Who is Nobel laureate Omar M. Yaghi with Palestinian roots? Everything you need to know
Berkeley/Amman: The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has shone a global spotlight on Omar Mwannes Yaghi, a Jordanian–American chemist of Palestinian origin, whose pioneering work in reticular chemistry and the development of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) has transformed the landscape of materials science.
Yaghi, currently University Professor and James and Neeltje Tretter Endowed Chair in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, shares this year’s Nobel honour with Susumu Kitagawa and Richard Robson for their contributions to developing metal-organic frameworks structures that can trap gases, harvest water from air, and drive sustainable chemical processes.
But beyond his scientific achievements, Yaghi’s story is deeply rooted in the resilience and struggle of his Palestinian refugee background.
Born in Amman, Jordan, in 1965, Yaghi was raised in a refugee family originally from Al-Masmiyya, a Palestinian village in the Gaza Subdistrict that was depopulated in 1948. His early years were marked by hardship he grew up in a small, overcrowded room shared with several siblings and even livestock. The family had no electricity and limited access to clean water.
At the age of 15, his father encouraged him to move to the United States in search of education and opportunity. Speaking very little English, he began his studies at Hudson Valley Community College, later transferring to the State University of New York at Albany, where he completed his undergraduate degree.
He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1990, under the mentorship of Walter G. Klemperer, followed by postdoctoral research at Harvard University (1990–1992) under Richard H. Holm.
In 2021, his global contributions were further recognised when Saudi Arabia granted him citizenship by royal decree.
Yaghi began his academic career as an assistant professor at Arizona State University (1992–1998) before moving to the University of Michigan (1999–2006) and then to UCLA (2007–2012). In 2012, he joined UC Berkeley, where he continues to lead groundbreaking research.
Over the years, he has directed key scientific institutes, including the Molecular Foundry at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Berkeley Global Science Institute, and the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute. He also co-directs the California Research Alliance by BASF and the Bakar Institute of Digital Materials for the Planet.
In 2025, the University of California Board of Regents elevated him to the rank of University Professor, the system’s highest academic honour.
In the early 1990s, Yaghi proposed a then-radical idea — building crystalline materials using strong chemical bonds between molecular building blocks. Many believed such structures would collapse into amorphous solids. But in 1995, he successfully crystallized metal-organic compounds, where metal ions were linked by charged organic molecules like carboxylates.
This breakthrough gave birth to metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) — crystalline, porous materials that can absorb and store gases like carbon dioxide, purify water, or even extract water from desert air.
His innovations, including the introduction of secondary building units (1998) and the development of MOF-5 (1999), opened new possibilities for clean energy, environmental sustainability, and industrial chemistry.
Today, reticular chemistry, the field Yaghi founded, is considered one of the most transformative branches of modern chemistry.
Yaghi’s influence extends far beyond the laboratory. He has received dozens of international honours, including the Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2018), the Albert Einstein World Award of Science (2017), the VinFuture Prize (2022), and the Science for the Future Ernest Solvay Prize (2024).
He has also been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and in January 2025, he became the seventh president of the World Cultural Council, an international organization promoting cultural and scientific progress.
For many across the Arab world, Yaghi’s Nobel recognition is not only a scientific triumph but also a story of perseverance and identity. From a childhood in a displaced Palestinian family to becoming one of the most cited scientists in the world, his journey represents hope, the belief that knowledge can rise above borders and circumstances.
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Mere breakup not enough for abetment to suicide: Delhi HC
New Delhi (PTI): Merely breaking up may not amount to instigation for a case of abetment of suicide under the criminal law, the Delhi High Court has said.
Justice Manoj Jain made the observation while dealing with a bail plea by a man accused of abetting the suicide of his former partner, who hanged herself five days after his marriage to another woman.
Granting bail to the accused, the court observed that the instigation should be of such a nature that leaves the deceased with no option but to commit suicide.
It said only a trial would establish whether the deceased's "extreme step" was on account of provocation, instigation, "merely on account of her being hyper-sensitive girl" or for some other reason.
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In the present case, the court noted, there was no dying declaration, and the parties were in a relationship for around eight years, during which there was no complaint from the deceased.
The court observed there was a considerable time gap between the date when the parties stopped talking and the date of the suicide.
"Apparently, it seems to be a case of a broken relationship and quite possibly, the deceased, having come to know that the applicant has got married to someone else, has chosen to finish herself," the court said in the order passed on February 24.
"Though broken relationship and heartbreaks have become common these days, mere breaking-up of relationship may not per se constitute instigation so as to make it to be a case of abetment under Section 108 BNS (abetment of suicide)," the court order read.
According to the father of the deceased, his daughter had been trapped by the accused, who pressured her to convert to his religion for marriage, and it was under such pressure that his daughter committed suicide by hanging herself with a chunni in October 2025.
The accused was arrested in November 2025.
The court observed that, according to the woman's friends, she was upset, and they never claimed anything on conversion. The accused had stopped talking to her from February 2025 onwards, it said.
According to the order, the man was let out on bail on a personal bond and surety bond of Rs 25,000 each.
The accused submitted that the parties were in a cordial relationship for around eight years, but the woman's parents were against the relationship since they belonged to different religions.
He alleged that it was her parents who forced her to sever the relationship.
