University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos Joins CZ Biohub Board

SAN FRANCISCO (Aug. 14, 2023) – Paul Alivisatos, president of the University of Chicago, director emeritus of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and a world-renowned nanoscience expert, has joined the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Board of Directors.

“With the growth of the CZ Biohub Network into a national organization, it was time to also expand the Board, and we are thrilled that Paul has agreed to join us on this journey,” said Stephen Quake, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Head of Science and president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network. “We will be working at the intersection of technology development and very challenging scientific questions in the life sciences, and Paul’s experience leading world-class universities and national research labs will be invaluable.”

Alivisatos is a chemist and a leader in the field of nanomaterials. He pioneered the development of nanocrystals, including semiconductor nanomaterials, which are foundational to nanotechnology and used in applications such as biological imaging and renewable energy. He holds more than 50 patents, and his inventions are widely used in biomedicine, imaging, and renewable energy applications. As president of UChicago, Alivisatos also serves as Chair of the Board of Governors of Argonne National Laboratory and Chair of the Board of Directors of Fermi Research Alliance LLC, the operator of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

“The collaborative, cross-disciplinary, goals-driven approach to doing science that the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in San Francisco has modeled has been exciting to watch, and I look forward to helping guide these efforts as the Biohub Network scales up and reaches for even bigger, riskier challenges,” Alivisatos said.

The CZ Biohub Network was established in 2022, building on the success of the first CZ Biohub in San Francisco, established in 2016. CZ Biohub Chicago, which launched in March, is the first new location in the CZ Biohub Network. Like the San Francisco site, it brings together three university partners – UChicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – and will pursue studies to deepen our understanding of the role of inflammation in a range of diseases.

The Chan Zuckerberg Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging, launched in 2022, is also part of the CZ Biohub Network. 

Before being named president of UChicago in 2021, Alivisatos spent several decades in Berkeley, California, where he served in leadership roles both at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, including six years as Lab Director, and at UC Berkeley, where he served as provost and executive vice chancellor for four years and also was a professor in the departments of chemistry and materials science for 33 years.

He earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry at U. Chicago and his Ph.D. in chemistry at UC Berkeley. He co-founded two nanotechnology companies, Nanosys and Quantum Dot Corporation (now a part of Thermo Fisher), and was also the founding editor of Nano Letters, a publication of the American Chemical Society. At UChicago, Alivisatos is also a faculty member of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and leads a research lab focused on understanding and exploiting the properties of nanomaterials.

The full list of board members is available at the CZ Biohub website.

# # #

About the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network is a group of nonprofit research institutes that bring together scientists, engineers, and physicians with the goal of pursuing grand scientific challenges on a 10- to 15-year time horizon. These institutes partner with Chan Zuckerberg Science in its goal to understand the mysteries of the cell and how cells interact within systems. This collaboration will bring us closer to our mission to cure, prevent, or manage all disease by the end of the century. To learn more, visit www.czbiohub.org.