Supramolecular chemistry refers to the branch of chemistry concerning chemical systems composed of a discrete number of molecules. The strength of the forces responsible for spatial organization of the system range from weak intermolecular forces, electrostatic charge, or hydrogen bonding to strong covalent bonding, provided that the electronic coupling strength remains small relative to the energy parameters of the component. While traditional chemistry concentrates on the covalent bond, supramolecular chemistry examines the weaker and reversible non-covalent interactions between molecules. These forces include hydrogen bonding, metal coordination, hydrophobic forces, van der Waals forces, pi–pi interactions and electrostatic effects.
Sir James Fraser Stoddart is a British-American chemist who is Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry and head of the Stoddart Mechanostereochemistry Group in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University in the United States. He works in the area of supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology. Stoddart has developed highly efficient syntheses of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures such as molecular Borromean rings, catenanes and rotaxanes utilising molecular recognition and molecular self-assembly processes. He has demonstrated that these topologies can be employed as molecular switches. His group has even applied these structures in the fabrication of nanoelectronic devices and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). His efforts have been recognized by numerous awards including the 2007 King Faisal International Prize in Science. He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Ben Feringa and Jean-Pierre Sauvage in 2016 for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.
Sir David William Cross MacMillan is a Scottish chemist and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University, where he was also the chair of the Department of Chemistry from 2010 to 2015. He shared the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Benjamin List "for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis". MacMillan used his share of the $1.14 million prize to establish the May and Billy MacMillan Foundation.
David Alan Leigh FRS FRSE FRSC is a British chemist, Royal Society Research Professor and, since 2014, the Sir Samuel Hall Chair of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manchester. He was previously the Forbes Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh (2001–2012) and Professor of Synthetic Chemistry at the University of Warwick (1998–2001).
Sir Anthony Kevin Cheetham is a British materials scientist. From 2012 to 2017 he was Vice-President and Treasurer of the Royal Society.
Laurence David Barron has been Gardiner Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow since 1998. He is a chemist who has conducted pioneering research into the properties of chiral molecules — defined by Lord Kelvin as those that cannot be superimposed onto their mirror image. By extending this definition of chirality to include moving particles and processes that vary with time, he has made a fundamental theoretical contribution to the field. Chiral molecules such as amino acids, sugars, proteins, and nucleic acids play a central role in the chemistry of life, and many drug molecules are chiral. Laurence’s work on Raman optical activity — a spectroscopic technique capable of determining the three-dimensional structures of chiral molecules, which he predicted, observed, and applied to problems at the forefront of chemistry and structural biology — has led to its development as a powerful analytical tool used in academic and industrial laboratories worldwide. His much-cited book, Molecular Light Scattering and Optical Activity, has contributed to the growing impact of chirality on many areas of modern science.
Steven Charles Zimmerman is an American organic chemist who is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Guy Charles Lloyd-Jones FRS FRSE is a British chemist. He is the Forbes Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. His research is largely concerned with the determination of organometallic reaction mechanisms, especially those of palladium-catalyzed coupling reactions such as Suzuki-Miyaura coupling.
Charles Kemball CBE PRSE FRS FRSC FRIC was a Scottish chemist who served as president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1988–91) and as president of the Royal Institute of Chemistry (1974-6). He pioneered the use of mass spectrometry. and was a leading expert in heterogeneous catalysis.
Harry Laurence Anderson is a British chemist in the Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford. He is well known for his contributions in the syntheses of supramolecular systems, exploration of the extraordinary physical properties of large pi-conjugated systems, and synthesis of cyclo[18]carbon. He is a Professor of Chemistry at Keble College, Oxford.
Eleanor Elizabeth Bryce Campbell FRSE FRS FRSC FInstP is a Scottish scientist who holds the Chair of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh.
Polly Louise Arnold is director of the chemical sciences division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. She previously held the Crum Brown chair in the School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh from 2007 to 2019 and an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) career fellowship.
John Paul Attfield is a Professor of Materials science in the School of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions (CSEC).
James Henderson Naismith is Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Oxford, former Director of the Research Complex at Harwell and Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute. He previously served as Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Chemical Biology at the University of St Andrews. He was a member of Council of the Royal Society (2021-2022). He is currently the Vice-Chair of Council of the European X-ray Free Electron Laser and Vice-President (non-clinical) of The Academy of Medical Sciences. It has been announced that he will be the Head of the MPLS division at Oxford in the autumn of 2023.
Bernard Lucas Feringa is a Dutch synthetic organic chemist, specializing in molecular nanotechnology and homogeneous catalysis. He is the Jacobus van 't Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences, at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, University of Groningen, Netherlands, and an Academy Professor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Jean-Pierre Sauvage, "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines".
Nicola Armaroli is an Italian chemist, research director at the Italian National Research Council (CNR), director of the scientific magazine Sapere and member of the Italian National Academy of Sciences.
David Parker is an English chemist and professor at the University of Durham.
Russell Edward Morris is a British chemist and Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Chemistry at the University of St Andrews since 2016. He played first-class cricket while he was a student at the University of Oxford, and also represented the university in associated football playing in Varsity matches at various venues, including Wembley Stadium and Highbury.
The Stratingh Institute for Chemistry is a research institute of the Faculty of Science and Engineering of the University of Groningen. It is named after Sibrandus Stratingh, who is known for being the inventor of the first battery powered electric car. As of 2020, about 150 people are employed within the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry. The staff members include Ben Feringa, who won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines", Nathalie Katsonis and Sijbren Otto. The institute is currently located on the Zernike Campus in Groningen, in the Nijenborgh 4 and Linnaeusborg buildings.
Alison Hulme is a Scottish chemist and Professor of Synthesis and Chemical Biology. Her research considers natural products and synthesis. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry Bader Award in 2021.
