Michelle C. Y. Chang (born 1977) is a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, and is a recipient of several young scientist awards for her research in

biosynthesis Biosynthesis is a multi-step, enzyme-catalyzed process where substrates are converted into more complex products in living organisms. In biosynthesis, simple compounds are modified, converted into other compounds, or joined to form macromolecules. ...

biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (E ...

s and

pharmaceutical A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and re ...

Education

Chang received her B.S. in Biochemistry and B.A. in French Literature from the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

in 1997. She then moved to the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

for graduate school as a

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

Predoctoral Fellow (1997-2000) and M.I.T./

Merck Merck refers primarily to the German Merck family and three companies founded by the family, including: * the Merck Group, a German chemical, pharmaceutical and life sciences company founded in 1668 ** Merck Serono (known as EMD Serono in the Unite ...

Foundation Predoctoral Fellow (2000-2002). She earned her Ph.D. in 2004 under the direction of

JoAnne Stubbe JoAnne Stubbe is an American chemist best known for her work on ribonucleotide reductases, for which she was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2009. In 2017, she retired as a Professor of Chemistry and Biology at the Massachusetts Institut ...

and

Daniel G. Nocera Daniel George Nocera (born July 3, 1957) is an American chemist, currently the Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences a ...

. During her graduate work, Chang studied

proton-coupled electron transfer A Proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) is a chemical reaction that involves the transfer of electrons and protons from one atom to another. The term was originally coined for single proton, single electron processes that are concerted, but the ...

processes in

ribonucleotide reductase Ribonucleotide reductase (RNR), also known as ribonucleoside diphosphate reductase (rNDP), is an enzyme that catalyzes the formation of deoxyribonucleotides from ribonucleotides. It catalyzes this formation by removing the 2'-hydroxyl group of th ...

enzymes, and demonstrated the first direct evidence of the radical transfer pathway of class I RNRs. Following graduate school, she conducted research as a

Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research (the "JCC"), established in 1937, awards the "Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellowship" for research in the medical and related sciences bearing on cancer. History The Fund was founded ...

Postdoctoral Fellow at

with Jay Keasling (2004-2007). At Berkeley, Chang studied enzyme-catalyzed reactions, demonstrating that by expressing plant P450 enzymes in bacteria like ''E. coli'', the ''

E. coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

'' could be engineered to produce terpenoids, a class of natural products often found in drugs. Chang began her independent career at UC Berkeley in 2007.

Awards

*2007: The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation New Faculty Award *2008: Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Young Investigator Award *2008: TR35: ''

Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

'' magazine Young Innovator Award *2009:

Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award *2010:

Agilent Agilent Technologies, Inc. is an American life sciences company that provides instruments, software, services, and consumables for the entire laboratory workflow. Its global headquarters is located in Santa Clara, California. Agilent was establi ...

Early Career Professor Award *2011: International Young Talents in Chemistry Award *2011:

NIH Director's New Innovator Award National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award is a research initiative first announced in 2007 designed to supports exceptionally creative, early-career investigators who propose innovative, high-impact projects. The focus is specif ...

*2012:

Agnes Fay Morgan Research Award The Agnes Fay Morgan Research Award was established in 1951 by the Iota Sigma Pi honorary society for women in chemistry. The award is given for research achievement in chemistry or biochemistry to a woman not over forty years of age at the tim ...

*2015:

Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award The List of American Chemical Society national awards attempts to include national awards, medals and prized offered by the American Chemical Society (ACS). The ACS national awards program began in 1922 with the establishment of the Priestley Med ...

*2016: Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry

Personal life

Michelle was born in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, to Chinese immigrant parents from

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. She is married to her colleague in the College of Chemistry,

Christopher Chang Christopher J. Chang is a professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he holds the Class of 1942 Chair. Chang is also a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, a Howard Hugh ...

."National magazines tout two chemists and two astronomers as top innovators in their fields"
, UC Newsroom, August 22, 2008 (retrieved January 26, 2010)

Publications

Chang's scientific papers are listed on her group'

References

1977 births Living people American women biochemists American people of Chinese descent American people of Taiwanese descent Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Scientists from San Jose, California University of California, Berkeley alumni UC Berkeley College of Chemistry faculty University of California, San Diego alumni 21st-century American women Chemists from California {{US-chemist-stub