Wenbin Lin (University of Chicago, Chicago, IL) is the James Franck Professor of Chemistry and a member of the Department of Radiation and Cellular Oncology at the University of Chicago. He specializes in materials chemistry, with research focused on the design of functional molecular materials — particularly metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and nanoscale coordination polymers — for applications in sustainable catalysis, renewable energy, and nanomedicine.

He received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China (1988) and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1994), followed by an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship at Northwestern University. Before joining the University of Chicago in 2013, he rose through the ranks at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was named Kenan Distinguished Professor.

Dr. Lin’s group has pioneered nanoscale MOFs and coordination polymers for cancer radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy, with multiple nanotherapeutics licensed to biotech companies and advanced into clinical trials. His work has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Royal Society of Chemistry Horizon Prize (2024), Highly Cited Researcher (2014–2024), AAAS Fellow, and selection among the “Top 100 Chemists” by Thomson Reuters. He has published extensively in high-impact journals such as the Journal of the American Chemical Society.