Congratulations to Chemistry Professor Ryan Hili for receiving the 2023 Melanie O'Neill Young Investigator Award in Biological Chemistry from the Canadian Society for Chemistry. The award is presented to a scientist residing in Canada who has made a distinguished contribution to biological chemistry while working in Canada.

Hili is the York Research Chair in Molecular Evolution. His research interests focus on using DNA to program and encode the synthesis of molecular libraries ranging from small molecules to synthetic biopolymers. By using the principles of Darwinian evolution, his lab can evolve these molecular libraries for desired function, yielding small molecule drugs to treat human disease or antibody mimetics for use in medical diagnostics.

He is a previous recipient of the Early Researcher Award from the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science, the Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award, and the Thieme Chemistry Journal Award.