Lutz | Chemistry of Informational Macromolecules

Jean-François Lutz is a research director at the CNRS, head of the Laboratory of Chemistry of Informational Macromolecules (LCIM) and the director of ISIS since January 2024.

Dr Lutz is a specialist in macromolecular chemistry, working mainly in the field of sequence-controlled polymers. His recent work focuses on the development of synthetic polymers for storing digital information. He is also studying the use of these polymers in xenobiology. He is the author of more than 200 scientific publications and has twice been awarded with the European Research Council (ERC). Since 2015, he has been included in the Institute for Scientific Information's (ISI) Highly Cited Researchers ranking of the world's most influential researchers.

He received his PhD in chemistry at the University of Montpellier and then worked as a post-doc in Professor Krzysztof Matyjaszewski's laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. From 2003 to 2010, he worked as a researcher for the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in Potsdam, Germany, before being recruited as Director of Research at CNRS in 2010. From 2010 to 2022, he led the Precision Macromolecular Chemistry team at the Institut Charles Sadron in Strasbourg. In December 2022, he joined the Institut de science et d'ingénierie supramoléculaires to lead the Chemistry of Informational Macromolecules team. Since January 2021, he has been Editor of the journal Progress in Polymer Science, and has held the position of Editor-in-Chief since January 2022.

He received the CNRS Silver Medal in 2018 and the Prix Langevin of the French Academy of Sciences in 2024.

• 2022          Senior Distinguished Member, French chemical society
• 2021          Talent Prize, Fond’Action
• 2019          Elected Member, Société Philomatique de Paris
• 2018          Silver Medal of the CNRS
• 2018          Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate Analytics)
• 2017          Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate Analytics)
• 2016          Highly Cited Researcher (Thomson Reuters)
• 2015          Highly Cited Researcher (Thomson Reuters)
• 2010          Laureate of the European Research Council (ERC)
• 2008          Prize of the polymer division of the French Chemical Society (Prix SFC/GFP)