Dream Chemistry Award


The Dream Chemistry Award is an international competition for young scientists organized by the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The competition was established in 2013 by Robert Hołyst and the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the PAS in Warsaw, with the next competition taking place in 2015. In 2017, IOCB Prague started co-sponsoring the event, and since then the competition has been held every year alternately in Prague and Warsaw.
The competition awards visionary projects from the field of chemistry or chemistry-related disciplines that have the ambition and potential to change the world for the better. The contest is for scientists who are younger than 38 years of age who have been nominated by respected experts. The winner of the contest receives a financial reward of €10,000. In addition, starting in 2019, the finalists receive a reward of €1,000.
The coordinators of the competition are Pavel Jungwirth from IOCB Prague and Robert Hołyst from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the PAS. The members of the Honorary Committee include Josef Michl and Richard R. Schrock, the laureate of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Recipients

2024

Winner:
Finalists:
  • Maxx Arguilla, Project: Bioinspired Design of Atomically Precise All-Inorganic Chains for Atomic Scale Integrated Circuitry
  • Mathijs Mabesoone, Project: Data-Driven Evolution of Sustainable Peptide Materials
  • Raya Sorkin, Project: Novel Non Hormonal Contraceptives
  • Zhiling Zheng, Project: Programmable and Tunable Chemical Structures from Molecular Building Units

2023

Winner:
  • Mark Levin, Project: Skeletal Editing: Enabling Synthesis that Matches Design
Finalists:
  • Aisha Bismillah, Project: Noncovalent Control of ‘Shapeshifting’ Molecules
  • Moran Frenkel-Pinter, Project: Emergence of Primordial Peptide Replicators
  • Francesca Grisoni, Project: Revolutionizing AI for Molecule Discovery with Artificial Chemical Intuition
  • Barak Hirshberg, Project: A Computational Molecular Sculptor

2022

Winner:
  • Carl Brozek, Project: Capturing Energy with Controllable Chaos
Finalists:
  • Ahmed Badran, Project: Chemical Reprogramming of Biological CO2 Capture to Reverse Climate Change
  • Claudia Contini, Project: Biohybrid Robotics: The Potential of Artificial Cells
  • Liang Feng, Project: Active Artificial Molecular Factories
  • Ghislaine Vantomme, Project: Supramolecular Materials for the Next Computing Paradigm

2021

Winner:
  • Jarad Mason, Project: Treating Hypoxia with Microporous Water
Finalists:
  • Ahmed Badran, Project: Universal Codon Reassignment Using a de novo Orthogonal Genetic Code
  • Johannes Bintinger, Project: Star Trek SWITCH
  • Luka Đorđević, Project: The Dark Side of Photocatalysis
  • Giulio Ragazzon, Project: Endergonic Reactions Enabled by Catalytic Processes
  • Ghislaine Vantomme, Project: Supramolecular Wires for Brain-Inspired Computing

2020

Winner:
  • Claudia Bonfio, Project: Unlocking Primitive Chemical Messages
Finalists:

2019

Winner:
  • Yujia Qing, Project: Sequencing life
Finalists:
  • Emiliano Cortés
  • Jeffrey D. Martell
  • Hannes Mikula
  • Yoeri van de Burgt

2018

Winner:
  • Eric D. Głowacki, Project: Abundant organic catalysts for a peroxide clean energy cycle
Finalists:

2017

Winner:
  • Jessica R. Kramer, Project: Glycocalyx engineering to probe the role of mucins in cancer
Finalists:
  • Rob Ameloot,
  • Justin Chalker,
  • Nathan Crook,
  • Yogesh Surendranath

2015

Winner:
Finalists:
  • Denis Menshykau
  • Eric D. Głowacki
  • Yogesh Surendranath
  • Jiayin Yuan

2013

Winner:
Finalists:
  • Hal Alper
  • Peggy P. K. Lo
  • Eugen Andreiadis
  • Paul Blainey