The Welch Foundation

🚨Check out this elegant review by #WelchGrantee James Tour & collaborators on atomic & nano-scale laser-assisted materials manufacturing. Lasers enable precise synthesis and structural control, boosting performance in electronics, catalysis, and more. tinyurl.com/35wt462t

CPRIT Awards Grants to 15 Dallas-Fort Worth Researchers in Latest Funding Round CPRIT awarded 15 new North Texas grants totaling nearly $18.4 million to UT Southwestern and UT Dallas for cancer research, prevention, and recruitment.

Congratulations to UT Southwestern’s #WelchFunded researchers Saikat Mukhopadhyay, Jie Zheng, Deepak Nijhawan & Gerta Hoxhaj on receiving a CPRIT grant! This round pushes CPRIT’s total investment past $4B, making Texas the nation’s largest state funder of cancer research. tinyurl.com/6s58ewze

One hundred years of quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics has gone from a theory in test to becoming the foundation of new technologies

Check out this beautiful perspective on 100 years of Quantum History contributed by our long-standing #WelchGrantee Marlan O'Scully www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Multiscale structure of chromatin condensates explains phase separation and material properties The structure and interaction networks of molecules within biomolecular condensates are poorly understood. Using cryo–electron tomography and molecular dynamics simulations, we elucidated the structur...

DNA and histones fold into chromatin through elusive processes. Using cryo-ET, light microscopy, and simulations, Michael Rosen’s lab showed that a shift of just 5 base pairs can dramatically alter condensate phase separation in vitro and vivo #WelchCatalyst tinyurl.com/bdz4v73r

A powerful gene-editing🧬method from the Finkelstein lab overcomes limits of single-mutation therapies. By harnessing retron reverse transcriptases as gene editors, researchers enable precise editing to better target complex genetic disorders. tinyurl.com/5yu894bf

A direct electrochemical Li recovery from spent Li-ion battery cathode for high-purity lithium hydroxide feedstock Conventional lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery recycling technologies, including pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy, require elevated temperatures or subst…

🔋♻️The Wang lab at Rice University has developed a scalable, cost and energy efficient strategy to recycle battery waste into new Li feedstock. Using a zero-gap membrane electrode assembly reactor, 99% high-purity LiOH was generated from waste LiFePO4. tinyurl.com/7a6vuy9j

💽💻 #WelchGrantee Alamgir Karim's lab has developed next-gen thin films for AI microprocessors. Researchers synthesized 2D COF films with low permittivities & ultrahigh dielectric strengths which suprass current state-of-the-art electronic devices tinyurl.com/h8rswsma

Epigenetics is all you need: A transformer to decode chromatin structural compartments from the epigenome Author summary The three-dimensional structure of DNA in the cell nucleus influences gene regulation and expression. Changes in this structure can contribute to how genes are activated or silenced, wh...

Chromatin organization shapes gene regulation and disease. 🧬The Onuchic lab and collaborators used deep learning to predict chromatin subcompartments directly from epigenomic data, linking histone modifications, TF binding, and RNA-seq data to 3D genome structure. #WelchGrantee tinyurl.com/2san68tv

Using evolutionary context to classify difficult protein folds Author summary In this work, we aimed to understand how protein domains — the fundamental building blocks of proteins — evolve and relate to one another, especially when their shapes are very difficul...

How do protein domains evolve when their shapes defy classification? Our #WelchGrantee Nick Grishin's lab integrated protein sequence and predicted structure to show “new” folds are highly diverged relatives of known families, improving domain annotation. tinyurl.com/225v98bh

RNA innate immunity constitutes a barrier for interspecies chimerism Interspecies PSC co-culture induces horizontal RNA transfer that activates innate immunity in “winner” mouse cells, a response that is alleviated by Mavs deletion, thereby enhancing “loser” human PSC ...

