Ben Feringa Nobel laureate explains how tiny chemical machines could change the world
Nobel prizewinning chemist Ben Feringa – ChemistryCan. Photo credit: Jeroen van Kooten @UG
Windows that clean themselves, cars that mend their own scratches, and precision antibiotics that only act in the exact site of an infection. Those are just some of the life-enriching inventions that could be made possible by “molecular machines”, according to Nobel prizewinning chemist Ben Feringa.
He says recent innovations in chemistry could pave the way to a greener and healthier future, enabled by tiny programmable devices, a millionth of a millimetre across, made from molecules engineered to move in response to stimuli, such as light, electricity or heat. “These molecular machines might have a dramatic effect on how we make materials and on what kind of smart functions we can do in the future,” says Feringa.
Northwestern University
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A year has gone by under the dark clouds of the pandemic. Covid-19 situation in UK, France, the Netherlands, Germany and USA turned worrisome again recently, mainly because of the cold winter, and perhaps due to the new strains circulating of this ever-mutating Coronavirus. Do plenty of sun, warmth, high humidity help against it? Can’t say, because even under those conditions, a surge in infection was observed in certain parts of the world. Crowded environments and poor sanitation in factories and dormitories have led to the formation of clusters of infection, overwhelming public hospitals, ICUs, ventilators, and medical front-liners across the world. Going by the fresh waves, Co
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