www.ronZnet.com

Ronald Zuckermann, Ph.D.

Nanobioscience Research
at the intersection of Chemistry, Biology & Engineering

Specializing in:
Molecular biomimicry with bio-inspired polymers Combinatorial chemistry Solid-phase synthesis Peptoids and non-natural oligomers Self-assembly and folding of protein-mimetic polymers Laboratory automation Custom instrumentation Mechanical engineering & Fluidics

	Contact Information Ronald Zuckermann, Ph.D. Biological Nanostructures Facility The Molecular Foundry Lawrence Berekeley National Laboratory 1 Cyclotron Rd., MS 67-5110 Berkeley, CA 94530 Phone: (510) 387-9364 E-mail: ron@ronznet.com

About Ron

Ronald Zuckermann received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1984 from Harvey Mudd College where he did undergraduate research in synthetic organic chemistry.  He then went on to UC Berkeley to study Bioorganic Chemistry with Dr. Peter Schultz.  His thesis work was on the synthesis of semi-synthetic nucleases capable of the sequence-specific cleavage of RNA.  After receiving the first Schultz group Ph.D. in 1989, he became one of the founding chemists at Protos Corp., a combinatorial drug discovery start-up in Emeryville, CA.  There he helped develop several key drug discovery technologies such as robotic combinatorial library synthesizers, affinity selection methods and a novel class of heteropolymers called "Peptoids".  Chiron Corp. acquired Protos in 1991 where this work continued and was applied to small molecule drug discovery, new biomaterials and DNA delivery.  Dr. Zuckermann was promoted to Research Fellow in 2003. In early 2006, he left Chiron to join the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he is currently Facility Director of the Biological Nanostructures Facility at The Molecular Foundry. He was promoted to Senior Scientist in 2011. He has published over 90 papers and is co-inventor on 27 patents.

What's Hot!

May 2003 RZ receives Chiron Research Fellow Award at all employee meeting from Craig Wheeler. Audio capture (mp3, 7:39).	May 2007 Interview in Nano World News: "Techniques for Rapid Drug Discovery Now Focusing on Nanoscience Research"	May 2008 Feature story in LBNL News Center: "A Tailorable Nanotube, Formed by a Ring-shaped Protein"	July 2008 Feature story in LBNL News Center: "Nano-Sized Jaws Perform Like Proteins"
August 7-8th, 2008 The 6th Peptoid Summit was held on at the Molecular Foundry.	December 1, 2008 Eric Drexler's blog on MetaModern: "Peptoids at the Molecular Foundry"	August 9-10th, 2010 The 7th Peptoid Summit was held at the Molecular Foundry	April 2010 Feature story in LBNL News Center: "Berkeley Lab Scientists Create ‘Molecular Paper’"
April 12, 2010 Wired Science at WIRED.com: "Floating Nanosheets Could Be the Plywood of Nanotechnology"	April 19, 2010 News of the Week story at Chemical & Engineering News: "Bioinspired Material Debuts"	April 22, 2010 Eric Drexler's blog on MetaModern: "Peptoid nanosheets: A platform for new nanotechnologies"	April 28, 2010 Kristin Brinner's blog at ScienceBlog.com: "Tasty New Molecular Sandwiches"
June 22, 2010 Guest blog by RZ on ScriptPhD.com: "Beauty and the Building Blocks"	January 18, 2011 Feature story in LBNL News Center: "A Nanoscale Rope"	August 2011 Award-winning lecture presented at the Annual Retreat of the LBNL Materials Sciences Division Perspective: Safety Culture (slides only; e-mail me if you have comments!) Profile in Safety story about my safety management philosophy in "Today at LBNL"	September 2011 Top story in the Dept. of Energy's Energy Frontier Research Newsletter: "Turning Greenhouse Gas to Stone"
September 2011 Special issue of Biopolymers Peptide Science devoted to papers presented at the 7th Peptoid Summit: 7th Peptoid Summit Special Issue	October 17, 2011 Feature story in LBNL News Center: "Shaken, not Stirred" Original article in press at J. Am. Chem. Soc.	October 17, 2011 Science Concentrate in Chemical & Engineering News "Surprise Route to Peptoid Nanosheets" pdf version: here.	November 2, 2011 Journal of Visualized Experiments published a detailed 14 minute video and accompanying written protocol on how to make peptoids and self assemble them into nanosheets. Now anyone can get involved! "Solid-phase Submonomer Synthesis of Peptoid Polymers and their Self-Assembly into Highly-Ordered Nanosheets" See a 1 min preview here!
February 2012 The 8th peptoid Summit will be held in Berkeley on August 9-10, 2012

Videos!

• 1/22/12: The new heated vial rocker for making nanosheets is finally completed and is ready to report for lab duty! See the movie: "HeatRocker Instrument".

• Journal of Visualized Experiments published a video protocol (14 minutes): "Solid-phase Submonomer Synthesis of Peptoid Polymers and their Self-Assembly into Highly-Ordered Nanosheets", November 2011.
  ---> Preview here (1 min)! <---

• Check out our movie: "Shaken, not Stirred" which sums up our recent JACS paper on how nanosheets are formed, October, 2011.

• An excellent in-depth piece produced by NBC about Kent Kirshenbaum's research on peptoids: "Origami Chemistry: How to fold a molecule", September 2011.

• See Ron interviewed about his research by Alice Egan in "In Conversation With", November 2009.

• See the movie: "Self-Assembly of Bio-inspired Polymers" which premiered at the 2008 Nanofest Film Festival at the Molecular Foundry.

Pictures!

• Prof. Rachel Segalman, Hannah Murnen & Ron in front of our Synapt G2 mass spectrometer:



• Ron & Ki Tae Nam in front of our custom robotic biopolymer synthesizer:



• Protein Nanotubes!

• with Tammy Chu and Byoung-Chul Lee: