UW News

Douglas Reed


October 10, 2025

Q&A: UW chemistry professors explain MOFs, the materials behind the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

A chemical drawing that shows a crystalline structure with a large hole in the middle

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Oct. 8 awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal-organic frameworks,” or MOFs. Both Dianne Xiao, a UW associate professor of chemistry, and Douglas Reed, a UW assistant professor of chemistry, use MOFs in their research at the UW. UW News reached out to them to learn more about the significance of these structures and how researchers use them.