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Northwestern University professor among 3 Nobel Prize winners in chemistry

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Northwestern University professor Fraser Stoddart was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday.

The British-born Stoddart, 74, who lives in Evanston, was one of three scientists awarded the prize. The three, including Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sauvage and Dutch scientist Bernard “Ben” Feringa won for developing minuscule machines at the molecular level.

“This is a tremendous honor for Professor Stoddart and Northwestern University,” Northwestern President Morton Schapiro said of the Chicago-area university in a statement. “Fraser is a pioneer in the fields of chemistry and integrated nanosystems and a member of an outstanding chemistry department.”

The laureates share the $930,000 prize for the “design and synthesis” of molecular machines with controllable movements, which can perform a task when energy is added, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

The academy said molecular machines “will most likely be used in the development of things such as new materials, sensors and energy storage systems.”

Sauvage, 71, is professor emeritus at the University of Strasbourg and director of research emeritus at France’s National Center for Scientific Research. His wife, reached by telephone, was choking back tears.

Feringa, 65, is a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

The academy said Sauvage made the first breakthrough in 1983 when he linked two ring-shaped molecules together to form a chain.

Stoddart took the next step in 1991 by threading a molecular ring onto a molecular axle, while Feringa was the first to develop a molecular motor in 1999 when he got a molecular rotor blade to spin in the same direction.

This is the second Nobel Prize winner from Northwestern’s department of chemistry. The late John A. Pople received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday, and the economics and literature awards will be announced next week. The Nobel Prizes will be handed out at ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on Dec. 10.

Associated Press