(MENAFN- Brazil-Arab News Agency (ANBA)) Brussels – Born in 1965 in Amman, Jordanian capital, to Palestinian refugees with limited academic background, one of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winners, Omar M. Yaghi, celebrated on Wednesday (8) the power of science to reduce inequalities.

The Jordanian American chemist was awarded on Wednesday alongside Japanese scientist Susumu Kitagawa and Briton Richard Robson for the development of metal-organic frameworks, which have many practical applications, such as extracting water from air, capturing carbon dioxide, or storing toxic gases.

Speaking about his life in an interview with the Nobel Foundation, Yaghi said he grew up in a“large, rowdy family” that shared a single room with cattle they raised.

Their home had no electricity or running water, and his mother could neither read nor write. At the age of 15, on the advice of his stern father, he left to the United States, where he now holds one of his citizenships.

This year's Nobel science awards come shortly after budget cuts implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump, which raised concerns about weakening research in the country.

“Science is a jewel in the crown of our country. We cannot allow that to slip.,” he argued, emphasizing its role not only in innovation but also in promoting equal opportunities.

“Smart people, talented people, skilled people exist everywhere,” Yaghi said.“That's why we really should focus on unleashing their potential through providing them with opportunity.”

He recalls being only 10 years old when he discovered chemistry, after randomly choosing a book from his school library. Upon opening it, he became fascinated by some images that were“unintelligible but captivating”: molecular structures.

The child of refugees told the Nobel Foundation Wednesday that“science is the great equalizing force in the world.”

Yaghi's accomplishments include leading a research group that extracted water from desert air in Arizona, work his students have told him has garnered more than 250,000 citations.

He began his studies at the Arizona State University, and his research group managed to extract water from the desert air of Arizona. He currently works at the University of California, Berkeley.

“The beauty of chemistry is that if you learn how to control matter on the atomic and molecular level, well, the potential is great. We opened a gold mine in that way”, Yaghi added.

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Translated by Guilherme Miranda

©Nicolas Tucat/AFP

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