Ben Feringa

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Ben Feringa (2015)

Bernard Lucas "Ben" Feringa (born May 18, 1951 in Barger-Compascuum, municipality of Emmen ) is a Dutch chemist ( organic chemistry , molecular nanotechnology ). In 2016, together with Jean-Pierre Sauvage and Fraser Stoddart, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “the design and synthesis of molecular machines ”.

Life

Feringa was born as the son of the farmer Geert Feringa (1918-1993) and his wife Lies Feringa nee. Hake (1924–2013) was born. Feringa grew up as the second of ten siblings in a Catholic family. He spent his youth on the family farm, which lies directly on the border with Germany, in Barger-Compascuum in the Bourtanger Moor . He is of Dutch and German descent. The moor pioneer Johann Gerhard Bekel is one of his ancestors . Together with his wife Betty Feringa geb. Bootsma he has three daughters. He lives in Paterswolde near Groningen .

Feringa studied chemistry at the University of Groningen . There he obtained his doctoral examination in 1974 (corresponding to a diploma or master’s degree) and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1978 with Hans Wijnberg with a thesis on asymmetric phenol oxidation. PhD . He then conducted research at Shell in the Netherlands and Great Britain before becoming a lecturer in Groningen in 1984. He has been Professor of Organic Chemistry there since 1988 . In 2008 he became Academy Professor at the Dutch Academy of Sciences . He is Jacobus H. van't Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences and Director of the Center for Systems Chemistry.

He was visiting professor in Leuven , Santiago de Compostela , Potenza and at the University of Colorado .

Synthetic molecular motor by Feringa and co-workers

Feringa deals with organic synthesis, stereochemistry , asymmetric catalysis ( enantioselective catalysis , that is, it distinguishes between a molecule and the optical isomer ), supramolecular chemistry and nanosciences (synthesis of molecular switches and synthetic molecular motors , self-assembly of molecular nanosystems). In 1999 he achieved a much-noticed breakthrough with the development of a light-driven molecular motor. This was also the first synthetic molecular motor (at the same time T. Ross Kelly published a different approach for an artificial molecular motor in Nature, which, however, worked much more restrictedly than that of Feringa). Molecular motors occur naturally in muscle cells or in the flagellum of bacteria, for example .

In 2004 he received the Spinoza Prize , the Paracelsus Prize in 2008 , the Prelog Prize in 2005 , the James Flack Norris Award in 2007 , the Chirality Medal in 2009, the Marie Curie Medal of the Polish Chemical Society in 2013 and the Körber with Martin Möller and others in 2003 - European Science Award for a Light Powered Molecular Motor. He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and its vice-president. In 2008 he became a knight and in 2016 commander of the Order of the Dutch Lions . In 2012 he received the Humboldt Research Award , and in 2014 he gave the Theodor Förster Memorial Lecture . In 2016 he received the August Wilhelm von Hofmann Memorial Coin , the Tetrahedron Prize and, together with Jean-Pierre Sauvage and Fraser Stoddart, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry , the Centenary Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2017 and the first European Chemistry Gold Medal in 2018 the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences . In 2019 an asteroid was named after him: (12655) Benferinga . He has been a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2004 , a full member of the Academia Europaea since 2010 and a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences and a member of the Leopoldina National Academy of Sciences in 2019 . In 2020, Feringa was elected to the Royal Society as a foreign member .

He is editor of Chemistry World and co-founder of SelAct (contract research in chemistry).

Fonts

  • SP Fletcher, F. Dumur, MM Pollard, BL Feringa: A Reversible, Unidirectional Molecular Rotary Motor Driven by Chemical Energy. In: Science . Volume 310, 2005, pp. 80-82, doi: 10.1126 / science.1117090 .
  • Ben L. Feringa, Nagatoshi Koumura, Robert WJ Zijlstra, Richard A. Van Delden, Noboyuki Harada: Light-driven monodirectional molecular rotor. In: Nature . Volume 401, 199, p. 152.
  • Javier Vicario, Martin Walko, Auke Meetsma, Ben L. Feringa: Fine Tuning of the Rotary Motion by Structural Modification in Light-Driven Unidirectional Molecular Motors. In: Journal of the American Chemical Society . Volume 128, 2006, pp. 5127-5135, doi: 10.1021 / ja058303m .
  • Javier Vicario, Auke Meetsma, Ben L. Feringa: Controlling the speed of rotation in molecular motors. Dramatic acceleration of the rotary motion by structural modification. In: Chemical Communications . 2005, pp. 5910-5912, doi: 10.1039 / B507264F .

Web links

Commons : Ben Feringa  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Overlijdensbericht Maria Elizabeth (Lies) Feringa-Hake . Dagblad van het Noorden , August 12, 2013, accessed October 6, 2016 (Dutch).
  2. ^ Family van Nobelprijswinnaar zag dit niet aankomen . RTV Drenthe, October 5, 2016, accessed on October 7, 2016 (Dutch).
  3. ↑ Matthias Bollmer: The ancestors of Nobel Prize laureate Ben Feringa , in: Emsländische and Bentheimer genealogy. September / November 2017. Issue 141/142, Volume 28, published by the Working Group on Family Research in the Emsland Landscape, Meppen 2017, pp. 206–217.
  4. ↑ Ancestors of Bernard Feringa Emsländer. Nobel laureates with roots in Emsland Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung , October 7, 2016, accessed on November 3, 2016.
  5. ^ Profile of Ben Feringa . Royal Society of Chemistry , December 16, 2002, accessed October 7, 2016.
  6. ↑ Ben L. Feringa, Nagatoshi Koumura, Robert WJ Zijlstra, Richard A. van Delden, Nobuyuki Harada: Light-driven monodirectional molecular rotor . In: Nature . tape 401 , no. 6749 , 1999, pp. 152-155 , doi : 10.1038 / 43646 .
  7. ↑ First European Chemistry Gold Medal awarded to Prof. Ben Feringa , March 6, 2018, last accessed on May 6, 2018.
  8. ^ Membership directory: Ben L. Feringa. Academia Europaea, accessed October 20, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Feringa, Ben
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Feringa, Bernard Lucas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch chemist (organic chemistry, molecular nanotechnology)
DATE OF BIRTH May 18, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Barger-Compascuum, municipality of Emmen