Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Molecular Machines: Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded for miniaturization
Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Bernard Feringa and Fraser Stoddart
Announcement of Nobel Laureates in Chemistry
Moscow. October 5th. website - The Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2016 was awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Bernard Feringa and Fraser Stoddart with the wording "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines."
Sauvage is a French chemist specializing in supramolecular chemistry. This is the field of chemistry that studies supramolecular structures - ensembles consisting of two or more molecules held together by intermolecular interactions. Sauvage was the first chemist to synthesize a compound from the class of catenanes. The molecules of these substances consist of two rings linked to each other; this type of connection is called topological, specifies site N + 1.
Illustration of the stretching and shrinking structure of a molecular loop
Fraser Stoddart, a Scottish scientist now working in the US, expanded the list of compounds with similar "non-chemical" bonds by synthesizing rotaxane. Rotaxane molecules consist of a long chain, on which a ring is loosely put on. Thanks to two large structures at the ends of the chain, the ring cannot "fall off" from it.
A molecular transfer created by Stoddart that can move along an axis under control
Bernard Feringa, a specialist in the field of molecular nanotechnology and homogeneous catalysis, became the first chemist to develop and synthesize a molecular motor - a molecule that, under the influence of light, underwent structural changes and began to rotate like a windmill blade in a strictly specified direction. In 1999, using molecular motors, the scientist managed to make a glass cylinder rotate 10 thousand times the size of the motors.
An example of a molecular machine with four "wheels"
In 2015, the Nobel Prize winners in the same category were the Swede Thomas Lindahl, who works in the UK, and the American Paul Modric, who conducts research in the United States, and the scientist of Turkish origin, Aziz Sankar. The award was given to them for their research on the mechanisms of DNA repair, a special function of cells that consists in the ability to repair chemical damage and breaks in DNA molecules that occur during normal biosynthesis or as a result of exposure to physical or chemical agents.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 to the Americans Eric Betzig and William Moner and the German Stefan Hell for their contribution to the development of ultra-high resolution fluorescence microscopy.
Earlier this week, the winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine (Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi) and the Nobel Prize in Physics (David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz for topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter) became known.
To date, the only Russian Nobel laureate in chemistry was in 1956 Nikolai Semenov (1896-1986) together with the Englishman Cyril Hinshelwood for research on the mechanism of chemical reactions.
The next Nobel Prize winner, the Peace Prize winner, will be announced on Friday 7 October.
Nobel Prize winners in 2016 will receive 8 million Swedish kronor (about $931,000). The awards ceremony will traditionally take place in Stockholm on December 10, the day of the death of the founder of the Nobel Prizes, the Swedish entrepreneur and inventor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896).
The 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage from the University of Strasbourg (France), Fraser Stoddart from Northwestern University (USA) and Bernard Feringa from the University of Groningen (Netherlands). The prestigious prize was awarded "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines" - individual molecules or molecular complexes that can perform certain movements when energy is supplied from the outside. Further development this area promises breakthroughs in many areas of science and medicine.
The Nobel Committee regularly notes works in which, in addition to scientific value, there is still some additional zest. So, for example, in the discovery of graphene by Game and Novoselov (see Nobel Prize in Physics - 2010, "Elements", 10/11/2010), in addition to the discovery itself and its use to observe the quantum Hall effect at room temperature, there were remarkable technical details: peeling layers of graphite with simple adhesive tape. Shechtman, who discovered quasicrystals, had a history of scientific confrontation with another respected Nobel laureate, Pauling, who stated that "there are no quasicrystals, but there are quasiscientists."
In the field of molecular machines, at first glance, there is no such zest, if we exclude the fact that one of the laureates, Stoddart, has a knighthood (he is not the first). But in fact, there is still an important feature. The synthesis of molecular machines is almost the only area in academic organic chemistry that can be called pure engineering at the molecular level, where people design a molecule from scratch and do not rest until they get it. In nature, of course, there are similar molecules (this is how some proteins are arranged organic cells- myosin, kinesins - or, for example, ribosomes), but people are still far from this level of complexity. Therefore, while molecular machines are the fruit of the human mind from beginning to end, without trying to imitate nature or explain the observed natural phenomena.
