Professor Chad Mirkin

Winner: 2021 Materials Chemistry Division open award: de Gennes Prize

Northwestern University

For contributions to supramolecular chemistry and nanoscience, in particular the invention and development of methods for nanolithography, high-area rapid printing, and photocontrol in nanoparticle synthesis.

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I want to see chemistry in action – applied to improve healthcare, help the environment, and make the world a better place.

Professor Mirkin's research group focuses on developing methods for controlling the architecture of molecules and materials on the 1–100 nm length scale (the nanoscale), with the aim of understanding their fundamental properties, and utilising these structures to develop novel tools that often outperform the state-of-the-art in the areas of chemical and biological sensing, gene regulation, immunotherapy, lithography, catalysis, optics, and advanced manufacturing, as well as energy generation, storage, and conversion.

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Professor Chad A Mirkin is the Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology, George B Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, and a professor of chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering, materials science and engineering, and medicine at Northwestern University. He is a chemist and a world-renowned nanoscience expert, who is known for his discovery and development of spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) and SNA-based biodetection and therapeutic schemes: Dip-Pen Nanolithography (DPN) and related cantilever-free nanopatterning and materials discovery methodologies; on-wire lithography (OWL) and co-axial Lithography (COAL); and contributions to supramolecular chemistry, nanoparticle synthesis, and high-area rapid 3D printing (HARP).

Professor Mirkin received his BS degree from Dickinson College (1986) and PhD from Penn State University (1989). He was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT prior to becoming a professor at Northwestern in 1991. He has authored over 800 papers and over 1,200 patent applications worldwide (over 360 issued) and founded eight companies. He has been recognized with over 230 awards, including the Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine, SCI Perkin Medal, Wilhelm Exner Medal, RUSNANOPRIZE, Dan David Prize, and AAAS Philip Hauge Abelson Prize. He served for eight years on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology, and he is one of very few scientists to be elected to all three US National Academies. As well as having served on the Editorial Advisory Boards of over 30 scholarly journals, he is the founding editor of the journal Small, an Associate Editor of JACS, and a PNAS Editorial Board Member. He has given over 860 invited lectures and educated over 290 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, of whom over 115 are now faculty members at top institutions around the world.

Q+A

Who or what has inspired you?

My PhD advisor, Greg Geoffroy, and my postdoc advisor, Mark Wrighton, have been incredible mentors and sources of inspiration to me. They taught me how to do science well and how to communicate that science effectively to any audience. I am always inspired by the talented young people I work with in my lab, who are a constant source of new ideas and creative energy.

What motivates you?

I am motivated by the idea that we can use chemistry to understand the world around us and then apply what we’ve learned to solve major societal challenges. It is extremely important to me to be able to uncover new fundamental chemical principles and open new fields, but I ultimately want to move discoveries and processes developed in my lab past the benchtop and out into the world, where they can impact people’s lives. I want to see chemistry in action – applied to improve healthcare, help the environment, and make the world a better place.

What advice would you give to a young person considering a career in chemistry?

In my opinion, there is no better career path. A career in chemical research will be extremely rewarding for anyone who is intellectually curious and willing to work hard. I always tell young people to focus on problems that they think are important to solve – ones which, if answered, will have a fundamental or technological impact that you’re excited to see. Blaze your own trail, and don’t worry about what others think may be important.

Can you tell us about a scientific development on the horizon that you are excited about?

I enjoy all of my projects – it is very hard to choose only one. I think the spherical nucleic acid (SNA) story is an especially exciting one because of its impact in seemingly disparate fields spanning medicine to materials science. Drugs based on these structures are in clinics, but we have also used them to develop a whole new field of materials chemistry, based on the nanoparticle 'atom' and the DNA 'bond'. This concept is so foundational that we are using it to devise a whole new way to teach chemistry at the undergraduate level.

Why is chemistry important?

Chemistry is important because it gives us a framework to not only understand the natural world, but also to learn how to control it to solve problems. Chemistry is central to so many aspects of science, and it enables us to build bridges between physics, biology, materials science, engineering, and medicine that allow us to carry out high quality, interdisciplinary research.

What does good research culture look like/mean to you?

One aspect of a good research culture that I promote in my lab is that all involved should share the success: what’s good for my programme is good for my students, and what’s good for my students is good for my programme.

Why do you think teamwork is important in science?

Teamwork is extremely important in science, and it is especially important to establish diverse teams. It is at the boundaries where people with different training, experience, identities and so on, come together that paradigm-shifting discoveries are made.

What is your favourite element?

Gold, without a doubt. From my work with spherical nucleic acids (that often have gold nanoparticle cores), to gold substrates (that enabled my group to execute the first dip-pen nanolithography experiments), to the anisotropic gold materials like rods, triangles, and disks (that have permitted us to reveal how shape control works in nanoscale systems) – gold-based systems have been at the core of some of my favourite, most impactful projects.