Jean-Pierre Sauvage

University of Strasbourg

Working for most of his career within the CNRS at the University of Strasbourg, where he is now Emeritus Professor, the French coordination chemist Jean-Pierre Sauvage turned a long-standing synthetic dream into a practical method and, in doing so, helped launch the field of molecular machines. His foundational contribution came in 1983, when his group devised an efficient, metal-templated route to catenanes — molecules made of two or more interlocking rings joined not by a chemical bond but by a mechanical, topological link. That work was recognized with a shared 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded with Sir Fraser Stoddart and Ben Feringa for the design and synthesis of molecular machines. By using a copper ion to gather and orient the molecular fragments before closing the rings, he turned what had been a near-impossible synthesis into a reliable method, and this template approach opened the door to a whole family of mechanically interlocked molecules, including rotaxanes. Because the interlocked components can move relative to one another without breaking covalent bonds, these structures became the essential building blocks of molecular machines: Sauvage went on to build molecular systems whose parts could be set in controlled motion by chemical or electrochemical signals, including a rudimentary molecular muscle that contracts and extends. His earlier work on photochemistry and electron transfer in metal complexes also connects to research on solar-energy conversion and molecular electronics.