That's a wrap
That’s the end of our live coverage on the Nobel prize in chemistry. A recap for any latecomers: the award went to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Feringa for their work on molecular machines - nanoscale structures that could find applications in areas ranging from drug delivery to smart materials and even artificial life. There’s more detail if you head over to our news story.
With all three science prizes unveiled, it’s the end of Nobel season for another year on the science desk. But that is far from the end of the news from Stockholm, with the peace prize due to be announced on Friday and the economics prize to be announced on Monday. Do join the Guardian team for live coverage then.
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Rienk Eelkema, assistant professor at Delft University of Technology got his PhD under Bernard “Ben” Feringa. He describes Feringa as enormously enthusiastic:
[He’s] very ambitious in that he always wants his group to work at the same (or higher) level as world-leading groups in his topics. He would typically frame this in football terms: ‘we should compete in the Champions League’ or something to that effect. This would create an atmosphere where people had the feeling they were doing something interesting and important, and that there was a sense of urgency - in a good, motivating way.”
Eelkema says that molecular machines could prove pivotal for future technology.
If we ever want to make robots that work at the nanoscale, or want to create completely artificial life, then we will need machines that can move or rotate or transport something.”
While the exact systems created by the winning trio, Eelkema adds, are unlikely to do the trick, their work he says, has laid the foundations for the field. “In that respect it is truly groundbreaking science,” he said.
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Pierre Sauvage has been speaking to the French TV channel iTele. He called it a memorable moment and a big surprise.
I have won many prizes, but the Nobel Prize is something very special, it’s the most prestigious prize, the one most scientists don’t even dare to dream of in their wildest dreams.
Mark Miodownik, a materials engineer at UCL, has more thoughts on the future for molecular machinery. He said a lot of things we admire about natural organisms comes down to the molecular machinery inside their cells. It allows tissues to change shape, and organisms to think and heal themselves. “We’ve not been able to do that with our materials,” he says. Not yet, at least.
If you compare a city with a forest, a forest is constantly changing, repairing, moving and growing. If you want infrastructure that looks after itself - and I think we do - I’m pretty sure we’re going to be moving towards self-healing systems. This is the hope for a lot of us. We’ll have plastic pipes that can repair themselves or a bridge that when it gets cracked has these machines that rebuild the bridge at a microscopic scale. It’s just beginning. The potential is really immense.
The next stage, which will take many steps over many decades, is for the basic science of molecular machines to be transformed into applications and put to good use. As Miodownik says:
This is like the invention of a lock and a key. It probably didn’t change the world very much when it came along. But people started getting really enthused by them. They were just the beginning. Once people got the hang of rotating cogs, you got into proper machinery that was really useful. This is the equivalent moment. You need an influx of talent into the area to make these simple tools into something more complex that does address real human needs.
"I feel a bit like the Wright brothers"
In a telephone interview with the Nobel committee this morning, Bernard Feringa touched on the future possibilities for molecular machines:
I feel a little bit like the Wright brothers who were flying 100 years ago for the first time and people were saying why do we need a flying machine? And now we have the Boeing 747 and the Airbus. This is a bit how I feel. The opportunities are great because if you think what kinds of materials we can make these days with the chemistry and when you are able to introduce dynamic function, there is endless opportunity. We will build smart materials in the future, that is a big opportunity, materials that will adapt themselves, that will have properties that can change because they pick up a signal. You can think of nanoscale energy converters, tiny machines that can store energy and can use that energy. It opens up a whole new world of nanomachines.
The three winners of the Nobel prize in chemistry will split the award equally, with each having played a different role in the development of molecular machines.
Kicking off the field in the early 1980s, Jean-Pierre Sauvage found a very nifty way to create two interlocking rings - a so-called “catenane”. It was a crucial step - here you have a system that is linked, but its two rings are not locked in place, instead they can move.
Fraser Stoddard also developed an innovative new kind of system- a rotaxane. These large molecules look a bit like dumbbells, with a ring sitting around the middle. As with the catenane, this ring is not fixed - it can move along the length of the dumbbell and what’s more, this movement can be controlled. The discovery led to a suite of molecular devices, from molecular lifts to switches and even a “molecular muscle”.
Bernard Feringa pushed the concept in new directions, embracing the idea of molecular motors. As well as the nanocar already mentioned, he has created but a whole range of molecular devices including a molecular gearbox.
Fraser Stoddart’s daughter, Alison, is also a chemist. Speaking to the Associated Press by phone from Cambridge, she said she was called by her father this morning and that he was “absolutely ecstatic, absolutely delighted.”
“He was a little bit in shock, obviously early in the morning (in Chicago). He was very happy about the people he won the prize with,” she said.
In the comment thread, TonyBuckley05 recalls the late 1980s and his time as secretary on the organic chemistry subcommittee of SERC, the UK’s now defunct Science and Engineering Research Council.
