The Autumn Lecture 2017 was held at the University of Glasgow on Monday 9th October in the Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre and was delivered by 2016 Nobel Prize-winner for Chemistry, Sir J Fraser Stoddart on The Rise and Promise of Molecular Machines Based on the Mechanical Bond. Many thanks to Prof. Stoddart for his inspirational talk.
Sir James Fraser Stoddart shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016 together with Ben Feringa and Jean-Pierre Sauvage for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.
Sir Fraser Stoddart FRS FRSE FRSC (born 24 May 1942) is a Scottish-born American chemist who is Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry and Head of the Stoddart Mechanostereochemistry Group in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University in the United States. He works in the area of supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology. Stoddart has developed highly efficient syntheses of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures such as molecular Borromean rings, catenanes and rotaxanes utilizing molecular recognition and molecular self-assembly processes. He has demonstrated that these topologies can be employed as molecular switches. His group has even applied these structures in the fabrication of nanoelectronic devices and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). His efforts have been recognized by numerous awards including the 2007 King Faisal International Prize in Science.
“His work bridges the gap between chemistry and the scientific and engineering challenges of nanoelectromechanical systems.” (Award Winners, Davy Medal)
“The credit for making molecular machines attractive to chemists goes to Fraser Stoddart … He had the vision to realise that these architectures gave you the possibility of large amplitude-controlled motions, and that that could be the basis of molecular machines.” Professor David A Leigh, University of Manchester.
