Chad Mirkin

Chad Alexander Mirkin is an American chemist born November 23, 1963, the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry and director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University. He developed nanoparticle-based biodetection schemes, invented dip-pen nanolithography, and pioneered work with spherical nucleic acids that enabled the synthesis of novel materials and colloidal crystals along with high sensitivity probes for chemical and medical diagnostics. He shared the 2024 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience with Robert Langer and Paul Alivisatos, and he also received the 2023 King Faisal Prize, the 2019 Perkin Medal and the 2009 Lemelson-MIT Prize; in 2010 he was listed as the most cited chemist globally over the preceding decade.