So, we are talking about molecules in which one part is able to move relative to the other in a controlled way - as a rule, using some external influences and heat to move. To create such molecules, Sauvage, Stoddard and Feringa came up with different principles.
Sauvage and Stoddard made mechanically linked molecules: catenanes - two or more linked molecular rings rotating relative to each other (Fig. 1), and rotaxanes - compound molecules of two parts, in which one part (ring) can move along the other (straight base ), which has volumetric groups (stoppers) at the edges so that the ring “does not fly off” (Fig. 2).
Using the above concept, a "molecular lift", "molecular muscles", various molecular topological structures of theoretical interest, and even an artificial ribosome capable of synthesizing short proteins very slowly have been created.
Feringa's approach was fundamentally different and very elegant (Fig. 3). In the Feringa molecular motor, the parts of the molecule rotating relative to each other are not linked mechanically, but by a real covalent bond - a carbon-carbon double bond. Rotation of groups around a double bond is impossible without external action. Such an impact can be ultraviolet irradiation: figuratively speaking, ultraviolet selectively breaks one bond into a double one, allowing rotation for a fraction of a second. At the same time, the Feringa molecule is structurally strained in all positions and the double bond is elongated. The molecule, when rotated, follows the least resistance, trying to find the position with the least stress. She fails to do this, but at each stage she turns almost exclusively in one direction.
Such a motor, with minor modifications, was shown in 2014 to be capable of about 12 million revolutions per second (J. Vachon et al., 2014. An ultrafast surface-bound photo-active molecular motor). The most beautiful use of the Feringa motor was demonstrated in the "nano-machine" on a gold substrate (Fig. 4). Four motors, tied in the manner of wheels to a long molecule, rotate in one direction, and the "car" goes forward.
A molecular motor is currently being developed that can be activated with visible light instead of UV. With the help of such a motor, it will be possible to convert solar energy into mechanical energy in a completely unprecedented way - bypassing electricity.
In his most recent work, published in the journal of the American chemical society (JACS), Feringa showed the design of the motor, the speed of which can be controlled by chemical action, as shown in fig. 5. When an effector molecule (metal dichloride - zinc Zn, palladium Pd or platinum Pt) is added to a molecular motor, the latter changes its conformation, which facilitates rotation. Measurements showed that at 20°C, of the three effectors tested, the motor rotates fastest with platinum (at 0.13 Hz), slightly slower with palladium (0.035 Hz) and even slower with zinc (0.009 Hz). The maximum motor speed without effector is 0.0041 Hz. The observed phenomenon was confirmed by quantum mechanical calculations of motor structures with and without effectors. The calculations show how the conformation changes and how much easier the rotation is.
In conclusion, it should be said that molecular motors have not yet found application in Everyday life, but it is almost certainly a matter of time and in the near future we will see their active use.
Sources:
1) The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 - the official announcement of the Nobel Committee.
2) Molecular Machines - detailed overview works of laureates, prepared by the Nobel Committee.
3) Adele Faulkner, Thomas van Leeuwen, Ben L. Feringa, and Sander J. Wezenberg. Allosteric Regulation of the Rotational Speed in a Light-Driven Molecular Motor // Journal of the American Chemical Society. September 26, 2016. V. 138 (41). P. 13597–13603. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6b06467.
Grigory Molev
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 was awarded to scientists Jean-Pierre Savage, Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Fehringe for their work on the synthesis of "molecular machines", the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which is responsible for awarding the award, announced on Wednesday in Stockholm.
Below are the biographies of the winners.
© AP Photo / Catherine Schroder
© AP Photo / Catherine Schroder
In 1971 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Strasbourg (France) under the guidance of renowned chemist Jean-Marie Lehn. Postdoctoral research conducted at the University of Oxford under the direction of chemist Malcolm Green (Malcolm Green).
In 1971-1979 he was a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research of France (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS).
In 1979-2009 - director of scientific research National Center scientific research France.
