Splash Biography

As we all already knew that the scientist Frances Arnold was awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry this year! Scientists now have the ability to harness the power of evolution and use it for purposes that bring the greatest benefit to humankind. But how does this work?Let's have a brief and overall understanding of its principles. In this class, we are going to talk about enzyme related topics. The whole class will include: what is an enzyme, what is its three-dimensional structure, how to obtain and analyze its structure, what is the active site of an enzyme, how enzymes catalyze different type of chemical reactions with huge rate acceleration, how to engineer enzymes for a certain purpose using the concept of directed evolution, how to beat nature by learning from it? Also, as a postdoc in UC Berkeley working with enzymes, I welcome all the students with curiosity to raise any related questions you feel curious about. This is a great chance for you to know how science works if you are about to pursue STEM majors and to let yourself be exposed to fascinating research realm!