Jean-Pierre Sauvage (; born 21 October 1944) is a French coordination chemist working at

Strasbourg University The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. The French university traces its history to th ...

. He graduated from the National School of Chemistry of Strasbourg (now known as ECPM Strasbourg), in 1967. He has specialized in supramolecular chemistry for which he has been awarded the 2016

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along with Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and

Bernard L. Feringa Bernard Lucas Feringa (, born 18 May 1951) is a Dutch synthetic organic chemist, specializing in molecular nanotechnology and homogeneous catalysis. He is the Jacobus van 't Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences, at the Strating ...

Biography

Sauvage was born in Paris in 1944, and earned his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

degree from the

Université Louis-Pasteur Louis Pasteur University (''Université Louis-Pasteur''), also known as Strasbourg I or ULP was a large university in Strasbourg, Alsace, France. As of 15 January 2007, there were 18,847 students enrolled at the university, including around 3, ...

under the supervision of Jean-Marie Lehn, himself a 1987 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. During his doctoral work, he contributed to the first syntheses of the cryptand ligands. After postdoctoral research with Malcolm L. H. Green, he returned to

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label= Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label= Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the ...

, where he is now emeritus professor. Sauvage's scientific work has focused on creating molecules that mimic the functions of machines by changing their conformation in response to an external signal. His Nobel Prize work was done in 1983, when he was the first to synthesize a catenane, a complex of two interlocking ring-shaped molecules, which were bonded mechanically rather than chemically. Because these two rings can move relative to each other, the Nobel Prize cited this as a vital initial effort towards making molecular machine. The other two recipients of the prize followed up by later creating a rotaxane and a molecular rotor. Other research includes electrochemical reduction of CO₂ and models of the photosynthetic reaction center. A large theme of his work is molecular

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ...

, specifically

mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures In chemistry, mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures (MIMAs) are molecules that are connected as a consequence of their topology. This connection of molecules is analogous to keys on a keychain loop. The keys are not directly connect ...

. He has described syntheses of catenanes and molecular knots based on coordination complexes. He was elected a correspondent member of the French Academy of Sciences on 26 March 1990, and became a member on 24 November 1997. He is currently emeritus professor at the University of Strasbourg (Unistra). He shared the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines" with Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and

. He was elected a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in April 2019. , Sauvage has an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as ...

of 109 according to

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and of 100 according to

Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top- ...

References

External links

*
A Chem Soc Rev themed issue
dedicated to Professor Jean-Pierre Sauvage on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Include
The master of Chemical Topology
accessed 13 October 2016. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sauvage, Jean-Pierre 1944 births Living people Scientists from Paris 20th-century French chemists 21st-century French chemists French nanotechnologists Members of the French Academy of Sciences Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Nobel laureates in Chemistry University of Strasbourg faculty French Nobel laureates Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences