Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa, winners of the 2016 Nobel prize in chemistry. Photograph: Nobel Prize
Professor Jeremy Sanders congratulated his 'old friends', chemists Jean Pierre Sauvage, Sir Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Feringa on their Nobel prize in chemistry for developing molecular machines.
Jeremy said of the trio: "This is wonderful recognition for fundamental science that may still be decades from tangible practical applications. I have known all three winners for most of my career, and regard them all as friends. Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Fraser Stoddart and Ben Feringa have, in complementary ways, opened up a whole new world of multi-component molecules that can change their shape and properties in response to a stimulus such as light. They have the potential to become true nanomachines, capable of doing work on a tiny scale."
He added: "Supramolecular chemistry, the field that Professor Chris Hunter and I work in, along with this year’s Nobel Prize winners, is unusually friendly and cooperative: unlike many areas. We swap, share and connect each others’ components to build new systems. Back in the 90s we built half a molecule in Cambridge and sent it to Fraser (then in Los Angeles) to be incorporated into a bigger system. And earlier, in the 80s, when Fraser was in Sheffield and then in Birmingham, we would do PhD vivas for each other. We have also sent students and postdocs to work in each others labs."