Graduate and undergraduate students and postdoctoral fellows collaborate with faculty and staff on research spanning all of the chemical sciences. We frequently collaborate across groups within the department, across campus, across states, and even across countries.
Scientists at UW-Madison benefit from the university’s rich history and tradition of scientific inquiry and exploration. Today, the Department of Chemistry serves as a major research hub on campus. The department’s annual research expenditures total more than $16 million and include grants from federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy, as well as numerous other public and private programs. Please see the individual path links to learn more about our diverse research efforts. The links below highlight recent Chemistry Department activities.
Research News
WSJ: Clean energy from ammonia: UW discovery a step toward carbon-free economy
UW-Madison scientists have discovered a new way to capture energy from an everyday product that could be a key step to a carbon-free economy. Researchers in professor John Berry’s chemistry lab found that ammonia combined with a catalyst containing the metal ruthenium spontaneously produces nitrogen, releasing electrons that can be siphoned off.
Flexibility may be the key to potent peptides for treating diabetes
New research suggests that the peptides — short chunks of protein — used to treat Type 2 diabetes may be more effective if they’re able to flexibly move back and forth between different shapes.
Chemists discover new way to harness energy from ammonia
A research team at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has identified a new way to convert ammonia to nitrogen gas through a process that could be a step toward ammonia replacing carbon-based fuels. The discovery of this technique, which uses a metal catalyst and releases, rather than requires, energy, was reported Nov. 8 in Nature Chemistry and has received a provisional patent from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
An exciting discovery from an incorrect hypothesis
A hypothesis can be a scientists' best-educated guess about how an experiment might turn out or why they got specific results. Sometimes, they're not far off from the truth. Other times, they're wrong. Being wrong isn't always a bad thing. Often, it means that the researchers get to discover something new and exciting. This exact scenario happened when the Burstyn and Buller lab decided to work together on a project.
Prof. Clark Landis becomes UW-Madison Department of Chemistry chair
Clark Landis, who has been with the UW-Madison Department of Chemistry for 30 years, will take over as department chair on July 1, 2021, to begin a three-year term. His goals as department chair are to attract outstanding faculty and students, improve departmental infrastructure for research and education, and to complete our ongoing Departmental reorganization. These goals support the department in its mission to conduct world-class, groundbreaking research in the chemical sciences while offering the highest quality of education to undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral associates.
Research Forward funds project to discover new RNA therapies
Research Forward, formerly known as the UW2020: WARF Discovery Initiative, will fund 11 projects across campus for up to two years. The new initiative is supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). One project funded, …
NSF award to establish network for advanced NMR across three institutions
The University of Wisconsin–Madison will join a first-of-its-kind collaborative network for nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, which researchers use to probe large biological molecules like proteins and RNA. Today, the National Science Foundation announced a $40 million award to establish the Network for Advanced NMR (NAN) linking three institutions: UConn School of Medicine, the University of Georgia and UW–Madison’s National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison.
New chemistry makes ‘magic’ drug improvements easier
In the last decade, scientists discovered a quirk of drug chemistry: If you add on a simple one-carbon building block to a drug, it can make the drug more potent, less toxic, or more stable.
New nondestructive optical technique reveals the structure of mother-of-pearl
Most people know mother-of-pearl, an iridescent biomineral also called nacre, from buttons, jewelry, instrument inlays and other decorative flourishes. Scientists, too, have admired and marveled at nacre for decades, not only for its beauty and optical properties but because of its exceptional toughness.
New method targets disease-causing proteins for destruction
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have developed a way to use a cell’s own recycling machinery to destroy disease-causing proteins, a technology that could produce entirely new kinds of drugs.
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