Boston-based startup Metalmark Innovations was co-founded by three IMASC researchers, post-doctoral alumni Drs. Tanya and Elijah Shirman, and active Senior Investigator Prof. Joanna Aizenberg, along with Metalmark CEO Sissi Liu. The company is commercializing a nanostructured material platform that was developed in the Aizenberg lab at Harvard. The technology, known as Raspberry Colloid Templated (RCT) materials, is a highly porous and stable nanostructured architecture, which was originally inspired by the nano-scale design of the scales on Butterfly wings, such as the beautiful Metalmark family of butterflies.Metalmark Innovations, which happens to be looking to hire material scientists and chemical engineering experts, has found a way to produce these amazing materials at industrial scale. The number of applications for this technology is huge, but Metalmark has chosen to focus first on the demonstrated ability of their materials to efficiently decompose air pollutants, which cause more than 8 million deaths annually. At IMASC, various modifications of RCT catalysts are studied to address a different problem – the improvement of challenging industrial-scale chemical synthesis reactions. Fundamental knowledge and proof-of-concept that were provided by the many IMASC papers, which relied on these materials, confirmed the incredible potential of this new catalyst. For more information, visit Metalmark’s web page https://www.metalmark.xyz/, or contact contact@metalmark.xyz.