Department of Defense Awards $6.25M to Professor for Innovations in Nanotechnology

Professor Hao Yan from the Arizona State University has been granted a research reward of US $6.25 million to be dispersed over a five-year period by the Department of Defense (DoD) under its Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program.

The MURI program has earmarked an outstanding sum of $155 million which will be awarded subject to federal appropriations over the next five years to 23 research projects. The DoD has invited proposals for 21 topics under the MURI program. The department received 78 proposals subsequent to the receipt of 251 white papers. Professor Yan is one amongst 23 researchers across the country to be shortlisted by an expert panel. He was named as the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department’s inaugural Milton D. Glick Distinguished Chair in 2011. Michael Crow, ASU President, lauded the work accomplished by Yan ever since his days as an assistant professor at the University.

Yan’s team is said to have developed new nano-based technology with applications in energy and biomedicine in a short span of time. Yan’s research involves modeling structures after DNA, the building blocks of life, and to eventually build self-assembling nanodevices.