Is the US witnessing the start of a brain drain of chemists to China?

The departure of reticular chemistry pioneer Omar Yaghi from the US has made waves around the world. Earlier this month, he left the University of California, Berkeley for China, and what followed was an avalanche of news coverage. Major publications like The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Forbes reported his move, in a rare instance of an academic’s transfer becoming headline news. But Yaghi isn’t just any academic, he won the chemistry Nobel prize last year for co-developing metal–organic frameworks (MOFs).

Yaghi joined Tsinghua University in Beijing in early July, and he will lead the establishment of the new Artificial Intelligence Chemistry and Materials Research Institute at the university that aims to develop forward-looking AI-enabled technologies for materials design and synthesis.