Hao Yan is a Chinese-American chemist, a (bio)molecular designer, programmer and engineer.
Hao Yan graduated from Shandong University, and completed doctoral study in the subject of DNA nanotechnology at New York University, under the direction of Nadrian Seeman in 2001. Yan began his career as an assistant research professor at Duke University, before assuming an assistant professorship at Arizona State University in 2004. He was directly promoted to full professor with early tenure in 2008. [1] In 2012, Yan was named ASU's first Milton D. Glick Distinguished Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry. [2] [3] The next year, Yan became director of ASU's Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics. [4] [5] In 2018–2022, Yan was ranked as a highly cited researcher by Web of Science,. [6] He was an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science., [7] [8] the National Academy of Inventors and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Yan received the 2020 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology for the experimental category, [9] and the Rozenberg Tulip Award in DNA Computing in 2013. Other honors for Yan include: Humboldt Research Award (2023), Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business (2019), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2008), National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2006-2011), Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award (2007-2010), the Arizona Technology Enterprise Innovator of Tomorrow Award (2006), and the Arizona Technology Enterprise Achievement Award (2014).
The theme of Yan's research is to use nature's design rules as inspiration to advance biomedical, energy-related, and other technological innovations through the use of self-assembling molecules and materials. The objective is to create intelligent materials with better component controls at the atomic and molecular levels. Yan's interdisciplinary team is interested in designing bio-inspired molecular building blocks such as DNA, RNA and proteins and programming their higher order assembly into systems that will perform complex functions. The ultimate goals are 1) to engineer an information guided self-assembling molecular system for the finest possible interactions of molecules in a three-dimensional space; and 2) to create man-made molecular machines/molecular robotics through molecular design, molecular programming, directed molecular evolution and molecular systems engineering.[ citation needed ]
Arizona State University is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 as Territorial Normal School by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, the university is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the United States. It was one of about 180 "normal schools" founded in the late 19th century to train teachers for the rapidly growing public common schools. Some closed, but most steadily expanded their role and became state colleges in the early 20th century, then state universities in the late 20th century.
The Foresight Institute (Foresight) is a San Francisco-based research non-profit that promotes the development of nanotechnology and other emerging technologies, such as safe AGI, biotech and longevity.
Leland Harrison "Lee" Hartwell is an American former president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. He shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Nurse and Tim Hunt, for their discoveries of protein molecules that control the division (duplication) of cells.
The Biodesign Institute is a major research center known for nature-inspired solutions to global health, sustainability, and security challenges located on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University. The institute is organized into a growing number of collaborative research centers and laboratories staffed by scientists in diverse disciplines. It is currently led by Executive Director Dr. Joshua LaBaer, a personalized diagnostics researcher.
Sir James Fraser Stoddart is a British-American chemist who is Chair Professor in Chemistry at the University of Hong Kong. He has also been Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry and head of the Stoddart Mechanostereochemistry Group in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University in the United States. He works in the area of supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology. Stoddart has developed highly efficient syntheses of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures such as molecular Borromean rings, catenanes and rotaxanes utilising molecular recognition and molecular self-assembly processes. He has demonstrated that these topologies can be employed as molecular switches. His group has even applied these structures in the fabrication of nanoelectronic devices and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). His efforts have been recognized by numerous awards, including the 2007 King Faisal International Prize in Science. He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Ben Feringa and Jean-Pierre Sauvage in 2016 for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.
George Henry Poste, CBE FRS, is a former director of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University.
The Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering is the engineering college of Arizona State University. The Fulton Schools offers 27 undergraduate and more than 50 graduate degree programs in all major engineering disciplines, construction and computer science. In 2023 the Fulton Schools became the first university in the nation to offer a bachelor's degree, master's degree and doctoral degree in manufacturing engineering.
The Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology is an award given by the Foresight Institute for significant advances in nanotechnology. Two prizes are awarded annually, in the categories of experimental and theoretical work. There is also a separate challenge award for making a nanoscale robotic arm and 8-bit adder.
John H. Reif is an American academic, and Professor of Computer Science at Duke University, who has made contributions to large number of fields in computer science: ranging from algorithms and computational complexity theory to robotics. He has also published in many other scientific fields including chemistry, optics, and mathematics (in particular graph theory and game theory.
Braden R. Allenby is an American environmental scientist, environmental attorney and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and of Law, at Arizona State University.
Chad Alexander Mirkin is an American chemist. He is the George B. Rathmann professor of chemistry, professor of medicine, professor of materials science and engineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and professor of chemical and biological engineering, and director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology and Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly at Northwestern University.
Charles Joel Arntzen is a plant molecular biologist. His major contributions are in the field of "plant molecular biology and protein engineering, as well as the utilization of plant biotechnology for enhancement of food quality and value, for expression of pharmacological products in transgenic plants, and for overcoming health and agricultural constraints in the developing world."
Nadrian C. "Ned" Seeman was an American nanotechnologist and crystallographer known for inventing the field of DNA nanotechnology.
Stephanie Forrest is an American computer scientist and director of the Biodesign Center for Biocomputing, Security and Society at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University. She was previously Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She is best known for her work in adaptive systems, including genetic algorithms, computational immunology, biological modeling, automated software repair, and computer security.
Bruce E. Rittmann is Regents' Professor of Environmental Engineering and Director of the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University. He was also elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 for pioneering the development of biofilm fundamentals and contributing to their widespread use in the cleanup of contaminated waters, soils, and ecosystems.
Nataša Jonoska is a Macedonian mathematician and professor at the University of South Florida known for her work in DNA computing. Her research is about how biology performs computation, "in particular using formal models such as cellular or other finite types of automata, formal language theory symbolic dynamics, and topological graph theory to describe molecular computation".
Anne C. Stone is an American anthropological geneticist and a Regents' Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on population history and understanding how humans and the great apes have adapted to their environments, including their disease and dietary environments. Stone is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Petra Fromme is a German-American chemist who is Director of the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery and Regents Professor at the Arizona State University. Her research considers the structure-to-function relationship of the membrane proteins involved with infectious diseases and bio-energy conversion. In 2021, she was awarded the Protein Society Anfinsen Award.
Alexandra Ros is a German analytical chemist who is a professor in both the School of Molecular Sciences and Center for Applied Structural Discovery at The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University. Her research considers microfluidic platforms and their use in analysis. She was awarded the 2020 Advancing Electrokinetic Science AES Electrophoresis Society Mid-Career Achievement Award.
The School of Molecular Sciences is an academic unit of The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU). The School of Molecular Sciences (SMS) is responsible for the study and teaching of the academic disciplines of chemistry and biochemistry at ASU.