January 24, 2025
Yamuna Krishnan, the Louis Block Professor of Chemistry and the College, has received the 2025 Marian and Stuart Rice Research Award. The Divisional honor provides unrestricted seed funds for intellectually exciting and innovative research ventures that enable new research directions.
Krishnan joined the University of Chicago in 2014 as a professor in the Department of Chemistry. Prior to joining the University, she and her team spent roughly eight years at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, TIFR, Bangalore, India, pursuing cutting-edge research in areas related to the structure and dynamics of nucleic acids, nucleic acid nanotechnology, and cellular and subcellular technologies. Krishnan has pioneered the application of DNA nanotechnology to cell biology, deploying nanodevices as fluorescent reporters, thereby revealing the chemistry within sub-compartments of cells called organelles.
“I feel so honored to be bestowed an award bearing the name of my legendary colleague,” said Krishnan. “Being selected from truly outstanding peers in other super-strong PSD departments makes it even more special to bring home this award to Chemistry.”
Krishnan’s research team explores the chemical composition of the innermost spaces of our cells—small compartments called organelles—that could not be explored earlier because it was so difficult to selectively target sensors to them and probe their acidic environments. “Now that we can do this,” said Krishnan, “it is rapidly becoming clear that the ionic milieu of organelles holds the secret to early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases and revealing new drug targets for these diseases.”
The team’s proposed research will pursue a new avenue for their nanotechnology. Instead of sending fluorescent molecules to probe these compartments with her organelle-targeting DNA technology, Krishnan now plans to deliver therapeutic molecules to correct dysfunctional organelles in disease.
The hope is that this research will enable hyper-specific drug delivery. Targeted delivery has previously been limited to sending drugs to specific cell types. Krishnan’s organelle-specific DNA targeting technology will unlock an unprecedented ability to deliver therapeutics with organelle-level precision. The proposed research builds on work that has shaped and redefined our understanding of organelles and how they can be used to control cell state.
In addition to the Marian and Stuart Rice Research Award, Krishnan’s groundbreaking work has earned her the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award in 2022, the Ono Pharma Breakthrough Science Award in 2020, and the Infosys Prize for Physical Sciences in 2017.
The Marian and Stuart Rice Research Award was established by the family of Stuart Alan Rice (1932–2024), the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Chemistry and former chairman of the Department of Chemistry and dean of the Physical Sciences from 1981 to 1995. The honor is awarded annually to promote new research directions in the physical and mathematical sciences at the University of Chicago.