After a full day of teaching, research and meetings, Annaliese Franz dons a brown cotton jacket and indigo pants, cinches her black belt into a tight knot and, bowing, steps barefoot onto the wooden floor of a karate dojo near campus.

Beneath the concrete world discernible to our senses is a world of building blocks. A world of molecules, and beneath that, atoms. The organization of these individual parts dictates the properties of materials. In Professor of Chemistry Davide Donadio's lab, Frank Cerasoli, a postdoctoral researcher, uses computer simulations to model materials at the molecular level, with the hope of discovering new materials that can advance our technologies.

Mark your calendars because the R. Bryan Miller Symposium returns this April for its first in-person event since 2020. Featuring a stellar lineup of high-profile speakers and leading-edge researchers in chemical biology, organic, medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry, the 23rd annual symposium creates a pipeline between academia and industry, allowing students to network, present their research and learn skills pivotal to their future professional careers. The free event is scheduled for April 13 and 14 at the UC Davis Conference Center.

Location, location, location is the key for psychedelic drugs that could treat mental illness by rapidly rebuilding connections between nerve cells. In a paper published Feb. 17 in Science, researchers at the University of California, Davis, show that engaging serotonin 2A receptors inside neurons promotes growth of new connections but engaging the same receptor on the surface of nerve cells does not.

Five associate professors in the College of Letters and Science have been honored with an additional title: Chancellor’s Fellow. Jessica Bissett Perea (Native American studies), Rana Jaleel (gender, sexuality and women’s studies), Xiaodong Li (statistics), David Olson (chemistry) and Caitlin Patler (sociology) are among 13 faculty campuswide selected to the 2022-23 class of Chancellor’s Fellows.

Design2Data is a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) that teaches students an enzyme design-build-test workflow, allowing them to contribute knowledge to an open access database. Since its launch, the course has been rolled out to 25 institutions across the nation.

There’s no word in Bao Vue’s native language for “chemistry.” The science subject is not easily expressed in Hmong vocabulary. In fact, the same can be said for the concept of “science” itself. But when Vue was 9 years old, she and her family fled their home for safety. Today, she's a chemistry doctoral candidate in UC Davis Professor of Chemistry Jacquelyn Gervay-Hague’s lab, which is focused on developing sustainable methods to produce antiviral and anticancer agents from natural products.

Chemical engineering professor Greg Miller and chemistry professor Mike Toney teach the “Chemical and Engineering Principles in Whiskey and Fuel Alcohol” (ECH/CHE 168) course at UC Davis, which teaches undergraduate students the chemical engineering and chemistry of making whiskey.

Chemist Justin Siegel is one of two UC Davis faculty members elected to the National Academy of Inventors’ 2022 class of fellows. Siegel's work in computational enzyme engineering is focused on discovering catalysts that improve health and environmental outcomes. He holds more than 100 global patents and has co-founded eight startups in the last 10 years.