Expertise
Nanotechnology, synthetic organic chemistry
Curriculum Vitae
Ben Feringa (1951) has been professor of Organic Chemistry since 1988. He is one of the best scientists of our time, both within the Netherlands and worldwide. His research performance is so exceptional that he is generally regarded as one of the world’s most creative and productive chemists. He has achieved breakthroughs in various fields of chemistry, including organic synthesis, catalysis, supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology.
His discovery in the mid-1990s of the ‘molecular motor’, a light-driven rotating molecule, is widely recognized as a world-class breakthrough. The potential applications of this concept are as numerous as they are spectacular. The idea that molecular motors can transport themselves through the bloodstream in order to deliver drugs to previously unreachable locations in the human body with a high degree of accuracy is particularly inspiring.
Feringa has been awarded numerous prizes, including the 2004 Spinoza Prize, the highest Dutch prize in science, awarded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). In 2008 the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) appointed Feringa Academy Professor, giving him the opportunity to concentrate on whatever he wanted in the field of innovative teaching and research for five years. It is partly thanks to Feringa that the University of Groningen is undisputedly Europe’s number one in the field of chemistry.
From September 2011 on Feringa will be the Vice President of the KNAW.
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