Right Up Einstein’s Alley – Fall 2021

In Issue #16, of Princeton Online’s Princeton Perspectives reported… There are many start-ups forging ahead at Princeton Innovation Center BioLabs despite the interruptions of COVID-19… In the article, Adaptation, Thriving and Scientific Innovation During the Pandemic they discussed the co-working space, home to science start-ups created by Princeton University (PU) faculty, students and alumni, which opened in 2018 to foster biotech entrepreneurship.

Just a few weeks ago, Princeton University announced it is leading another consortium of entrepreneurs to help turn even more laboratory discoveries into products and services with the help of partners at University of Delaware and Rutgers University and a $15 million grant from National Science Foundation (NSF). Called the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Northeast Hub, it will include affiliates New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Rowan University, Temple University and Delaware State University and will expand, adding new affiliates each year.

Princeton Perspectives | Liam Johnson | June 15, 2021

­­­­­Manabe, who has been on the Princeton faculty since 1968, shares one half of the Nobel Prize with fellow climate scientist Klaus Hasselmann of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany; the other half goes to Giorgio Parisi of the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. The prize amount is 10 million Swedish kroner, or about $1.1 million.

“I was really happy and surprised,” said Manabe, a senior meteorologist at Princeton University who is a pioneer in the field of climate change research. “I never dreamed I would win the Nobel physics prize. If you look at the list of past winners, they are amazing people who have done marvelous work. In contrast, what I have been doing looks trivial to me. But I’m not going to complain!”

Liz Fuller-Wright, Office of Communications, Princeton University | Oct. 5, 2021

Photo Credit: Denise Applewhite, Office of Communications, Princeton University

Solving problems in inventive ways is one of David MacMillan’s trademarks, and it has led to him essentially inventing two new fields of research.

One, organocatalysis, for which he is receiving the Nobel Prize, finds revolutionary ways to design and build small organic molecules to drive chemical reactions. These organocatalysts, which are greener than traditional metal catalysts, are used to construct new drugs and materials, and their impact is immeasurable, reaching from industrial applications to pharmaceuticals to everyday products like clothing, shampoo, carpet fibers and more.

“All scientists have so many ideas along the way,” MacMillan said. “We have way more ideas than ever succeed — but this one took off, and it took off like gangbusters.”

He is also a pioneer in photocatalysis, his research focus for the past 15 years, which uses light — ordinary, visible light — to break and rejoin atomic bonds, one electron at a time.

Liz Fuller-Wright, Office of Communications, Wendy Plump and Jamie Saxon contributed to this story | Princeton University | Oct. 6, 2021

Photo Credit: Denise Applewhite, Office of Communications, Princeton University

Click here to learn more and to register. Join us!