NSF Funding for Caltech-Led "Cloud Laboratory" Leverages AI to Explore Chemical Dark Matter: A Conversation with Hosea Nelson

Caltech chemistry professor Hosea Nelson (PhD ‘13) has his eyes on a big goal: He wants to know the three-dimensional (3D) structure of all the molecules found in the natural world. No one knows exactly how many structures that entails, but certainly, he says, it is at least millions. Those unknown structures make up what Nelson and others calls “chemical dark matter.” Just as astrophysicists and cosmologists believe dark matter is thought to make up a high percentage of all the matter in the universe, Nelson says molecules without solved structures are thought to make up the majority of natur