Sir Fraser Stoddart, professor of chemistry at Northwestern University

Sir Fraser Stoddart, professor of chemistry at Northwestern University, has already been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his research on chemically driven nano-motors, so a Nobel Prize wasn’t out of the question.

Nonetheless, when Stoddart received the 4 a.m. phone call from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Nobel Committee, “at first I thought it was a hoax,” Stoddart said in a press release. “Then I recognized the Swedish-accented English and realized [winning the Nobel Prize] was for real.”

Stoddart is credited with nano-technology breakthroughs that allow objects at the molecular level to perform tasks when energy is added. In 1991, Stoddart created a “rotaxane. He threaded a molecular ring onto a thin molecular axle and demonstrated that the ring was able to move along the axle,” according to the academy’s statement.

A new field of chemistry, the study of mechanical bonds in chemical compounds, was sparked after discoveries by Stoddart and his fellow award winners, Jean-Paul Sauvage, University of Strasbourg, France and Bernard L. Feringa, University of Groningen, the Netherlands.

“We are as tight as thieves,” Stoddart said of his colleagues. The three will share a $930,000 prize.

The research started by Stoddart, Sauvage and Feringa has led to “a molecular lift, a molecular muscle and a molecule-based computer chip,” the academy’s statement said. These discoveries have “taken chemistry into a new dimension,” the academy said.

Mechanical bonding of molecules, along with classical covalent and non-covalent bonding has opened up a way for scientists to create tiny molecular motors, such as tiny nano-valves that control the delivery of drugs in the bloodstreams of cancer patients. Tiny nano-switches used in molecular electronics have been used in “the densest of memory [computer] chips in a device that can hold the Declaration of Independence but is only the size of a white blood cell,” according to a statement from the university.

Stoddart was raised in Scotland and received his Ph.D. from University of Edinburgh. He joined the Northwestern faculty in 2008 after almost a decade developing nanotechnology in University of California at Los Angeles, where he was director of the California NanoSystems Institute.

In 2007, The Sunday Times wrote that Stoddart “is to nanotechnology what J.K Rowling is to children’s literature,” according to the press statement.

Northwestern President Morton Shapiro called Stoddart a “pioneer in the fields of chemistry and integrated nanosystems and a member of an outstanding chemistry department.”

Stoddard praised his colleagues in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

“Northwestern is a special place where everyone does science in a collaborative way. It happens seamlessly here,” he said. “It is well-known we hunt in packs.”

Stoddard was appointed as a Knight Bachelor in Queen Elizabeth II’s “New Year’s Honours List” in 2007. In a town hall video released by the university, Stoddart recalled that the queen noticed when the British Lord Chamberlain used the incorrect word “nanotology.”

“When we were face to face, she said, ‘Oh, he got that wrong, didn’t he?’ I said, ‘He certainly did, your majesty. “

“’Well, what should it be then, nanotechnology?’”

“’Yes, Ma’am.’”

“’It’s about very small things, isn’t it?’” she asked. Stoddard said he very quickly agreed with her.

This is the second Nobel Prize for a member of Northwestern’s chemistry department of chemistry and the 10th Nobel for the university.

— Northwestern professor took chemistry to ‘new dimension’ to win Nobel Prize  —