt through his research, mentorship, and teaching.  He discovered practical and general ways to synthesize polyketides, a broad class of medicinally important natural products.  To crack this problem, he devised exquisitely simple yet broadly...

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New research: Towards more efficient catalysts

New research: Towards more efficient catalysts

February 16, 2024

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Harvard Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, and Utrecht University have reported on a previously elusive way to improve the selectivity of catalytic reactions, adding a new method of increasing the efficacy of catalysts for a potentially wide range of applications in various industries including pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and much more. 

The research is published in ...

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A headshot of Xiaowei Zhuang

Xiaowei Zhuang inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame

January 19, 2024

Professor Xiaowei Zhaung, alsong with 14 other innovation pioneers whose inventions range from cancer treatments to theatrical technologies and special effects, will be honored in the 2024 class of National Inventors Hall of Fame® Inductees. 

In partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Hall of Fame will honor these Inductees on May 9 at one of the innovation industry’s most highly anticipated events — “The Greatest Celebration of American Innovation®.”

“Every year, I am impressed and inspired by the accomplishments...

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New research: Vaginal bacteria must eat to survive — but how?

New research: Vaginal bacteria must eat to survive — but how?

August 15, 2023
Like the human gut, the female genital tract is its own complex microbial ecosystem, where billions of beneficial bacteria make their home. The way Harvard chemist Emily Balskus sees it, the vaginal microbiome is an underappreciated, understudied part of the body where critically important chemistry takes place.

The Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of Chemistry and a Howard...

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Christina Woo wins a 2023 ASPIRE Award

Christina Woo wins a 2023 ASPIRE Award

November 16, 2023

The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research announced 16 outstanding projects in its latest class of ASPIRE awards, granting more than $5 million for research that aims to answer key feasibility and proof-of-concept questions in an accelerated time frame, and scaling for impact based upon initial success. The high-risk nature of these projects, often based on new ideas that have generated limited preliminary data, tends to place them outside the scope of other funding opportunities.

Christina Woo won her work: ...

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New research: Massive 2022 eruption reduced ozone levels

New research: Massive 2022 eruption reduced ozone levels

November 21, 2023

When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on January 15, 2022 in the South Pacific, it produced a shock wave felt around the world and triggered tsunamis in Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, Japan, Chile, Peru and the United States. It also changed the chemistry and dynamics of the stratosphere in the year following the eruption, leading to unprecedented losses in the ozone layer of up to 7% over large areas of the Southern Hemisphere, according to a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National...

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Clean-tech startup Quino Energy launches to create grid-scale battery infrastructure for greater use of wind and solar power

Clean-tech startup Quino Energy launches to create grid-scale battery infrastructure for greater use of wind and solar power

October 20, 2022

A new startup, Quino Energy, aims to bring to market a grid-scale energy storage solution developed by Harvard researchers to facilitate more widespread adoption of renewable energy sources.

About 12% of U.S. utility-scale electricity generation currently comes from wind and solar sources, which fluctuate with daily weather conditions. For wind and solar to play a greater role in the decarbonization of the electricity grid while reliably meeting consumer demand, grid operators recognize the need to deploy energy storage systems, but these have not yet proved cost-effective at...

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Unlocking potential of quantum technologies

Unlocking potential of quantum technologies

March 24, 2022

By Yahya Chaudhry, via Harvard Gazette

Throughout human history, most of our efforts to store information, from knots and oracle bones to bamboo markings and the written word, boil down to two techniques: using characters or shapes to represent information. Today, huge amounts of information are stored on silicon wafers with zeros and ones, but a new material at the border of quantum chemistry and quantum physics could enable vast...

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A photo of Joanna Aizenberg holding a vial of blue liquid

Self-propelled, endlessly programmable artificial cilia

May 5, 2023

By Leah Burrows, via SEAS News

For years, scientists have been attempting to engineer tiny, artificial cilia for miniature robotic systems that can perform complex motions, including bending, twisting, and reversing. Building these smaller-than-a-human-hair microstructures typically requires multi-step fabrication processes and varying stimuli to create the complex...

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