Fraser Stoddart’s grant proposals were always thought a bit ‘way out’ by the mainstream synthetic chemists; I don’t think we ever gave him a grant. Then when I looked after the Molecular Electronics committee, a conversation with him revealed that he had - accidentally - produced a simple molecular switch, when one of his postgrads left a flask of chemicals on the bench while he went home for the weekend, and when he returned it didn’t contain what he expected*. But he had the vision to realise what had happened. That was, I think, the start of the work which has just got him the Nobel prize.
There are, if you think about it, lots of messages of the ‘believe in your vision’ sort in this. I’m sure you can work some out if you have the inclination. But well done to Fraser Stoddart.
* I think that’s the story, but it was 25ish years ago and memory is a fallible thing.
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Stuart Cantrill, chief editor at Nature Chemistry, got his PhD under Fraser. He said his head was spinning from the news. But he still managed to pull together some great thoughts on the prize:
I did always wonder if the lack of tangible real-world applications of these systems would mean that prizes such as this wouldn’t come, but I’m absolutely thrilled that they have! I’m a strong believer in fundamental research and I just love the fact that it is possible to design and create molecular-level machines that can, in some way, mimic their macroscopic counterparts. They don’t work in the same way – the forces at the nanoscale are different to those that prevail in the macroscopic world – but, even to this day, it amazes me how it is possible to weave one molecular component through another to make an incredibly tiny and intricate device.
This year’s winning research isn’t just about the tiny machines themselves - it also celebrates a feat of molecular architecture. To create these molecular systems, the winners have pioneered elegant and sophisticated ways of bringing smaller molecules together in just the right way.
That is no small feat.
Imagine trying to build a lego castle in the dark with boxing gloves and you’ll get the idea of how hard it can be to link up the components to create a molecular machine.
Nobel laureate Bernard Feringa says he will be celebrating the win with his team of students and postdocs, but doesn’t appear to have decided what he will be spending the prize money on yet...
Anyone who isn’t sure just how cool this chemistry is might want to check out the molecular car created by Feringa’s group in 2011...It had four-wheel drive.
Fraser Stoddart was born in Edinburgh but his family moved to a village to become tenant farmers when he was six months old. When he went off to primary school, he shared a class with only four other students. “I learned to knit because the other four children were girls,” he says.
The idea of molecular machines has been around for a while - the late, great, Richard Feynman championed the idea in 1959 in his lecture There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom, saying that:
When we get to the very, very small world ... we have a lot of new things that would happen that represent completely new opportunities for design ... At the atomic level we have new kinds of forces and new kinds of possibilities, new kinds of effects.”
Interestingly, Feynman didn’t seem to think a molecular car was likely to be on the cards. “What would be the utility of such machines? Who knows? Of course, a small automobile would only be useful for the mites to drive around in ...” he said.
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Ever wondered what a molecular car looks like?
A reporter has asked about Feringa’s worst nightmares for the technology. Remember the grey goo scenario that Eric Drexler worried about so much? It doesn’t sound like Feringa is too concerned.
“We have to think about how we can handle these things safely, but I’m not so worried about that ... We will have the opportunity to build in safety devices if that is needed,” he says.
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Those who lament that the Nobel prize in chemistry rarely goes to true chemists can hardly complain today. This is fundamental science - but it has a number of future applications, from smart materials to drug delivery.
This year’s winners have scooped the Nobel prize in chemistry for their work on molecular machines: controllable, nanometre-sized structures that can convert chemical energy into mechanical forces and motion. It’s nifty stuff that has allowed chemists to construct a host of molecular devices, from switches to motors.
This year has been great for Scottish scientists. Sir Fraser Stoddart was born in Edinburgh in 1942. Two of the physics prize winners announced yesterday, Michael Kosterlitz and David Thouless, were born in Scotland. Of course all of them now work in America, or did while they were still active researchers.
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Since today’s prize is all about chemistry (sing along all you Semisonic fans) it’s worth noting that Alfred Nobel was himself a chemist and engineer who became famous for inventing dynamite. He was, however, rather accident-prone: in 1864 five people, including his Nobel’s brother Emil, were killed in a blast at the Nobel factory while in 1868 an explosion in the nitroglycerine factory killed 14, and another in 1874 killed eight. And that is before the deaths from use of the explosives in war is considered.
And the winners are...
BREAKING NEWS 2016 #NobelPrize in Chemistry to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa pic.twitter.com/buInkIc1KC
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2016
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In many ways the chemistry prize is THE Nobel prize. Alfred was, of course, an extremely competent chemist. Where would we be without TNT? On reflection, it is probably thanks to Nobel that parents around the world are reluctant to buy their children chemistry sets for fear of them levelling the house. In 1864, a shed at one of Nobel’s factories exploded while making nitroglycerin.
