The Davis campus and the Chemistry department have of a strong tradition of interdisciplinary cooperation and research. UC Davis is in the top ranks of research universities, and ranked 4th in the UC system for research funding. During the 2006-07 academic year, UC Davis received more than $500 million in research grants and contracts, marking the 3rd consecutive year that the university has topped the half billion figure. The Chemistry department currently has a total of 207 graduate students.

Our Facilities and Opportunities for Collaboration: The Chemistry department is well equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation, including Mass Spectrometry, a small molecule X-ray Crystallography facility, an EPR instrument facility, a high resolution NMR Instrument facility, the NEAT ORU Spectral Imaging Facility and a Chemical Biology commons facility. We have established close ties with the College of Biology, the College of Engineering, the School of Medicine, the School of Veterinary Medicine, and the recently-established UC Davis Genome Center.

  • X-ray Crystallography facility
    Iincluding two modern CCD-based detector systems, a Bruker SMART 1000 and a Bruker SMART APEXII, as well as a serial detector-based Siemens P4 system with a rotating Cu anode source.
  • EPR Instrument Facility
    Including five EPR instruments with frequencies ranging from 9 to 130 GHz. Advanced EPR capabilities include ESEEM, HYSCORE, and CW and pulsed ENDOR.
  • NMR Instrument facility
    Including 300, 400, 500, and 600 MHz instruments, as well as our newly funded 800 MHz NMR facility
  • NEAT ORU Spectral Imaging Facility
    Including the state-of-the-art combination of an atomic force microscope and a laser scanning confocal microscope. Applications include: AFM- contact mode imaging, non-contact mode imaging including tapping mode, force-distance curve, and imaging parameter optimization.
  • Chemical Biology Commons Facility
    dedicated to providing shared state-of-the-art equipment for biochemistry and synthesis, including a Typhoon Trio Scanner, a microwave synthesis reactor, fermentor, centrifuges, CD spectrometer, and more.
Graduate Student earns ACS Medicinal Chemistry and Howard Hughes Fellowships

Rick Carpenter has been selected to receive the American Chemical Society Division of Medicinal Chemistry Predoctoral Fellowship as well as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute-Integrating Medicine into Basic Science Fellowship for 2007-08.

Carpenter, a member of the Kurth and Lam groups, is working primarily on the synthesis of highly potent water soluble heterocyclic antagonists for selective lymphoma targeting.

Carpenter attended high school in Napa, CA, and earned his A.B. in chemistry with a minor in psychology while graduating with high honors from UC Davis. He started his chemistry Ph.D. at Davis in the Spring of 2005, and recently married his longtime girlfriend Kristi VonStieff (UC Davis, Class of ’05) whose currently enrolled in medical school. Carpenter’s ACS award is sponsored by the pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-Aventis.

Each year, the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry awards eight $24,000 Predoctoral Fellowships to graduate students nationwide in their 3rd or 4th year of study. To be selected, students must be engaged in medicinal chemistry.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, via its Integrating Medicine into Basic Science program, sponsors 13 campuses nation-wide to train a new cadre of biologists/chemists in clinically relevant basic research. This program, which has been at UC Davis since 2006, has aims to accelerate the translation of basic discoveries into novel therapies and clinical practices.