News and Highlights

  • Jason Dean engineered a synthetic metabolic pathway into mice, allowing the animals to resist diet-induced obesity. The work was published in Cell Metabolism June 3, 2009, and featured in UCLA news release, Technology Review, and  Science Daily.

     

    Mice that were engineered with a fat-burning pathway borrowed from bacteria (top) remained thin compared with normal mice (bottom) when both were fed a high-fat diet. Credit: Jason Dean, UCLA
     
     
  • Synthetic metabolism developed for non-natural alcohols (Zhang et al. PNAS 2008,105: 20653–20658), highlighted in "this issue in PNAS", and "commentary"
  • Liao Lab developed method for production of more efficient biofuels (Atsumi et al. Nature, 2008) UCLA press release  

    •   Press coverage:  LA Times editorial, Science, Forbes, NatureNews, Chemical & Engineering News, Live Science, Technology Review, Faculty of 1000, Biopact, Greencarcongress, Chemistry World, California NanoSystems Institute, Associated Content, socalTech,  Silobreaker, Cellulosicethanol, Biofuel Review, Engineer Online, Food and Fuel America, Energy Current, Genetic Modification, Peak Oil, Science Daily,

    • Former lab member Ganesh Sriram started Assistant Professorship at University of Maryland, College Park, Jan. 2008

    • Former lab member Jeff Bernstein returned to Merck after finishing PhD in Fall 2007.

    • Former lab members Laura Jarboe and Katy Kao will start their career as Assistant Professors at Iowa State and Texas A&M, respectively, in summer 2008.