In 1981-1984 he was a professor at the University of Strasbourg.
In 2009-2010 he was a visiting professor at the University of Zurich.
In 2010-2012, he was a visiting fellow at Northwestern University (Illinois, USA).
From 2009 to the present - Honorary Professor of the University of Strasbourg, Honorary Director of the National Center for Scientific Research of France.
Corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences since 1990, full member of the French Academy of Sciences since 1997.
Jean-Pierre Savage is a pioneer in the field of mechanical interlocking of molecular architectures.
Fraser Stoddart
Fering's research has received a number of awards, including gold medal Pino (Pino Gold Medal) of the Italian Chemical Society (1997), Arun Gutikonda Memorial Award (Guthikonda Award) of Columbia University (2003), Körber European Science Award, 2003, Prize. Arthur C. Cope Late Career Scholars Award of the American Chemical Society (2015), Japanese Yamada-Koga Prize and Nagoya Gold Medal prize (2013) in organic chemistry, etc.
October 5, 2016 Bernard Feringa (together with scientists Jean-Pierre Sauvage and Fraser Stoddart) for their work on the synthesis of molecular mechanisms that can perform directed movements and thus act like real machines.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
The award went to three scientists for revolutionary discoveries
On Wednesday, October 5, in Stockholm, representatives of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the decision to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2016. Three scientists from different countries: Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sauvage from the University of Strasbourg, Scottish-born Sir J. Fraser Stoddart from Northwestern University (Illinois, USA) and Bernard L. Feringa (Bernard L. Feringa) from the University of Groningen (Netherlands).
The wording of the award is: "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines." This year's laureates contributed to the miniaturization of technology, which could revolutionary significance. Sauvage, Stoddart and Feringa not only miniaturized machines, but also gave chemistry a new dimension.
According to a press release from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Professor Jean-Pierre Sauvage took the first step towards a molecular machine in 1983 when he successfully linked two ring-shaped molecules together to form a chain known as a catenane. Usually molecules are connected by strong covalent bonds, in which atoms share electrons, but in this chain they are connected by a looser mechanical bond. For a machine to perform a task, it must be made up of parts that can move relative to each other. Two connected rings fully meet this requirement.
The second step was taken by Fraser Stoddart in 1991 when he developed rotaxane (a kind of molecular structure). He threaded a molecular ring into a thin molecular axis and showed that this ring could move along the axis. Developments such as the molecular lift, the molecular muscle and the molecule-based computer chip are based on rotaxanes.
And Bernard Feringa was the first person to develop a molecular motor. In 1999, he received a molecular rotor blade that constantly rotates in one direction. Using molecular motors, he rotated a glass cylinder that was 10,000 times larger than the motor, and the scientist also developed a nanocar.
Interestingly, the 2016 laureates did not particularly “shine” in the various lists of favorites that appear every year on the eve of the “Nobel Week”.
Among those targeted by the media this year in chemistry are George M. Church and Feng Zhang (both based in the US) for their application of CRISPR-cas9 genome editing in human and mouse cells.
Also on the list of favorites was Hong Kong scientist Dennis Lo (Dennis Lo Yukmin) for his discovery of cell-free intrauterine DNA in mainland plasma, which revolutionized non-invasive prenatal testing.
The names of Japanese scientists were also mentioned - Hiroshi Maeda and Yasuhiro Matsamura (for the discovery of the effect of increased permeability and retention of macromolecular drugs, which is a key discovery for the treatment of cancer).
In some sources, one could come across the name of the chemist Alexander Spokoyny, who was born in Moscow, but after his family moved to America, he lives and works in the USA. He is called the "rising star of chemistry". By the way, Academician Nikolai Semenov became the only Soviet Nobel Prize winner in chemistry in 1956 for his development of the theory of chain reactions. Most of the recipients of this award are scientists from the United States. In second place are German scientists, in third - British.
The Chemistry Prize may well be called "the most Nobel of Nobels." After all, the person who founded this award, Alfred Nobel, was precisely a chemist, and in Periodic system chemical elements next to mendelevium is nobelium.
