Nordén's research concerns optical Linear dichroism spectroscopy of macroscopically oriented, mainly bio-macromolecular systems.
He has developed novel DNA-binding ligands, such as bis-intercalating compounds and peptide nucleic acids (PNA), and demonstrated DNA-ligand reorganisations between groove-binding and intercalation binding geometries involving extreme activation energies and recognition due to kinetic (in contrast to thermodynamic) selection.
His method “Site Specific Linear Dichroism by Molecular Replacement” methodology applied to DNA complexes with RecA and Rad51 recombination proteins has revealed details of the recombination mechanism and is also applied to study structure of membrane proteins in a true membrane environment.
He was Chairman of the selection committee for the European Science Foundation’s Young Research Investigator Awards 2003-2006; chemistry editor of the Swedish National Encyclopedia, Chairman of the Chemistry Section of the Swedish Research Council 1996-2000.
He is currently Chair of the Nanyang Technological University Research Council (Singapore) and Chair of the board of editors of Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics Nordén is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences since 1991 and was member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry from 1995 to 2004, and the Committee's chairman from 2000 to 2003 and the Academy's Chemistry Section chairman 2004-2009.