LK-99 has been in development for longer, 24 years, if you believe a quote copied in many current articles and below. You may have heard before, "it takes years of work to become an overnight success..."
> Lee & Kim had been working on the material on and off since Kim was in graduate school in 1999 (LK-99 geddit?). Lee never makes tenure and is still stuck as an adjunct professor 19 years later. Kim goes off to work in battery materials for a decade plus. 2018 - they get funding from industry for another go at it.
Assuming it's all true what I like about their story is that they've basically been doing a guided brute force of candidates rather than to just sit around and theorize they got their hands dirty in a way that really impresses me.
> Lee & Kim had been working on the material on and off since Kim was in graduate school in 1999 (LK-99 geddit?). Lee never makes tenure and is still stuck as an adjunct professor 19 years later. Kim goes off to work in battery materials for a decade plus. 2018 - they get funding from industry for another go at it.