JACS Au Outstanding Paper Award 2026

Each year since 2021, JACS Au has appointed an Early Career Advisory Board (ECAB) to provide advice, guidance, and perspectives from emerging independent scholars from across the chemical sciences. In 2022, we introduced a new ECAB initiative called JACS Au ECAB Selects, which highlights favorite papers nominated by our ECAB members throughout their year of service on the board. These papers demonstrate the strength and breadth of the high-quality research published in JACS Au across a wide range of disciplines. At the end of the ECAB’s service year, the ECAB Selects papers make up the pool from which the JACS Au Outstanding Paper is selected by our editorial team. The winner(s) are announced in an Editorial, presented with a certificate, provided a waiver to publish in JACS Au or any ACS Au journal, and highlighted across our website and social media. We are delighted to introduce the winner for 2026.

Read the Winning Paper

This work reports the integration of advanced data science with experimental design in an innovative and powerful approach to generate a diverse library of polycationic diblock amphiphiles for efficient mRNA delivery, which could accelerate development of next-generation gene therapy.