News

  • Nanoscience Professor Xi Chen Awarded NSF Grant to Explore Harnessing Evaporation to Produce Clean Energy

    In the realm of renewable energy where solar, wind, and thermal sources take center stage, a new technology is quietly emerging: energy generation through evaporation. Though in its infancy, evaporation technology holds the potential to revolutionize the clean energy sector by providing an efficient, abundant, and cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels. Xi Chen, a professor Read More [...]

  • New Grant Awarded to Explore an Intriguing Question — Can Molecular Communities Learn?

    Traditional scientific methods for exploring the complexities of life break things down into smaller pieces and study how each part affects the big picture. Living systems are made up of billions of tiny interacting proteins, and scientists have made progress toward understanding the big picture by slowly putting together the pieces of the puzzle to Read More [...]

  • Top Research Stories

    Every year, CUNY ASRC researchers challenge scientific limits and find the most creative ways to expand the world's understanding of the Earth that we inhabit. Here are 10 stories that offer a glimpse at some of the innovative work produced by our researchers. We hope these stories serve as motivation to pursue your goals and Read More [...]

  • Chemists Create Designer Liquid Bio-Droplets

    Based on simple design rules, strings of polypeptides spontaneously form liquid droplets that fluoresce in red and green.  Biological cells play host to hundreds of thousands of proteins that control myriad chemical processes taking place at once. To avoid chaos, these processes need to be tightly regulated so cells can perform life’s essential tasks. And Read More [...]

  • Welcoming the Newest Members of the CUNY ASRC

    Nanoscience Initiative Wasiq Mahmood, undergraduate student Serter Lüleburgaz, postdoctoral researcher Conor Andrews, high school student Yan Rigual-Rosado, undergraduate student Muhtasim Syed, undergraduate student Emmet Shermanm, CUNY ASRC staff member Julianne Villar, undergraduate student María Pérez Ferreiro, short-term scholar Shayan Salehian, Ph.D. rotation student Hema Kuntrapakam, postdoctoral researcher Supreet Kaur, postdoctoral researcher Surya Marjit, master's student Read More [...]

  • Will It Slip or Will It Grip: Scientists Ask, “What Is Snail Mucus?”

    A new study breaks down the complex structure of snail mucus and identifies novel proteins. What is snail mucus? That was the question posed by researchers in a new study that examines the molecular composition of snail mucus. When analyzing the mucus of a common garden snail, they found it contained a complex collection of Read More [...]

  • ‘Crushing’ chemical innovations at the heart of newly expanded NSF center

    Scientists to reveal the atomic-level workings inside the crushing and grinding of mechanical chemistry, with the potential to scale up their advances to make chemical manufacturing more sustainable and cost-effective. [...]

  • Pulling Water Out of Dry Air

    ASRC Nanoscience Initiative professor Xi Chen has received a prestigious National Science Foundation Early Career Award—one of the agency’s most competitive grants. The five-year, $538,547 in funding will support Chen and his research team’s work to advance the field of hygroscience—an emerging area of research that seeks to harness the power of water evaporation for Read More [...]

  • Mark Hauber to Lead the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center

    New York, NY, July 20,2023 — The City University of New York Graduate Center is pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Hauber as the executive director of its Advanced Science Research Center (CUNY ASRC). Established in 2014, the CUNY ASRC is a world-class STEM research and education institution dedicated to interdisciplinary science that addresses Read More [...]

  • A Novel Method for Squeezing Molecules Together Could Significantly Reduce Chemical Manufacturing Waste and Its Negative Environmental Impacts

    Using nanotechnology, scientists have used mechanochemistry to develop a scalable, sustainable technique that would be more energy- and cost-efficient than current chemical manufacturing methods. NEW YORK, June 8, 2023 — The production of chemicals accounts for 40% of all energy currently used in manufacturing, and the process also results in toxic solvent waste that pollutes Read More [...]