Sauvage, Jean-Pierre

Sauvage, Jean-Pierre, 1944–, French chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Strasbourg, 1971. He has spent his entire career as a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research and a professor at the Univ. of Strasbourg. Sauvage shared the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Fraser Stoddart and Bernard Feringa “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.” In 1983, Sauvage produced the first breakthrough in the human effort to mimic the molecular machines found in nature when he produced two ring-shaped molecules linked by a mechanical, rather than chemical, bond. The easily manipulated bond was the first step in the development of these nanoscale devices that have potential applications in areas including computing and energy storage. See also micromechanics.

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