EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University researcher Chad A. Mirkin, one of the world's leaders in the research and application of nanotechnology, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Mirkin, George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and professor of medicine, chemical and biological engineering, biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering, was cited for development of DNA-programmable inorganic materials and Dip-Pen Nanolithography.

Mirkin, director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern, is renowned for his invention and development of biological and chemical diagnostic systems based upon nanomaterials. He is the inventor and chief developer of Dip-Pen Nanolithography, a groundbreaking nanoscale fabrication and analytical tool, and is the founder of Nanosphere and NanoInk, two Chicago-based companies.

He also invented On-Wire Lithography, a process for fabricating and structuring nanowires. It allows individuals to construct nanostructures that are useful in many important fields, ranging from medical diagnostics to highly miniaturized electronics and computational devices.

Mirkin has been recognized with more than 50 national and international awards for his advances. Last year he was selected by the U.S. Department of Defense as an inaugural fellow in the department's new National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows (NSSEFF) Program. Mirkin also received, in 2004, the Director's Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health, an honor on par with the NSSEFF Program. He is the only person to receive both awards.

Other honors include the Esselen Award for Chemistry in the Public Interest from the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS); the Havinga Medal 2009 from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands; the Inorganic Nanoscience Award from the ACS; the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences; the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award; Discover 2000 Innovation of the Year Award; the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology; and the Leo Hendrick Baekeland Award.

He is the author or coauthor of more than 360 refereed publications and 350 patents and applications. Mirkin serves or has served on the editorial advisory board of more than 22 chemistry journals and is founding editor of Small, one of the premier international journals of nanotechnology.