Sir Fraser Stoddart, the recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, has been admitted to the Australian Academy of Science as a Corresponding Member for his outstanding contributions to science.
The Academy welcomed 22 Fellows and two Corresponding Members, a special category within the fellowship. According to the Academy, the Fellows are “among the nation’s most distinguished scientists, elected by their peers for ground-breaking research and contributions that have had a clear impact.”
Stoddart, of the Department of Chemistry, won the 2016 Nobel Prize for designing and producing molecular machines. The discovery came about after Stoddart synthesized a ring molecule called “roxatane” in 1991. The ring slides back and forth along a dumbbell-shaped axle, called a molecular shuttle, much like a bead slides back and forth on an abacus. Because of roxatane, Stoddart managed to develop a molecular lift, a molecular muscle and a molecule-based computer chip.
In the future, molecular machines could be used in the development of new materials, sensors and energy storage systems.
Stoddart attended the University of Edinburgh, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1964, a PhD in 1966 and a Doctor of Science in 1980. He went on to collaborate with Jean-Pierre Sauvage of the University of Strasbourg and Bernard Feringa of the University of Groningen, the chemists with whom he shares his Nobel Prize.
Read more about Sir Fraser Stoddart here. Read more about the 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry here.