Chad Mirkin Honored with Two Prestigious Awards

January 2009

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY NEWS

MEDIA CONTACT: Megan Fellman at (847) 491-3115 or fellman@northwestern.edu

FOR RELEASE: January 15, 2009

CHAD MIRKIN HONORED WITH TWO PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Chad A. Mirkin, George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and professor of medicine, biological and chemical engineering, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering at Northwestern University, has received two prestigious awards.

One is the Esselen Award for Chemistry in the Public Interest from the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The other is the Havinga Medal 2009 from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

The annual Esselen Award recognizes a chemist whose scientific and technical work has contributed to the public well-being and has thereby communicated positive values of the chemical profession. The award was established in 1987 to honor the memory of Gustavus John Esselen, a distinguished member of the ACS's Northeastern Section. The first awardees were F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario J. Molina, who subsequently were co-recipients of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The Havinga Medal is given to an outstanding chemist every other year by the University of Leiden. Last year's recipient was Nobel Laureate Robert Grubbs.

Mirkin is world-renowned for his invention and development of biological and chemical diagnostic systems based upon nanomaterials. In addition, he is the inventor and chief developer of Dip-Pen Nanolithography, a groundbreaking nanoscale fabrication and analytical tool, and is the founder of Nanosphere and NanoInk, two Chicago-based companies.

Mirkin has been recognized with more than 50 national and international awards for his research and advances. These include being named an inaugural fellow in the U.S. Department of Defense's National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows Program; the NIH Director's Pioneer Award; the Inorganic Nanoscience Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS); the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences; the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award; Discover 2000 Innovation of the Year Award; the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology; and the Leo Hendrick Baekeland Award.

Mirkin is the author or coauthor of more than 360 refereed publications and 350 patents (81 issued). Mirkin serves or has served on the editorial advisory board of more than 22 chemistry journals and is founding editor of Small, one of the premier international journals of nanotechnology.

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