A professor at the University of Nottingham has been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Professor Sir Fraser Stoddart was one of three scientists to be jointly awarded the prize after helping to develop machines that are a thousand times thinner than a strand of human hair.
The other two winners were Jean-Pierre Sauvage and Bernard Feringa.
Professor Stoddart was appointed as an honorary professor in chemistry at the university in August 2015 and has been involved in nanoscience and supramolecular chemistry.
That team at the university was responsible for sending the Queen a birthday message etched onto the strand of a corgi dog’s hair.
Fraser’s imagination is as alive as ever
David Amabilino joined the university in 2014 and worked in Professor Stoddart and Professor Sauvage’s group in the 1990s.
He said: “It was a time of tremendous excitement because they were coming up with highly inventive challenges that captured the imagination of the people working with them.
“It has been pointed out that they live chemistry fully and this passion and sense of fun has driven them and inspired their co-workers to make incredible things that actually perform as designed.”
Mr Amabilino is ‘thrilled’ that it’s this area of chemistry in particular that won the Nobel Prize.
He said: “Fraser’s imagination is as alive as ever now and on his visits to Nottingham as part of his Honorary Professorship; he is able to inspire young and old to use chemistry to do new things.
“Nanoscience and supramolecular chemistry are thriving in Nottingham and this news emphasises the excitement in our research community.”