Interspecies chimerism 🧬may sound like sci-fi, but researchers at @utswtxid.bsky.social made it reality. #WelchGrantee Jun Wu's lab disabled immunity genes, enabling human stem cells to survive in mice hosts, advancing prospects for easing transplant shortages. tinyurl.com/yu4cvp83

International leaders gathered at Rice University for a Workshop on Quantum Geometry⚛️, drawing 100+. Interdisciplinary workshops are vital now more than ever for discovery. Organized in part by #WelchGrantees Emilia Morosan, Yonglong Xie & Ming Yi. tinyurl.com/2tua872f

Bifunctional Aziridines from Photochemically Generated FSO2NH2 for SuFEx Diversification of Alkenes Photochemically generated FSO2NH2 serves as a safe, practical nitrene precursor for Rh-catalyzed aziridination of alkenes, granting access to previously inaccessible fluorosulfonyl aziridines. These ...

A SuFEx platform has emerged out of an underexplored sulfamoyl fluoride reagent. #WelchGrantee Quentin Michaudel's lab at @tamu.bsky.social 🧪transformed alkenes into modular SuFEx handles through previously inaccessible fluorosulfonyl aziridines. tinyurl.com/2c4hvdfv

Nitrogen-Terminated Diamond Films for Antiscaling Coatings Mineral scaling, particularly gypsum deposition, remains a costly and persistent problem in industrial systems, lowering efficiency, raising energy demands, and accelerating equipment degradation. Conventional chemical and mechanical mitigation methods are temporary and often introduce secondary environmental or operational concerns, underscoring the need for intrinsically scale-resistant materials. Herein, we report a systematic investigation of polycrystalline diamond (PCD) films with varied surface terminations (oxygen, hydrogen, fluorine, or nitrogen) for their resistance to CaSO4 scaling. Nitrogen-terminated PCD (N-PCD) exhibits an order-of-magnitude reduction in Ca2+ accumulation compared with other terminations. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) reveals that N-PCD supports only sparse, dendritic gypsum crystallites, in contrast to the dense, continuous scale layers observed on other surfaces. Consistently, adhesion force measurements confirm extremely low adhesion between the CaSO4 crystal and N-PCD. Molecular dynamics and density functional theory simulations show that a strongly bound, ordered water layer forms on N-PCD, creating an energetic barrier that repels CaSO4 ions and suppresses heterogeneous nucleation. Further enhancement is achieved by bulk nitrogen doping, which smooths the surface morphology and suppresses scale formation by up to 6-fold. Finally, applying nitrogen functionalization to commercial boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrodes yields seven times lower scale loading without compromising electrochemical performance. This combined experimental–theoretical study establishes nitrogen-functionalized diamond as a robust, durable platform for antiscaling coatings, with potential applications across water treatment, energy production, and other scaling-prone industries.

Diamond-lined pipes? 💎 It's not as expensive as it sounds. #WelchGrantee Jun Lou's lab at Rice University developed a cost-effective diamond coating that prevents mineral buildup in pipes, potentially solving a major problem in water and energy systems. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

New SF5 transfer reagent alert! The Qin lab has developed a bench-stable solid for SF5 incorporation into olefins. This modular method allows for the general, late-stage installation of SF5 and other persulfuranyl (VI) groups into small molecules. #WelchGrantee tinyurl.com/549nmc7a

Enantioconvergent Access to Chiral S(VI) Stereocenters by Kinetic Resolution of Sulfonimidoyl Chlorides An enantioconvergent approach for the kinetic resolution of S(VI) stereocenters that leverages the electrophilic reactivity of the chiral sulfur atom is described. The catalytic process provides acce...

Chiral S(VI) groups are central to drug discovery, where tuning R-groups at the stereogenic S modulates polarity and solubility. #WelchChair Oleg Larionov's group reports an enantioconvergent route to sulfonimidoyl chlorides and sulfonimidates via kinetic resolution. tinyurl.com/5yxw539n

Group1 and Michigan Potash & Salt Company Announce Strategic Collaboration to Build America's Potassium-to-Battery Supply Chain

🔋Battery supply chains see new players as Group1 and Michigan Potash Salt & Co announce new collaboration. Building on the legacy of Nobel Laureate and #WelchAwardee John B. Goodenough, Group1 is developing the first commercial K-ion battery. www.morningstar.com/news/pr-news...

