Release: UChicago President Paul Alivisatos accepts 2024 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience

This week in Norway, University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos was honored as one of the winners of the 2024 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience, which recognized the pioneering use of nanoscale materials in the field of biomedicine.

Alivisatos was honored along with MIT's Robert Langer and Northwestern University's Chad Mirkin, who won the award in June from the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for discoveries that "contributed foundationally to the development of therapeutics, vaccines, bioimaging and diagnostics." Today their research is used around the world to better understand principles of medicine, biology and disease, as well as medical imaging for individual patients.

"I'm honored to share this prize, not only with two scientists I admire in Robert Langer and Chad Mirkin, but also the extraordinary community of students, scholars and staff who worked in my research group to help shape the field of nanoscience," said Alivisatos, the John D. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Chemistry, the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the College. "It is their work and their support, along with the institutions at which I've pursued this research, that made these discoveries possible."

At a Sept. 3 ceremony held in Oslo, Alivisatos received his prize from King Harald V of Norway. The event was part of a week of activities, in which Alivisatos took part in lectures, symposia, roundtable discussions and events with this year's Kavli Award laureates in nanoscience, neuroscience and astrophysics.

The day before the award ceremony, Alivisatos delivered his Kavli Prize lecture, in which he laid out the use of semiconductor nanocrystals for biomedical imaging, health and sustainability. He explained how these materials are used-from the analysis of tumors to optimizing sustainable crops to diagnosing plant and animal disease-and their impact on the world.