Organic chemistry, a major chemical discipline for over a century, focuses on the chemistry of carbon, developing new reactions, understanding their mechanisms, and applying this knowledge to the synthesis of natural and unnatural products. Our department has historical strengths in the synthesis of synthetic and natural polymers and bioactive molecules, such as drugs. Professor Bae is involved in the organic synthesis of novel organic polymers for use in fuel cells (also see Polymers, Materials and Energy).

Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses computer simulations or descriptor-based machine learning/artificial intelligence techniques to assist in solving chemical problems. Scientists incorporate methods of theoretical chemistry into efficient computer programs to calculate the structures and properties of molecules and solids. While computational results normally complement the information obtained by chemical experiments, it can also be used to predict previously unobserved chemical phenomena.

Biotechnology harnesses cellular and biomolecular processes to develop products that help improve our lives and the health of our planet. This includes activities such as genetic engineering as well as cell and tissue culture technologies. Biotechnology is providing breakthrough products to combat debilitating and rare diseases, reduce our environmental footprint, feed the hungry, provide cleaner energy as well as green and sustainable manufacturing processes. Biotech uses processes such as fermentation and biocatalysts such as enzymes and microbes.

The Biophysics, Biochemistry and Chemical Biology division of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology department is focused on elucidating the mechanisms of energy conversion and ion transport, capture, detection, folding and stability of proteins, developing enzymatic biosyntheses in vitro and designing functional aptamers as diagnostics and therapeutics.

The disciplines of analytical and bioanalytical chemistry aim to improve/expand methods and/or develop new instrumentation for chemical and biochemical analyses. These new tools and methods are then applied to new or complex chemical problems to provide qualitative (i.e. what is it?) and quantitative (i.e. how much?) information of analytes within a sample, or to probe the behavior of complex molecular systems in areas such as materials, biomaterials, energy, and biology.