Jean Fréchet, PhD

Dr. Fréchet is the Henry Rapoport Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. He has active research programs in life and materials sciences at both University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Fréchet was born in France and received his first university degrees in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Institut de Chimie et Physique Industrielles in Lyon, France, before coming to the United States for graduate studies in organic and polymer chemistry at the State University of New York, College of Forestry, and Syracuse University. He joined the Chemistry Faculty at the University of Ottawa in Canada in 1973 and remained there until 1987 when he became IBM Professor of Polymer Chemistry at Cornell University. In 1995, he was named to the Peter J. Debye Chair of Chemistry at Cornell University. In 1997, Jean Fréchet joined the Chemistry Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley and was named the Henry Rapoport Chair of Organic Chemistry in 2003. In addition he is a principal investigator in the Materials Science Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and is Director of the Organic and Macromolecular Facility for the Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

He has authored over 600 scientific papers and holds over 60 United States patents. His research at the interface of organic and polymer chemistry is in the broad area of nanoscience and nanotechnology, and is directed towards functional macromolecules, their design, synthesis, and applications. Current topics include new synthetic approaches to macromolecules with controlled architecture, engineered polymer systems and molecular machines, the design synthesis, and applications of dendritic and other functional polymers, novel imaging materials for nanoscale lithography, energy harvesting and conversion, catalysis with dendrimers as enzyme mimics, polymers in separation and molecular recognition, combinatorial approaches to new materials, biosensing, and functional macromolecules in targeted drug, vaccine, and DNA delivery.

In addition to his many other awards, Dr. Fréchet was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, elected Member National Academy of Engineering, elected Fellow of the American Academy of Art and Sciences, and elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has further worked closely with materials and biomedical start-up companies, several of which are now publicly traded companies. Dr. Fréchet is also a Venture Partner at NGEN Partners, a materials and cleantech focused venture fund.