Luigi Sacconi Memorial Lecture 2025
The Luigi Sacconi Memorial Lecture 2025 was held on January 13, 2026, featuring a lecture by Prof. Rinaldo Poli entitled “Combining Precision Polymer Synthesis and Coordination Chemistry for Innovative Aqueous Biphasic Catalysis.”
The annual Memorial Lecture honors the intellectual legacy of Luigi Sacconi, celebrating his contribution to academic research. The 2025 edition continued this tradition by offering an opportunity for reflection and discussion on themes of high relevance to the academic and scientific community.
In his lecture, Prof. Poli explored how the integration of precision polymer synthesis with coordination chemistry can open new perspectives in aqueous biphasic catalysis, highlighting innovative approaches and potential applications. His presentation stimulated a lively discussion among faculty members, researchers, students, and invited guests.
The Luigi Sacconi Memorial Lecture remains a key event in the institution’s academic calendar, reaffirming its commitment to promoting scientific excellence, interdisciplinary dialogue, and the advancement of knowledge.
Nobel Prize to Omar Yaghi: The Sacconi Foundation welcomes the announcement!
In 2004, the Sacconi Medal was awarded to Omar Yaghi (UC Berkeley), who a few days ago was chosen as the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Susumu Kitagawa (Kyoto University) and Richard Robson (University of Melbourne).
At the time of the Sacconi Medal award, Omar Yaghi, born in 1965, was a young American professor of Jordanian origin teaching at the University of Michigan. Despite his young age, the Board of Directors of the Sacconi Foundation and the Division of Inorganic Chemistry at the SCI, led by Ivano Bertini and Felice Faraone, respectively, were strongly motivated to award the prestigious prize to this young American scientist, who, since several years, had distinguished himself for his original research on "reticular chemistry", focused on the synthesis of highly organized and highly porous metal-organic molecular structures, commonly known as MOFs (Metal-Organic Frameworks).
The porous materials synthesized by Yaghi using innovative methodologies have subsequently led to the synthesis of a myriad of fantastic molecules, which constitute one of the most advanced frontiers of modern coordination chemistry and, more generally, of solid-state inorganic chemistry. The compounds synthesised by Yaghi, who in the meantime had moved to California, first to Los Angeles (2006-2011) and then, since 2012, to Berkeley, have found important applications, especially in the storage of small gaseous molecules for energy purposes (H2, CH4), in the development of technologies for the abatement of climate-altering gases such as carbon dioxide, and in numerous other sectors, ranging from catalysis to environmental protection and medicine. Yaghi's MOFs already find important industrial applications, such as the creation of devices for the absorption of water from air in highly arid environments.
As Board members of the Sacconi Foundation, the awarding of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Omar Yaghi makes us particularly proud of the choice we made over 20 years ago, when we selected a promising young researcher to bestow our most prestigious scientific recognition, which stands out on his curriculum vitae as one of the first assigned major international awards among the many he received during his exceptional scientific career.
Maurizio Peruzzini, Lucia Banci, Claudio Luchinat, Fabrizio Mani, Giacomo Parigi;
President and Board members of the Sacconi Foundation
2004: Ivano Bertini awards the Sacconi Medal to Omar Yaghi
Omar Yaghi between Ivano Bertini and Maurizio Peruzzini after the award giving ceremony