Procter and Gamble Honorary Seminar in Chemistry
On Thursday October 26, 2006 the UMass Chemistry Department will be hosting its annual Procter and Gamble Seminar, which is generously sponsored by the Procter and Gamble Company. This year’s speaker is Nobel Prize Winner, Professor Jean-Marie Lehn of the University of Strasbourg, France. The title of Professor Lehn’s lecture is “Perspectives in Supramolecular Chemistry: Towards Self-Organization from Matter to Life” and his lecture will be held at 11:15 a.m. in 1634 LGRT with refreshments at 10:45 a.m. The lecture is open to the public.
Jean-Marie LEHN received his bachelor's degree in Chemistry from the University of Strasbourg in 1960. There he also did research towards his doctorate with Guy Ourisson for three years, earning his Ph.D. in 1963. The following year he worked in the laboratory of Robert Burns Woodward at Harvard, where he participated in the total synthesis of vitamin B12. On his return to Strasbourg he began to work in areas at the interface between organic and physical chemistry, later taking an interest in biological processes as well.
From 1970 Lehn has been Professor of Chemistry at the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg and in 1979 he was elected to the chair of Chemistry of Molecular Interactions at the Collège de France in Paris. In 1968 his research led to the fabrication of cage-like molecules that contain a cavity into which another chemical species of appropriate size and shape may be included, to form a “cryptate”, like a key fits into a lock. With this began his work on the chemical basis of "molecular recognition" (i.e. the way in which a receptor molecule recognizes and selectively binds a substrate), which also plays a fundamental role in biological processes. For these studies Lehn received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1987 with Cram and Pedersen.
Over the years his work led to the definition of a new field of chemistry, which he has named "supramolecular chemistry" as it deals with the complex entities formed by the association of two or more chemical species held together by intermolecular forces, whereas molecular chemistry studies the features of the entities constructed from atoms linked by covalent bonds. His research broadened from molecular recognition towards supramolecular catalysis and transport processes. It also extended to the elaboration of functional devices, for supramolecular photonics, electronics and ionics.
Thereafter, the main line of development concerned the chemistry of “self-organization” based on the design of "programmed" systems that undergo spontaneous assembly of suitable components into well-defined functional supramolecular architectures, directed by the supramolecular processing of molecular information. More recently, importing into molecular chemistry, the dynamic features characteristic of supramolecular chemistry, through the introduction of reversible covalent bonds, allowed the implementation of selection in addition to design in self-organization processes. It led to the definition and development of “constitutional dynamic chemistry”, whose molecular or supramolecular entities are able to undergo reorganization in response to external stimuli, thus pointing to the emergence of an “adaptive chemistry”.
Author of more than 700 scientific publications, Lehn is a member of many academies and institutions and has received numerous international honours and awards.