June 3, 2025
Three UW faculty teams received the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute’s (MolES) new Pilot Awards. These awards, sponsored by MolES, aim to seed new research initiatives and support preliminary data generation. A committee of MolES faculty chose the projects. Each team will receive up to $10,000 in funding to kickstart their work.
The awards were created to support new collaborations spawning from MolES-sponsored scientific exchanges. This year, one scientific exchange focused on women’s health/sex differences in the manifestation of disorders, and a second scientific exchange between MolES, Benaroya Research Institute, and UW Immunology faculty discussed immune biology, next-generation analytical tools for immunology, and immune therapies. Read More
UW professor of chemistry, molecular engineering, and science and Nist Faculty Fellow Alshakim Nelson’s research team develops innovative materials using 3D-printing technology, which could potentially have real-world applications in medicine, engineering, and other areas. Read More
David Bergsman, UW assistant professor of chemical engineering, has been named the 2024 recipient of the American Vacuum Society (AVS) Thin Film Division Paul Holloway Young Investigator Award.
Xiaodong Xu, professor of physics in the College of Arts & Sciences and MolES member, was awarded the NAS Award for Scientific Discovery . Read More
Three University of Washington faculty members have been awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, including MolES member and assistant professor of chemistry, Dianne Xiao. Read More
Corie L. Cobb, ME professor and Washington Research Foundation Innovation Professor in Clean Energy, has been named a 2024 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
NAI Fellowship is the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors. Those chosen for induction have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors.
Nov. 4, 2024
Four UW faculty teams received the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute’s (MolES) new Pilot Awards . These awards aim to seed new research initiatives and support preliminary data generation. They are sponsored by MolES with matching funds from the Sepsis Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) and Kidney Research Institute (KRI). A four-member committee from the sponsoring institutes chose the projects. Each team will receive up to $10,000 in funding to kickstart their work.
The awards were created after several scientific exchanges with MolES faculty, SCORE and KRI members. Read More
Imagine a material that can be stretched and pulled out of shape that not only returns to its original shape but also grows stiffer and stronger each time. University of Washington researchers have developed a new “strain learning” metamaterial. Inspired by how nature strengthens materials—like how bones repair themselves or how spider silk becomes stronger when stressed—this innovation could significantly impact industries that rely on durable, adaptable materials, especially medicine. Their work, “Strain learning in protein-based mechanical metamaterials,” has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
Medicine will lead one of the seven new centers in a network funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to prepare against a variety of dangerous pathogens. NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health. The center will receive $13.6 million a year for three years.
Computational biologist David Baker , professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine, director of the UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design , and member of the Molecular Engineering and Science Institute, has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for computational protein design.
He shares the Nobel Prize with Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of DeepMind, who were honored for protein structure prediction.
The award, announced today, Oct. 9, by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, will be presented in a ceremony Dec. Read More