VIVE LA CHIMIE IN CALIFORNIA: UC Riverside forges unusual new partnership with French national science agency

ON THE LUSH AND GREEN CAMPUS of the University of California, Riverside (UCR), lies what chemistry professor Christopher A. Reed refers to as an aphrodisiac. It's a spanking new, $14 million chemistry building with state-of-the-art labs that's helped seduce several high-profile chemists, including Reed, to the historic agricultural town southeast of Los Angeles. The university's recent substantial investments in its chemistry department also persuaded noted French chemist Guy Bertrand to emigrate from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)—France's enormous national research agency—to UC Riverside. Although eager for new experiences in California, Bertrand—an expert in main-group and phosphorus chemistry—didn't want to sever his ties with CNRS, where he'd most recently been director of the Laboratory of Fundamental & Applied Heteroatom Chemistry. And so with the help of Bertrand and UC Riverside and CNRS faculty and officials, the two institutions have devised an unusual partnership: Chem...