A Scottish chemist has become the fourth US-based British scientist to win a Nobel Prize in two days.
Sir Fraser Stoddart was named joint winner of the award for Chemistry in recognition of his work building microscopic machines out of just a few molecules.
The 74-year-old, dubbed the “knight of the nano-realm”, was previously based at the universities of Edinburgh, Sheffield and Birmingham, but moved to the US in 1997.
Yesterday’s announcement follows the naming on Tuesday of David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz as winners of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics, all of whom also conduct their research in America.
Professor Ray Jones, who worked alongside Professors Thouless and Kosterlitz before they left in Britain, said: “I think there must be some regret that two such respected people are no longer in the UK.
“We should be asking ‘why are these people not working in Britain now?’.
“I think they left at a time when universities were not good at spotting or keeping talent.”
Professor Stoddart, now based at Northwestern University in Illinois, conducts research into the creation of molecular devices 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair that nevertheless operate like large-scale machinery.
This includes having rings spinning round axels, components that move to and fro along tracks and elevators platforms that rise and fall.
While future applications of the nanotech devices still remain largely in the realm of science fiction, uses could include tiny medical devices that circulate through the bloodstream cleaning arteries, delivering drugs or performing microsurgery.
Professor Stoddart, who shared the award with Jean-Pierre Sauvage from the University of Strasbourg and Bernard Feringa from the University of Groningen, said he was “overawed and in a state of shock” at winning the prize,
He revealed that he had made an early decision in his career to avoid the traditional side of chemistry.
“I was never in any way drawn to chemistry by bangs and smells,” he said.
Image: The scientist raises a glass to his win Credit: Scott Olson /Getty
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