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...

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

The Harvard Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology has wrapped up its second annual High School Lab Skills summer intern program, providing an immersive learning experience for a group of local high school students to experience the world of cutting-edge research. The department celebrated the success of the program with a breakfast event on August 17 that highlighted and honored commitment of all its participants.

For six weeks, a cohort of talented and motivated Brighton-llston High...

On June 1st, CCB kicked off the second annual High School Lab Skills Summer Research Program with “Match Day” at the Harvard Ed Portal in Allston. The afternoon highlighted the work of the six Brighton-Allston High School students enrolled in the program and provided an opportunity for CCB program staff, graduate and postdoc mentors, Ed portal staff and Brighton-Allston high school science teachers to meet and celebrate the work of this program. The high school students were handed a letter which contained their highly anticipated summer lab placement assignments. Once the matches were...

The microorganisms living in, on, and around us, collectively known as the microbiome, produce metabolites that affect our health. Some of these molecules are essential for our wellbeing, while others can harm us. Colibactin is an example of a toxin, produced as part of microbial warfare, which induces double-stranded breaks in the DNA of cells in the intestinal epithelium and is correlated with higher incidences of diseases such as colorectal cancer.

Bacteria producing colibactin must protect their own DNA, so they assemble a non-toxic precursor (precolibactin) in their...

A hundred CCB community members joined the department’s first “virtual toast” to honor Emily Balskus

... Read more about Essential celebration

Recognized for harnessing chemistry to transform the study of microbial communities

... Read more about Emily Balskus wins $1M Waterman Award

Researchers discover mysterious bacteria that break down cholesterol in the gut... Read more about Microbes might manage your cholesterol

Matt Volpe, a fourth year graduate student in the Balskus lab, shares his quarantine bakes, stress relievers, and concerns for life post-COVID-19... Read more about Conversations with chemists

Harvard scientists put research on hold for safety, saw chance to help hospitals with precious gear... Read more about Scaled-down labs felt ‘this special responsibility’

Discovery of entirely new class of enzymes could one day lead to bespoke diets, therapeutics... Read more about The "right" diet

From gut microbes to ultracold atoms, here are the stories that got the most attention in 2019... Read more about Top ten stories of 2019!

Balskus uses chemical tools to unravel how gut microbes impact human health and disease... Read more about Microbe hunter wins Blavatnik Award

A concrete example of how one species of bacteria consumes levodopa, the primary treatment for Parkinson’s disease, could reveal more about how the microbiome impacts our health

... Read more about Gut microbes eat our medication

Study examines how compound damages DNA to understand its connection to cancer... Read more about Solving colibactin’s code