Chemistry

At CU Denver's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, we believe in research that matters. We're grounded in work that's accessible, innovative, and rooted in real-world impact. This August, Chemistry Professor and Department Chair, Dr. Hai Lin, along with Associate Professor, Dr. Emilie Guidez, and master's student, Julia Roma, brought...

Eighteen CU Denver researchers are among the top 2% of highly cited scientists in the world, according to Stanford University and Elsevier. 

Professor Scott Reed , from CU Denver's Chemistry Department, introduced a groundbreaking approach to improving artificial intelligence (AI) reliability in chemical research. Large Language Models (LLMs) have the potential to assist scientists, but they often generate misleading or incorrect information, a challenge known as "hallucination." In his latest study, Professor...

Associate Professor Jung-Jae Lee of the Department of Chemistry has been awarded a prestigious R03 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to push the boundaries of cancer research. His project, “Development of Near-Infrared Photothermal Chemiluminescent Gold Nanoprobes by Utilizing Retro Diels-Alder Reaction of Trapped Singlet Oxygens,” focuses on...

CU Denver Chemistry Chair Hai Lin is pushing the frontiers of computational chemistry with pioneering methods that reveal how molecules react-atom by atom. Discover how his research is reshaping drug design, enzyme modeling, and the future of science.

When Jeff Knight, PhD, was finishing his postdoc at CU Boulder, his advisor suggested he test the job market to get practice interviewing. “I wanted to find a university where research was strong, but teaching was just as important,” Knight said. It was during the last recession, and opportunities were...

Dr. Woonghee Lee, assistant professor in CU Denver's Chemistry Department, was recently awarded the prestigious BKI Early Career Award from the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society (KMRS). The award recognizes Dr. Lee's significant contributions to the field of biomolecular nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), particularly in his development of essential software tools...

The POKY team, led by Prof. Woonghee Lee in the Chemistry department (right in photo), proudly announces the publication of their article “A-SIMA/A-MAP: A Comprehensive Toolkit for NMR-based Metabolomics Analysis” in the journal Metabolomics. This groundbreaking work introduces two innovative computational tools—A-SIMA (Advanced-Software for Interactive Metabolite Analysis) and A-MAP (A...

CU Denver Chemistry undergraduate students Bailey Frazier and Karan Basaves presented their recent research in a poster at the Colorado Proteinopathy Symposium in December 2024. Their poster is titled "Hydration Water Dynamics in Globular Villin Headpiece and Amyloid Fibrils, Using Deuterium and Oxygen-17 Solid-State NMR." Bailey and Karan worked in...

In December 2024, Dr. Jung-Jae Lee received a grant from the Cancer League of Colorado to pursue the project, “Precision Surgery in Head and Neck Cancer with advanced Chemiluminescent Nanoprobes.” Founded in 1969, the Cancer League of Colorado supports research in the discovery of the causes of many types of...