Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 awarded for 'world's smallest machine'

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 was awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L Feringa on Wednesday. 

Announcing the laureates, Goran K Hansson, the General Secretary of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said that the prize was being given for the "world's smallest machine." The trio won the Nobel for the "designs and synthesis of molecular machines."

Sauvage is a professor at the Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, Stoddart is with the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University and Feringa is the Jacobus Van't Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry at the University of Groningen in Netherlands.

The question of how small we can make machinery was first posed in 1984 by Physics Laureate Richard Feynman. According to the Royal Swedish Academy, Sauvage, Stoddart and Feringa "succeeded in linking molecules together to design a tiny lift, motors & miniscule muscles."

Breakthrough in 1983: Jean-Pierre Sauvage used a copper ion to interlock molecules using a mechanical bond #NobelPrize #Chemistry 2016 pic.twitter.com/sQqZVx0HMh

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2016

2016 Chemistry Laureate Fraser Stoddart created a molecular shuttle that could move along an axle in a controlled manner. #NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/iyElKySsQ8

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2016

Stoddart’s research group has constructed molecular machines. A lift which can raise itself 0.7 nanometres above a surface: #NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/HwTEWiVsT3

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2016

Jean-Pierre Sauvage has threaded two molecular loops together, so that the structure can stretch and contract. #NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/JBHqnuiAcJ

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2016

Read more about their work here.

This is the 108th Nobel Prizes to be awarded in Chemistry. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden. The prize is worth 8 million Swedish krona.

This is what the medal looks like- 

#NobelPrize Medal for Physics: Nature - a goddess resembling Isis - and the veil is held up by the Genius of Science pic.twitter.com/XzqGiIE5ug

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 4, 2016

In 2015, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar for “for mechanistic studies of DNA repair."