"We need to come together all around the globe.” Our #WelchChair @professorpernilla.bsky.social will be a part of a global partnership between the Rice University Brain Institute and Paris Brain Institute. 🧠🗼 tinyurl.com/bdh4yfke

The Larionov group at @utsaroadrunners.bsky.social demonstrates enantioselective construction of sulfur stereocenters via sulfinamide deracemization. Using a solvent-cage recasting strategy, homolysis/recombination delivers single-enantiomer S-building blocks. #WelchChair tinyurl.com/mv8rs7ex

Direct Access to Acylboranes via Formal Condensation of Carboxylic Acids with Ligated Boranes A nickel-catalyzed, radical-based C(acyl)–B cross-coupling strategy has been developed for the efficient synthesis of bench-stable, phosphonite-ligated acylborane compounds from readily available car...

The Qin lab at UTSW has achieved a radical C(acyl)–B cross-coupling strategy between carboxylic acids and ligated boranes. This Ni-catalyzed synthesis of stabilized organoborane species expedites construction of valuable downstream products💊#WelchGrantee onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Check out this new review by the Gevorgyan Lab at @utdallas.bsky.social on visible-light induced TM-catalyzed HAT processes for C-H functionalization! #WelchChair tinyurl.com/bdzbrk3w

The Welch Foundation Announces 2026 Norman Hackerman Award Recipient

Exciting news! 🎉 The #WelchFoundation has named Dr. Sheel Dodani the 2026 #HackermanAwardee for her groundbreaking protein-based biosensors that light up inorganic anions in living cells. A major leap forward for chemistry and human health. See more: welch1.org/news-reports...

Welch Award in Chemistry

Call for Nominations: 2026 #WelchAward in Chemistry! This $500,000 career award honors individuals who have made major contributions to basic chemical research. International nominees welcome. Deadline: Jan 31, 2026. More info: welch1.org/awards/welch...

Going the extra mile to advance biomedical innovation: Center Times Plus, UT Southwestern Uttam Tambar, Ph.D., left, and Lorena Saelices, Ph.D., share this year’s UT Southwestern Biotech+ at Pegasus Park Commercialization Milestone Award that recognizes their innovative research work with ...

Congratulations to our 2019 #HackermanAwardee Uttam Tambar for winning a UT Southwestern Milestone Award! The
@TambarLab demonstrates how targeted glucocorticoid receptor (GR) degraders combats metastatic prostate cancer by eliminating drug-resistant proteins. tinyurl.com/4xtudej9

Nanodiamond Synthesis from Coal via Flash Joule Heating As the coal industry transitions toward cleaner production, it demands advanced coal utilization strategies. Converting low-value coal into high-value nanodiamonds (NDs) is a promising approach. NDs e...

Diamonds are made under pressure - or in this case from coal! 💠🪨The Tour and Xiang labs demonstrate #nanodiamond synthesis from coal via fluorine-assisted flash Joule heating. This work opens the pathway for cleaner coal utilization. #WelchGrantee tinyurl.com/y3nez56d

#WelchGrantee Yimo Han at Rice University receives a John S. Dunn Foundation Collaborative Research Award as part of a multidisciplinary effort to how the brain responds to neuroprosthetics. 🧠https://tinyurl.com/2eyc6tv7

Tribute to Naomi Halas and Peter Nordlander This publication is free to access through this site. Learn More

Check out this special-edition of JPC-C tribute to #WelchGrantees Naomi Halas and Peter Nordlander for their contributions to plasmonics. Their complementary experimental and theoretical work has revolutionized the field. tinyurl.com/bdexvfpw

@baylor.bsky.social

Science outreach is ever-important in engaging the young minds of tomorrow. Kudos to our #WelchGrantee Bryan Shaw @wacochemist.bsky.social for leading middle school students in lab experiments that are inclusive to those with disabilities on National STEM day! tinyurl.com/yc4spt5e
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Congratulations to #WelchGrantee Junichiro Kono for winning APS's 2026 Frank Isakson Prize for optical effects in solids! www.aps.org/funding-reco...

New therapeutic target of leukemia discovered in the form of nuclear droplets. 🩸Researchers in the @goodell-lab.bsky.social and @superscijew.bsky.social labs at @bcmhouston.bsky.social discover nuclear condensates or "C-bodies" that could link multiple leukemias. #WelchGrantee tinyurl.com/5da479yn