STOCKHOLM – Nobel Chemistry laureate Dr Omar Yaghi, born to Palestinian refugee parents in Jordan, paid an emotional tribute to science as humanity’s “greatest equalising force” after being awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Dr Yaghi, a Jordanian-American scientist, shares this year’s honour with Japan’s Dr Susumu Kitagawa and UK-born Dr Richard Robson for their pioneering work on metal, organic frameworks (MOFs) , molecular structures with vital uses including carbon dioxide capture and harvesting water from desert air.
Growing up in a modest home in Amman, Jordan, Yaghi’s early life was marked by hardship. “We were a dozen of us in one small room, sharing it with the cattle we used to raise,” he told the Nobel Foundation. With no electricity or running water, and parents with limited education, his path to global recognition was far from easy. Born in 1965, Yaghi’s fascination with science began at age 10 when he sneaked into his school’s locked library and stumbled upon a book filled with complex molecular diagrams. Those “unintelligible but captivating images” ignited a lifelong passion that later took him to the United States at the age of 15, following his father’s advice.
Calling science “the greatest equalising force in the world,” Yaghi urged that “smart, talented, and skilled people exist everywhere” and should be empowered through opportunity. His groundbreaking research in Arizona demonstrated how science can turn imagination into impact, his team successfully extracted water from desert air using the very frameworks he helped invent.“When I began my independent career at Arizona State University, my dream was to publish one paper that would receive 100 citations,” he reflected. “Now my students say our group has surpassed 250,000 citations.”Celebrating decades of discovery, Yaghi said, “The beauty of chemistry is that if you control matter at the atomic and molecular level, the potential is immense. We opened a gold mine in that way, and the field grew.”