Sir James Fraser Stoddart, honorary doctor of the University of Twente, has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry together with Dutchman Ben Feringa and Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sauvage for their research on molecular motors.
The synthetic molecular motor was invented by Feringa in 1999.
The British Professor James Fraser Stoddart was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Twente at the end of 2006. These honorary degrees are awarded as part of the university’s Dies Natalis celebrations to honour leading academics. Stoddart worked with Professor of Chemistry David Reinhoudt, who is the former scientific director of MESA+.
KATSONIS AND KUDERNAC
Nobel Prize winner Ben Feringa also has a link with Twente. Current University of Twente researchers Prof. Nathalie Katsonis (Biomolecular Nanotechnology) and Dr Tibor Kudernac (Molecular Nanofabrication) worked with Feringa in Groningen on the molecular motors that the Nobel Prize has been awarded for.
A few years ago, Tibor Kudernac was the first author of an article on the electric nano car in the renowned scientific journal Nature. Both Katsonis’ and Kudernac’s work was shown by the president of the Nobel Committee when the winners of the prize were announced.
