R&D 100

Hip fractures remain one of the most serious consequences of falls among older adults, often triggering a cascade of mobility loss and health complications. Researchers at Hong Kong’s Nano and Advanced Materials Institute (NAMI) developed NuHip to address both the protection gap and the comfort barriers that have limited adoption of traditional hip protectors. NuHip…

Rare earths are everywhere in the news. The technology to turn them into usable alloys? That’s been stuck in the 19th century: energy-intensive, emissions-heavy and dependent on hazardous fluoride salts. Gadolyn’s D-DIRECT platform takes a different approach: single-pass oxide reduction, no carbon-based reductants, water as the byproduct. The 2025 R&D 100 Award recognizes what that…

PHC Corporation of North America’s LiCellMo live cell metabolic analyzer earned a 2025 R&D 100 Award for its ability to continuously monitor cellular metabolism in real time. At the R&D 100 gala in Scottsdale, I had the chance to speak with Derek Sokolowski, Project Manager for Cell Culture at PHC Corporation of North America, about…

As climate change pushes disease-carrying mosquitoes and ticks into new territories, public health officials face a challenge: how do you prepare for outbreaks in places that have never seen them? Los Alamos National Laboratory developed the EpiEarth platform, which earned a Gold Medal Special Recognition Award for Corporate Social Responsibility. “Most models before this focused…

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Stanford University say they have built a two-photon lithography system that could push 3D nanofabrication toward manufacturing scale, boosting throughput by more than 1,000 times compared with commercial tools while maintaining minimum feature sizes of 113 nanometers. Two-photon lithography uses ultrafast laser pulses to harden material only at…

The 2025 R&D 100 Awards Gala was a celebration of the people and teams behind this year’s most impactful innovations. Winning an R&D 100 Award is a significant milestone for researchers and engineers, and the evening reflected the pride, dedication, and creativity that drive scientific progress. We were honored to recognize breakthroughs from individuals and…

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratory won an R&D 100 award for their project “Bleeding Materials and Enclosures,” a tamper-indicating container made of colorful water beads sealed with epoxy, creating an enclosure. Upon contact with oxygen, the beads turn black in an irreversible chemical reaction, indicating that someone tampered with the enclosure. The project was designed…

Scientists from The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA) have developed a method to turn fruit and beverage waste into a leather-like material and a biocellulose (BC) fiber that can be used for textiles. Saving the environment The team was inspired by the environmental effects of traditional cellulose fibers. Cotton, for example,…

The 3 mm Multi-Nuclear Inverse (MNI) CryoProbe is a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) detector “combining the highest sensitivity and versatility,” according to the R&D 100 2025 team at Bruker who developed it.  The Ultra-Sensitive 3 mm MNI CryoProbe Scientists working in discovery and development were having difficulties characterizing lead compounds and their related substances considering…

Among the winners of the R&D 100 in 2025 is Abbott’s Liberta RC DBS System, a deep brain stimulation device for treating Parkinson’s disease, the second-most common neurodegenerative disorder in the U.S., with approximately 500,000 Americans suffering from the disease. Some experts estimate that, due to underdiagnosis, the number may be closer to one million.…

Axalta Coating Systems’ new Fast Cure Low Energy Collision Repair Paint system won an R&D 100 Award this year in the Mechanical/Materials category. The new system, a surfacer and clearcoat for repainting damaged vehicles, reduces energy consumption by up to 49% and cuts cycle times by 50% compared to conventional systems, according to Axalta. This…

As distributed energy resources proliferate across the electric grid, the cyber-attack surface for cyber threats expands, and those digital intrusions can trigger consequences in the real world. Legacy monitoring tools still operate in silos, with one platform watching network traffic and another tracking voltage and frequency, leaving utilities blind to events that straddle both domains.…

EpiEarth predicts the number of disease cases, disease risk and the impact of mitigations on potential epidemics. The software can predict on a day, season or decadal timescale, giving officials the necessary time to plan. The modular design enables the substitution of different models, diseases or vector species, making EpiEarth generalizable across vector-borne diseases that…

A team from Sandia National Laboratories received an R&D 100 award for their Fentanyl Analog Independent Detection (FAID) system. With the portable chemical sensor, the team aims to aid frontline personnel, including first responders and law enforcement, in the detection of fentanyl analogs.  Fentanyl analogs are alterations of fentanyl that are often more deadly than…

Oak Ridge National Laboratory was named on 20 of the 2025 R&D 100 Awards, 17 as lead developer and three as co-developer.  The showing sets a new record for the lab, accounting for about one-fifth of all winners. Since the 1980s, ORNL has won more than 260 R&D 100 Awards Our sister publication engineering.com recently…

Richard Tapper, an Associate Research Specialist at Dow and the 2025 R&D Technician of the Year, sums up his test philosophy in visceral terms: “I work on fire-retardant materials, and when I approach a test, I am considering that this cable is on fire in my house. So, I am going to view the test…

“Science shouldn’t necessarily be impacted by a lot of outside factors, geopolitical, economic factors, but the reality is that it will be,” said Thomas Lograsso, director of the Critical Materials Innovation Hub at Ames National Laboratory and the 2025 R&D Leader of the Year. Lograsso has been with Ames Laboratory since 2007, also serving as…

The official 2025 R&D 100 Awards have been announced by R&D World. This worldwide science and innovation competition, now in its 63rd year, received entries from organizations around the world. This year’s judging panel included industry professionals from across the globe who evaluated breakthrough innovations in technology and science. The Winners are listed below by…

Winners unveiled for 2025 R&D 100 Special Recognition categories Medalists are listed below by category. Each entry shows the primary submitting organization followed by any co-developing organizations. The Medalists in the 2025 R&D 100 Awards Special Recognition categories have been announced by R&D World. This year’s esteemed judging panel included 54 well-respected industry professionals from…

A total of 158 Finalists for the 2025 R&D 100 Awards have been announced by R&D World. Now in its 63rd year, this renowned global science and innovation competition drew entries from 13 countries/regions. This year’s esteemed judging panel featured 54 respected industry professionals from across the globe. The Finalists are listed below by category,…

From finalists spanning more than one dozen countries, our 54-member international judging panel has identified breakthrough innovations tackling some of today’s most pressing challenges. Among them are an AI-powered cancer diagnostics platform that can detect tumors months earlier than conventional methods, novel quantum computing architectures, and sustainable materials that fully biodegrade in about a month. This…

This year’s iteration of the esteemed R&D 100 Awards features a judging panel comprised of 54 professionals from across the globe, who boast an impressive collection of accomplishments and honors. Finalists in this year’s 63rd R&D 100 Awards will be announced on August 13th at rdworldonline.com. Winners of this year’s R&D 100 Awards, along with…

For Joshua New, Ph.D., distinguished R&D staff member at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and R&D World’s 2024 Researcher of the Year, innovation starts with a core instinct: “I do my level best to never lay my hand to an object or process without asking — how can this be made better?”…

The 2025 R&D 100 Awards are open for nominations as of today, March 5th, 2025. The submission platform is once again available at: https://rd100.secure-platform.com/a The official Call for Nominations (in PDF format) can be downloaded here — or by clicking on the image at right. This year’s competition is the 63rd. The R&D 100 Awards is…

The official Call for Nominations for the 2025 R&D 100 Awards has been released. Click here — or on the image at right — to download a PDF of the Call for Nominations. This year’s competition, the 63rd, will open for submissions on March 5th, 2025. The R&D 100 Awards is the only science and…