Chad Mirkin

Chad Mirkin is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University. His research focuses on developing methods for controlling the architecture of molecules and materials on the 1 – 100 nm length scale, understanding their fundamental properties, and utilizing such structures to develop novel analytical tools applicable in chemical and biological sensing, gene regulation and editing, immunotherapy, lithography, catalysis, optics, and clean energy generation, storage, and conversion. Mirkin has pioneered the concept of the nanoparticle 'atom' and the DNA 'bond,' established the field of structural nanomedicine using spherical nucleic acids (SNAs), and invented nanoparticle megalibraries and nanocombinatorial chemistry, revolutionizing materials discovery.

Chad Mirkin is a Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University, specializing in nanotechnology. His research focuses on the development of nanoscale materials and their applications in biology and medicine. Mirkin's work includes the use of DNA to assemble nanoparticles into macroscopic materials, the creation of nanoparticle-based biosensors for DNA and RNA detection, and the application of gold nanoparticles in biodiagnostics. His research also explores nanolithography techniques, such as dip-pen nanolithography, for generating protein nanoarrays. Additionally, he investigates the optical properties of nanoparticle assemblies and their potential for colorimetric detection of ions and biomolecules.