Updated 05 October, 2016 06:34 am
Stockholm
The Nobel prize in Chemistry was jointly attributed this Wednesday to three researchers. The French Jean–Pierre Sauvage, the british Fraser Stoddart and the Dutch Bernard Feringa, parents of the tiny “molecular machines” that prefigure the nanorrobots of the future.
The three honorees “have led to the molecular systems toward states where, because of the energy, can be controlled their movements,” explained the jury of the Nobel peace prize.
“The molecular motor is now in the same phase, the electric motor in the 1830s, when scientists exhibited cranks and wheels, without knowing that it would lead to electric trains, washing machines, fans, and mixers”, added the group responsible for granting the recognition.
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Jean–Pierre Sauvage, of 71 years, a professor at the university of Strasbourg (east of France), is the first to have imagined these “nanomachines”, to be presented as a “molecular assembly capable of getting moving in a controlled manner in response to signals different: light, temperature change, among others.”
“Such systems exist, very numerous, in living cells and are involved in all important biological processes,” said the academic in 2008.
On the origin of their discovery, join two molecules in a ring form to form a chain, called “catenano”.
This experience was later developed by Fraser Stoddart, 74 years old, a professor at Northwestern University (Usa), who created a “rotaxane”, by threading a ring molecular on a fine axis of the molecule and showed that the ring could move along the axis.
This discovery enabled him to create a lift and a muscle molecular.
as a child, Fraser Stoddart grew up on the family farm in Scotland. “Had No television or computer. He was having fun doing ‘puzzles’, thus developing an essential quality for a chemist to: recognize the shapes and to train yourself to put them together,” recalled the Royal Academy of Sciences, which presents the award.
Stoddart dreamed then of being a “artist-molecular”, he adds.
Bernard Feringa, 65, a professor at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), is the first to have developed a “molecular motor”, which allowed him to create a “nanovehículo” with four-wheel drive.
Questioned on direct by the Swedish Academy, said “having the impression of being a bit like the Wright brothers, who flew (by plane) for the first time 100 years ago. The people said: why do we need flying machines? And now we have the Boeing 747 and the Airbus”.
“If you think of the materials that we can create today thanks to chemistry, our ability to introduce dynamic functions and to build machines, or produce materials that can change their function, then the possibilities are endless,” he said.
Utility
According to the jury Nobel prize “for molecular machines will be very likely used in the development of objects, such as new materials, sensors and energy storage systems”.
The creation of computers, molecular, that would allow to store and process information at the molecular level, or robots to microscopic able to fulfil a variety of functions in medicine or everyday life, are among the potential applications of these machines.
The prize to the scientists is 832.000 euro.
The last year, this award was given to Aziz Sancar (Turkey/Usa), Paul Modrich (united States), and Tomas Lindahl (Sweden) for his research on DNA repair.
The prize in Chemistry is the last of the Nobel scientists to be announced.
on Tuesday, the british David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz were awarded the Physics for their research on the states “exotic” matter, which in the future might help create quantum computers.
READ: Nobel Prize in Physics to three british for research on ‘exotic’
While the Nobel prize in Medicine was awarded Monday to japanese Yoshinori Ohsumi, for his studies on cell regeneration.
see ALSO: Nobel prize in Medicine awards prize discovery about how cells digest their own waste
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