The decision to award this award is made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. From 1901 (then the Dutchman Jacob Hendrik van't Hoff became the first recipient in the field of chemistry) to 2015, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded 107 times. Unlike similar awards in the field of physics or medicine, it was more often awarded to one laureate (in 63 cases), and not to several at once. At the same time, only four women became laureates in chemistry - among them Marie Curie, who also had the Nobel Prize in Physics, and her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie. the only person Frederik Sanger (1958 and 1980) received the chemical "Nobel" twice.
The youngest recipient was 35-year-old Frederic Joliot, who received the prize in 1935. And the oldest was John B. Fenn, whom the Nobel Prize “caught up” at the age of 85.
Last year Nobel laureates in chemistry were Thomas Lindahl (Great Britain) and two scientists from the USA - Paul Modric and Aziz Sanchar (a native of Turkey). The award was given to them for "mechanical research into DNA repair".
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2016 was awarded to three researchers: Jean-Pierre Sauvage from the University of Strasbourg, James Fraser Stoddart from Northwestern University (USA) and Bernard Fehringe from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) - for the invention of molecular machines.
“Miniature elevators, muscles and engines.
These scientists have created molecules with controlled movements that can do work when energy is applied to them, ”the Nobel Committee said in a statement.
Members of the Nobel Committee during the presentation of the laureates compared the invention of molecular machines with the development of machines in early XIX century, including the later development of electric motors, which became one of the key stages of the industrial revolution. A few minutes later, the Nobel Committee managed to get through to one of the laureates - Bernard Fehringe.
“I didn’t know what to say, it was a big surprise,” Feringa replied to a Swedish journalist’s question about what the scientist’s first words were when he learned about the award. The chemist promised that he would definitely celebrate the award with his team and students.
“It was a big shock, I hardly believed that it worked,” he said when asked by the same journalist about the reaction to the first working molecular machine. The chemist explained that the development of molecular machines will help doctors in the future use microrobots to deliver drugs to the right place in the body, as well as to search for cancer cells and other tasks. He also told how he came up with the idea of creating molecular machines.
Model of Feringa's molecular machine
nobelprize.org“I started by inventing switches — we wanted to create molecular switches that could be switched from state zero to state one using light.
This was the beginning of our nanometer-sized motors, and when you manage to create them, you can already think about further mechanisms for transport and movement, ”Feringa added.
The first step towards the creation of molecular machines was taken back in 1983 by Jean-Pierre Sauvage, when he combined two ring molecules together to form a chain called a catenane.
Normally, molecules are connected by strong covalent bonds, in which atoms exchange electrons, but when they are mechanically linked into a chain, the bond becomes looser.
The next impetus in development was given by the development of rotaxanes by Fraser Stoddart - compounds consisting of a molecular axis and a ring molecule “put on” on it. The scientist showed that this molecule could move along the axis. Based on rotaxanes, Stoddart created a molecular lift, molecular muscles and a molecular computer chip.
Bernard Feringa was the first to develop the molecular motor. In 1999, he made a molecular rotor blade constantly spin in the same direction. Using molecular motors, he was able to turn glass cylinders that were 10,000 times larger than the motor itself, and later designed a "nanocar".
Molecular motors are now at about the same stage of development as electric motors were in the 1830s, when scientists were designing wheels that rotate with levers and had no idea that this would lead to electric trains, washing machines, hair dryers, and food processors.
molecular motor
nobelprize.orgMolecular motors are likely to be used to create new materials, sensors, and energy-saving systems.
Earlier, George Church and Feng Zhang, who managed to edit mouse and human genomes using the CRISPR-Cas9 system, were named the most contenders for the Thomson Reuters Chemistry Prize. This system, initially responsible for the production of acquired immunity in bacteria, turned out to be suitable for genetic engineering.
In addition to them, Dennis Lo, who developed a method for detecting fetal extracellular DNA in the mother's blood plasma, which would help diagnose certain genetic diseases, and Hiroshi Maeda and Yasuhiro Matsumura, who discovered the effect of increased permeability and retention for macromolecular drugs, could count on the award.