News: Research

Asst. Prof. Anna Wuttig and her team found a way to use electricity to boost a type of chemical reaction often used in synthesizing new candidates for pharmaceutical drugs, which may lay the foundation for greener chemistry.

Cancers are often driven by proteins created by specific oncogenes. Drugs aimed at these proteins take advantage of their surface configurations to latch on and prevent them from interfering with cells, but some families of proteins lack pockets or crevices on their surfaces that the drugs can use. Attacking them is like climbing up a wall with no footholds. For decades, these proteins have been considered “undruggable,” but chemist Raymond Moellering is working to change that.

UChicago scientists have developed a new "hook and slide" method where they can insert atoms within an already existing carbon framework. The innovation comes from a paper recently published in Science, by Rui Zhang, a fifth-year graduate student with the Guangbin Dong Lab. This new strategy developed by Zhang, with assistance from undergraduate Tingting Yu, promises to optimize medicinal chemistry.

Image by Skrypnykov Dmytro/Shutterstock

Chemists Daniel Gibney, David Mazziotti, and Jan-Niklas Boyn invented a new way to allow computers to simulate certain quantum mechanical effects in complex electronic materials with far less effort.

Prof. John Carlstrom discusses funding for CMB-S4, which, he says, would scrutinize the cosmic microwave background for evidence that the newborn universe underwent an exponential growth spurt called inflation.

P5 report includes UChicago, Fermilab experiments to study neutrinos, cosmic microwave background.

Jet streams circulate around the world. A new study by GS Prof. Tiffany Shaw and National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist Osamu Miyawaki finds fast jet stream winds (those in dark red in the figure) will get even faster over time as climate change accelerates.

Research by UChicago scientists, including Chemistry Prof. Chuan He, suggests that the nutrient called TVA could have potential as a nutritional supplement to complement clinical treatments for cancer.

Together, a startup co-founded by CS Assoc. Prof. Ce Zhang creating open-source generative AI and AI model development infrastructure, announced that it closed a $102.5 million Series A funding round.

Scientists are fascinated by cosmic rays because they can tell us about space—where they came from and what they encountered along the way—as well as the makeup of the galaxy and the universe. Read the UChicago Explainer Series to learn all about cosmic rays.

Research led by postdoctoral scholar Hojin Kim, Prof. Stuart Rowan in Chemistry and PME, and Prof. Heinrich Jaeger in Physics and JFI on the science behind non-Newtonian fluids could lead to applications ranging from clump-free paint to wearable protective gear.

Dozens of articles feature Astrophysics postdoc Rafael Luque's study describing the discovery of six planets orbiting a bright star in perfect resonance 100 light-years from Earth. Explore a few of those articles sampled here.

In a Forbes article, Astro Prof. John Carlstrom discusses the significance of the international CMB-S4 telescope project being designed to examine and map ancient cosmic microwave background radiation involving 400 scientists from more than 20 countries.

Scientists, including Rafael Luque and Jacob Bean, have discovered a rare sight in a nearby star system: Six planets orbiting their central star in a rhythmic beat. The planets move in an orbital waltz that repeats itself so precisely it can be readily set to music. A rare case of an “in sync” gravitational lockstep, the system could offer deep insight into planet formation and evolution.

Image by Roger Thibaut (NCCR PlanetS)

APS Ramsey Prize winner David DeMille describes his groundbreaking ACME experiment and how it puts the Standard Model to the test.