The assembled media at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm have just been told the announcement will be made on time - not a given considering the delays that have held matters up in previous years. Remember when Peter Higgs went awol in 2013? They had a right old time trying to get hold of him. So good news: we shall know the winner of the chemistry prize in about 10 minutes.
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My overriding hope this morning is that whatever science wins the chemistry prize, the underlying principles are not explained through the medium of pastries.
Only one scientist has ever won the Nobel prize in chemistry twice: the British biochemist Frederick Sanger, who shared it in 1958 and 1980. When asked to reveal his secret, he said:
The first thing is to get a prize, and [it] is much more difficult to get the first prize than to get the second one. Because if you have already got a prize then you can get facilities for work and you can get collaborators and everything is much easier.”
Once given, the Nobel prize cannot be taken back. But there must have been times when the committee has wondered if it should reconsider. In 1918, Fritz Haber won the chemistry prize for making ammonia from its constituent gases, nitrogen and hydrogen. The undoubtedly brilliant Haber made possible the manufacture of vast amounts of fertiliser. It was used on a mass scale and brought about huge increases in crop yields. The impact on public health was dramatic. But then World War I broke out and Haber changed direction. He began work on chemical weapons. His poisonous gas was first used in an attack at Ypres in 1915.
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A little more trivia for you:
A grand total of 171 individuals have won the Nobel prize in chemistry since 1901 - but only four women have received the award: Marie Curie, Irène Joliot-Curie, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin and Ada Yonath.
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Other contenders for this year’s Nobel prize in chemistry include John B. Goodenough, Akira Yoshino and M. Stanley Whittingham for their work on lithium-ion batteries - technology that is now used in our myriad electronic devices.
Also in the running is the large team of scientists who completed the seventh row of the periodic table with four new elements: nihonium (Nh), moscovium (Mc), tennessine (Ts) and oganesson (Og).
Perhaps surprisingly, even though the creator of the periodic table, Dmitri Mendeleev, lived until 1907, he never scooped a Nobel prize for his work.
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It seems Crispr-Cas9 is also a favourite of Thomson Reuters for this year’s chemistry prize - every year they draw up a list of the research that has made the biggest splash, based on citations of the work.
Besides Crispr, the company has suggested that the prize could be scooped by researchers who worked on methods to detect foetal DNA in maternal blood, or scientists who discovered that certain large molecules can build up and be retained in tumours more than in normal tissues. The former offers a non-invasive approach to testing the foetus for various conditions, while the latter has proved valuable in cancer research and drug delivery.
Chop and change
One of the biggest advances that could scoop the Nobel prize in chemistry is the discovery and development of a new tool for genetic modification, known as Crispr-Cas9. Acting a bit like a pair of molecular scissors, the tool enables scientists to cut sections of DNA with high accuracy, and even replace them with other sections of DNA.
Crispr has dominated the headlines with its potential to open up new territory for genetic research, from correcting genetic disorders to understanding why some pregnancies fail.
Hardly a year goes by without the Nobel prizes sparking some controversy or other. One of the worst cases in the history of the chemistry prize came in 2008 when three scientists won for their work on green fluorescent protein, or GFP. First extracted from jellyfish, the protein is now used in labs around the world to trace gene expression in modified tissues. While the three winners all experienced a boost to their academic careers, Douglas Prasher, the man who kickstarted the field, was left out. He ended up driving a shuttle bus. The Nobel rule of three is frankly not fit for the world of modern science.
It was a different story for Donald Cram, a carpet cleaner. In 1987, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences called to inform him he had won the Nobel prize in chemistry. He thought it was a prank call - as you would - and put the phone down. But they called back and insisted. Eventually, the mix up was resolved and the committee found the right number for Donald Cram, the molecular chemist at the University of California in Los Angeles.
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What's in a name?
While the officials gather their notes, it’s worth taking a look back at discoveries that have previously won scientists the prize in chemistry.
It’s an eclectic mix, encompassing fields as diverse as cellular biology, nuclear physics and even agriculture: in 1945 Artturi Virtanen won the award for his work on preserving animal fodder.
In other words, today’s prize is something of a wild-card, and could well offer up a surprise, not just to the scientific community, but to the researcher(s) who wins.
As Ernest Rutherford put it at the Nobel banquet after winning the prize in chemistry for his work on radioactivity. “I have dealt with many different transformations with various periods of time, but the quickest that I have met was my own transformation in one moment from a physicist to a chemist.”
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And we're off!
Welcome to day three of the 2016 Nobel Prizes.
After a trio of British scientists scooped the prize for physics yesterday, all eyes turn this morning to the runners and riders for this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.
We’re expecting the announcement at 10.45am UK time, so do join us for the live declaration, explanations of the research, and reaction from the winners and a host of figures from the world of science.
