Omar Yaghi, from a One-Room Home in Jordan to the Nobel Prize: Brain Drain from the USA to China

Omar Yaghi was born in 1965 in Amman, Jordan's capital, into a family displaced in 1948 and seeking refuge in Jordan — a Palestinian refugee family . His family was extremely poor: ten to twelve siblings in a single room — shared with the animals that provided the family's livelihood. There was no electricity or regular water supply. Water reached the neighborhood only once every week or two, for a few hours ; unless young Omar rose at dawn and opened the taps, the family — and the cow they kept — would go thirsty.

This scene matters because it is precisely where Yaghi's life would circle back forty years later. A child growing up amid water scarcity would go on to invent materials that harvest water from the air . But first, the moment that changed his life had to arrive.

At the age of ten, he entered a library in Amman and opened a book. Inside were "ball-and-stick" molecular drawings he had never seen before. He did not know what they were, but their beauty instantly captivated him. Years later, he would describe that moment as "as if I had discovered something nobody had seen before." Only much later did he learn that these were "the molecules that make up our world."

He also learned something while working in his father's shop in Amman: either do a job correctly and completely, or do not do it at all. When he was fifteen, his father sent him to the USA to build his future. He spoke almost no English. He began at a community college (Hudson Valley), moved to Albany (SUNY) to complete his chemistry degree, then earned his doctorate at the University of Illinois. "I didn't like classes," he says, "but I was in love with the laboratory." What really drew him was knowledge itself — like the inexhaustible curiosity we see in the stories of our own Aziz Sancar or Marie Curie .

In the 1990s, Yaghi and his students succeeded in combining metals with organic molecules to build highly porous, crystalline hybrid materials . This was considered impossible at the time, but Yaghi succeeded and gave rise to an entirely new field called reticular chemistry . The resulting materials are called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) .

These materials consist mostly of "empty space," making them both very light and surprisingly large in surface area. A porous piece the size of a sugar cube can have an internal surface area as large as a football field. This enormous "inner room" can be designed to capture specific molecules: water vapor in the air, carbon dioxide, toxic gases, even pharmaceutical residues or "forever chemicals" (PFAS) in the environment. Tens of thousands of different MOFs have been produced to date; their uses include harvesting water from the air even in the desert (as though answering the water scarcity of Yaghi's childhood), carbon capture, gas storage, catalysis and drug delivery in the body .

This work was crowned with the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; Yaghi shared the prize with Susumu Kitagawa and Richard Robson. He learned the news when his phone began ringing after he landed at Frankfurt Airport from San Francisco. "You cannot prepare for a moment like this," he said. "The feeling is indescribable."

Today, Yaghi is one of the world's most highly cited chemists. But his influence extends beyond the laboratory. Through the Berkeley Global Science Institute , in countries including Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Argentina, Malaysia and Indonesia, he established research centers and mentored young researchers. In his words: "There are intelligent, talented people everywhere; the task is to unlock their potential by giving them opportunities." The lesson he drew from his own story was that science should be "without borders."

This is where his move to China in 2026 takes on meaning. It came amid cuts to science budgets and restrictions on international collaboration in the USA, while China (and countries such as France) sought to attract international talent through generous programs. A country that had been the "destination" for brain drain for decades was now saying goodbye to one of its own brightest minds.

The real lesson is that brain drain is not the "fate of a developing country." Nor is the flow of talent a fixed hierarchy drawn in advance. Talent goes wherever there is stable funding, a free and secure research environment, vision and institutional support . This is about how much a country values science, rather than how rich it is.

For us, this is both a warning and an opportunity. The warning is clear: no center is permanent; even the strongest country will eventually lose its appeal if it condemns researchers to uncertain funding and pressure. The opportunity is just as real: any place that can establish the right conditions — even with a small budget — can become a magnet. Indeed, the stories of our own scientists making a difference abroad say the same thing: talent emerges everywhere; the task is to create an environment that can retain and nurture it.

Perhaps the strongest reminder is Yaghi's own beginning: a single room in Amman shared with animals. A mind that shaped the history of science emerged from there. The heroes who shaped science share precisely this, do they not — extraordinary journeys born from seemingly impossible beginnings?

Brain drain is the story of science's geography, rather than a single country. That geography is being redrawn much faster than we imagine. Our task is to take seriously the question "what keeps people here, and what might attract them here?" rather than lament "whom have we lost?" The next Yaghi may be a child somewhere in the world right now, looking in wonder at a book opened in a library.

Editor's note: This is an informational article intended to inspire, recounting a scientist's life story and contributions to science. The biographical information and quotations presented were compiled from primary and reliable sources and adapted into Turkish while avoiding direct quotation. Interpretations of scientific discoveries and personal journeys belong to the article; consult the sources for details.