Mattiq

In the early 1990s, a team of scientists developed a technology that completely transformed the way researchers study genes. The invention enabled the simultaneous study of thousands of DNA samples, freeing researchers from having to analyze each sample individually. Almost a decade later, inspired by that invention, Northwestern University chemist Chad Mirkin and his group developed a method that enabled them to synthesize and characterize millions of new nanomaterials on a small chip in an afternoon. This technology became the base on which Mirkin and colleague Andrey Ivankin cofounded Mattiq in 2020. The Chicago-based company’s aim is to generate billions of nanomaterials to train artificial intelligence models that can suggest materials needed in any industry. One day, a researcher will be able to simply ask the refined model to identify the best material for a specific need. “We want to become the ChatGPT of the nanomaterials industry,” Ivankin says. “We want to design materials regardless of your application,” he adds, “whether it is a new magnetic medium for data storage or a new material for building fusion reactors.” Ivankin immigrated to the US from Siberia in 2005 to pursue a PhD in chemical and biological engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He became a postdoctoral fellow at Northeastern University before moving to Mirkin’s laboratory in 2015 as a research and development fellow. Within a year, Mirkin and Ivankin had cofounded TERA-print, a company that provides nanofabrication services based on beam pen lithography, another invention from the Mirkin lab. The lithography method enables the team to