ARTICLE | Discovery & Translation
Nobel Prize-winning metal-organic frameworks open new paths to drug delivery
The frameworks, the focus of the 2025 chemistry prize, promise to improve drug solubility, stability, selective targeting and controlled release
October 10, 2025 8:13 PM UTC
The technology behind the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is best known for its environmental sustainability applications, but metal–organic frameworks are moving from the lab bench of materials scientists into the frontier of medicine as drug delivery vehicles with tunable properties.
The award, which went to Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University, Richard Robson of University of Melbourne, and Omar Yaghi of University of California Berkeley, honors the development of highly porous crystalline materials known as metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). ...