News

Dr. Harry Brumer has been awarded the B.A. Stone Award for Excellence in Plant Polysaccharide Biochemistry at the XXVIII International Carbohydrate Symposium that took place in New Orleans, USA, 17-21 July ,2016. The award is sponsored by Megazyme International ("a global leader in the development, manufacture and supply of analytical reagents, enzymes and assay kits for the food, feed, dairy and wine industries." https://www.megazyme.com...

From the CIC/CSC Awards banquet in Halifax on June 8: Steve Withers, CIC Medal winner, in the centre, flanked, on the right, by Mike Wolf incoming Head of Chemistry and winner of the CSC Rio Tinto Alcan Award, Mark MacLachlan, winner of the CSC Award for Research Excellence in Materials Chemistry, and Mike Fryzuk outgoing Head of Chemistry.  Steve is flanked on the left by Curtis Berlinguette, winner of the CSC Strem Chemicals Award for Pure or Applied Inorganic Chemistry, Allan Bertram,...

2016 CSC Student Chapter Merit Award

Congratulations to the UBC Undergraduate Chemistry Society for being awarded the Canadian Society for Chemistry Student Chapter Merit Award third year in a row! The award will be presented on Thursday, June 9^th at the 99^th Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition in Halifax. This award will be announced in the upcoming issue of ACCN, the Canadian Chemical News, www.accn.ca...

Congratulations to Dr. Jay Wickenden who was recently awarded a 2015-2016 UBC Killam Teaching Award. UBC Science awards Killam Teaching Prizes each academic year to acknowledge outstanding contributions made by teaching faculty in Science. Nominations are made by students, alumni or faculty in recognition of excellence in teaching. Congratulations Jay! 

For more information: https://science.ubc.ca/faculty/awards/killam

Congratulations to Chantal Mustoe. She is the recipient of the 2015/2016 UBC Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Award​.

UBC’s Killam Graduate Teaching Assistant Awards have been given annually since 1996 / 1997. The award recognizes the valuable role that teaching assistants play in our undergraduate programs, sending an important message to students (both undergraduate and graduate) that UBC values teaching. With over 2000 Teaching Assistants working at the university, winning this...

For those of you addicted to Crossword Puzzles, have a look at the Sunday, March 27th LA Times Crossword, which will also appear in the Province same day. It was created by our own Mark MacLachlan. Apparently in his copious spare time after running a research group of 20+ co-workers, traveling to conferences and being a star teacher, he enjoys conjuring C2-symmetric word plays.

In celebration of the 41^st International Women’s Day, UBC’s first graduate degree awarded to chemist Ruth Vivian Fulton in 1919 was highlighted in the Vancouver Sun article on Monday, March 7^th, 2016. Ruth’s thesis title was “A study of the estimation of iron and the separation of manganese from iron by phenyl-nitroso-hydroxylamine ammonium (cupferron)”.

UBC Centennial event taking place on March 9^th, 2016 will cover questions that focus on equality...

Dr. Berlinguette has been awarded the E. W. R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship as a recognition for his research and accomplishments. Up to six Steacie Fellowships are awarded annually to enhance the career development of outstanding and highly promising scientists and engineers who are faculty members of Canadian universities. Congratulations Dr. Berlinguette!

A pyridoxal phosphate-dependent enzyme that oxidizes an unactivated carbon-carbon bond

Enzymes use organic cofactors to facilitate diverse chemical transformations. One of these cofactors, pyridoxal phosphate (PLP), is best known for its ability to stabilize anions, which enables reactions such as transaminations, critical in the breakdown of amino acids. However, PLP is rarely known to react with oxygen or to catalyze reactions on unactivated carbons.