Rising from refugee roots to Nobel laureateーNHK WORLD-JAPAN NEWS
Among the attendees, Omar Yagi who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry along with Kitagawasumu and Richard Robson. Yagi who was born in Jordan to a Palestinian refugee family told NHK his childhood story could inspire hope. So I did take the call and it was very very exciting and they informed me that they were awarding Moffs the Nobel Prize and that I would share it with Suzumu and Robson and I said that’s absolutely thrilling and I’m delighted. It’s really wonderful. Moths or metal organic frameworks are key components in his research. He developed a pioneering form of molecular architecture in which metal ions and carbon-based molecules are organized into moths, highly porous spongelike structures. Moffs can be used to capture toxic gases and even harvest water from desert air. He’s now working to create new moths, including those that can harvest water from air, reacting to day and night temperature changes. During the night, you could expose the material to to air. It takes up water from the air. And during the day when it’s hot, water will come out and we can condense it and make liquid water. My experience as a as a boy in that arid part of the world immediately came to me and I realized well this could be a water harvesting material. I want to see every person on our planet achieve water independence. Yagi grew up in Aman in Jordan with many siblings. His father owned a butcher shop and the children slept in the same space as the livestock. All 10 of us kids lived with uh with in a room that also had cows. Half of the room was cows and that cow feed and the other half is where we where we lived. The water in um in Jordan at the time came once or once every week or once every two weeks and only for a few hours. Everybody rushed to the uh to to their faucets to turn on the water so that we can fill the reservoirs. Yagi was sent to the United States at the age of 15 by his father for better educational opportunities. I took all my my family savings to come to the US. So I had no choice but to work hard. There was no time to play. I had tremendous determination to do well in school to try to earn as much as I can and as soon as I started earning any money I started sending back to Jordan because I felt indebted to my family. Yagi met his Japanese co-reient Kitagawa Susumu when he was in his 30s. The encounter further motivated his scientific pursuits. When I met him, I was very impressed by how forceful he was. Science thrives on critique and differences. So, we always um critique each other’s work, but we kept our civility and we liked each other. I thought he was a wonderful wonderful person. um to Yagi says winning the Nobel Prize together with his longtime friend Kitagawa is more than a great joy. I think that we developed a great field. It’s very gratifying that our work is being recognized on a global scale with a global highly respected award. the ultimate recognition that a a scientist achieves. I think it’s great that I had the chance to take this journey with him. Overcoming challenges is never an easy thing, but this scientist’s experience and legacy are sure to give hope to many around the world. Nobel potential exists everywhere in the world under in every country. Regardless of your political uh beliefs or religious beliefs, it exists in every part of society. No matter who you are, you have the ability to discover and uh you have the ability to experiment, to experiment, to do things that other people are not doing. And this experimentation may result in a discovery and that discovery may change the world.
Born to a Palestinian refugee family, Omar Yahgi has become one of three winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for ground-breaking work in MOFs, or metal-organic frameworks.
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