This article appeared in Catalyst Magazine, Spring 2025
The carbon nanotubes Associate Professor Markita Landry has developed over the last decade are exceptionally strong, chemically versatile, and capable of near-infrared fluorescence—properties that make them invaluable in diverse scientific applications. In the last year, Landry received four prestigious awards, each recognizing a different facet of her wide-ranging research. From revolutionizing plant bioengineering to developing neurochemical probes and reproductive medicine diagnostics, Landry's work exemplifies the power of nanotechnology in solving scientific challenges.
"When I launched my lab at Berkeley in 2016, one of the most important things I wanted to do was to not only make advances for the sake of chemistry alone, but for pushing adjacent fields forward," says Landry. "Much of our work has focused on developing tools for problems where no existing solutions were available."
A New Lens on Brain Chemistry: The Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists
In September, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences named Landry a Blavatnik Laureate in Chemical Sciences, one of the highest honors for early-career researchers in the U.S. The recognition, which carries a $250,000 unrestricted scientific prize, recognized Landry's work developing neurochemical probes that allow scientists to visualize brain chemistry with unprecedented precision.
Until recently, chemical signals in the brain—such as dopamine and oxytocin— were invisible at the spatial and temporal scales at which neurons communicate. Landry's lab created a library of carbon nanotube probes that emit near-infrared fluorescent signals when interacting with specific neurochemicals, allowing real-time imaging of brain chemistry at an unprecedented scale. They are using the probes to study how signaling goes awry in autism spectrum disorder, addiction, and neurodegenerative diseases.
"It's really exciting in the last few years to begin using all the tools we've built to start looking at the contributions of neurochemical signaling to disease," says Landry.
Advancing Crop Bioengineering: The CITRIS Innovation Fellowship
Traditional methods of genetically modifying plants are costly and timeintensive, often taking more than a decade. But nanoparticles developed by Landry's lab can carry genetic material or proteins through plant cell walls, enabling more efficient, rapid genetic engineering of plants. This research, carried out with plant scientists developing climateresilient crops, won Landry the inaugural CITRIS Innovation Fellowship from The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society.
"Plants have evolved mechanisms to avoid getting their reproductive tissues infected by viruses and bacteria, and this means that typical genetic engineering tools that use viruses for delivering material don't work in these cells," Landry explains. "But with our methods, germline editing might be possible."
The CITRIS Fellowship provides $200,000 plus support from the CITRIS Foundry Incubator and Academic Innovation Catalyst to commercialize innovations.
Innovating in Reproductive Medicine: The Heising-Simons Faculty Fellowship
Landry was one of two Berkeley faculty named 2024 Heising-Simons Faculty Fellows and will receive $1 million over five years to support research on biomarkers predicting fertility and miscarriage risk in women pregnant through IVF.
In preliminary work, Landry took a library of carbon nanotubes that could interact with molecules in the blood of IVF patients, changing their fluorescent signatures for tracking. Using machine learning, she and colleagues identified patterns in these signatures associated with who will experience a miscarriage. The results suggest biomarkers in the blood preceded pregnancy loss.
"We don't yet know what biomarkers are driving that difference in signal, but it could allow us to think about ways to optimize IVF to avoid the loss of embryos," says Landry.
Recognizing contributions to chemistry: The Guggenheim Fellowship
Landry was also awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, which is a prestigious grant awarded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional creative ability or scholarship in the arts, humanities, and sciences. The fellowship provides financial support, allowing recipients fully unrestricted freedom to pursue independent projects in their respective fields.