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Fraser Stoddart, an internationally renowned chemist who will occupy UCLA's Fred Kavli Chair in nanosystems sciences, has been appointed director of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) by UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale.

Stoddart’s areas of expertise encompass a wide range of nano-related topics and include carbon nanotubes, chemical sensors, dynamic combinatorial libraries, nanoelectronics, nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), mechanically interlocked molecules, molecular machines, molecular nanotechnology, molecular self-assembly processes, molecular recognition, supramolecular polymers and template-directed synthesis. He is a pioneer in the development of the mechanical bond in chemistry.

“He has played a leading role in devising ingenious ways of making mechanically interlocked molecules called catenanes and rotaxanes,� said Roberto Peccei, UCLA vice-chancellor of research.

Catenanes are composed of two or more rings that are mutually interlocked like a chain. Rotaxanes consist of one or more rings trapped on a rod by bulky stoppers at either end, in a manner reminiscent of an abacus. Catenanes and rotaxanes serve as the prototypes of nanoscale molecular switches and motor-molecules. Stoddart has shown how they can be employed in information processing and in the construction of artificial molecular machinery.

“Fraser Stoddart is widely recognized as one of the most innovative organic chemists in the world,� Chancellor Carnesale said. “Under Fraser’s leadership, the CNSI will conduct world-class research at the frontier of science and technology. I am confident that future breakthroughs at the CNSI will be of great benefit to our state, our nation and the world.�

A joint enterprise between UCLA and UCSB, the CNSI is exploring the power and potential of organizing and manipulating matter atom-by-atom, molecule-by-molecule, to engineer “new devices and systems which will extend the scope of many existing technologies and foster commercial development far beyond anything we might have contemplated up until now,� said Stoddart, who currently holds UCLA’s Saul Winstein Chair in organic chemistry.

Nanosystems-related research is performed on a size-scale ranging from a nanometer – one billionth of a meter – to a few hundred nanometers. Chemists sometimes refer to this as the ‘mesomolecular gap,’ where the properties of the materials can assume a special significance that is related to their whole rather than to their parts.

The DNA molecule is two nanometers wide – roughly 1,000 times smaller than a red blood cell and 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Researchers are increasingly being inspired by biology and the medical sciences to engineer nanoscopic materials for device fabrication, secure in the knowledge that unique combinations of matter will lead to unexpected properties and remarkable device performances.

Stoddart, formerly the CNSI’s scientific co-director, said the institute will “create a corridor between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara that will become a conduit for invention and innovation across a broad range of disciplines, where size at the nanoscale level will be a unifying theme for creative thinking and achievement. We may be witnessing the emergence of the ‘Rome of the West’ here in California.�

A common theme of Stoddart’s research is the quest for a better fundamental understanding of self-assembly and molecular recognition processes in chemical systems. He has been working for more than a quarter of a century on using this growing understanding to develop template-directed protocols that rely upon such processes to create molecular switches and motor-molecules. Underlying his bottom-up approach to the construction of functioning nanosystems is Stoddart’s philosophy of transferring concepts from biology into chemistry.

Despite the rarefied scientific atmosphere, Stoddart’s highly specialized world might be more akin to that of an engineer or an artist than a scientist. In fact, in his quest to create mechanoelectrochemical systems, Stoddart likens himself to the painter who creates abstracts, rather than one who produces landscapes and portraits.

As a vivid illustration of the template-directed approach to chemical synthesis, Stoddart and his team have produced a molecular version of the five-ring Olympic symbol, which they call Olympiadane. The size of a small protein, this symbolic molecule is just over four nanometers long and about a nanometer and a half in diameter. Recently, the team created the molecular counterpart of Borromean rings by bringing 18 components together spontaneously in one highly efficient self-assembly step. These rings, which owe their name to a symbol on the crest of the Borromeo family in Renaissance Italy, are only three in number, yet are interlocked in such a manner that if any one of them is broken, the whole assembly falls apart. Stoddart believes that this latest triumph might well find application in the emerging area of nanospintronics, which attempts to exploit the spinning motion of an electron, as well as its charge.

Stoddart has published almost 700 scientific papers and is among the top 10 most frequently cited chemists of the past decade, according to the Institute for Scientific Information. His research in the area of nanoelectronics was highlighted in the journal Science as the “Breakthrough of the Year� in 2001. In December 2001, Stoddart was among 15 luminaries in chemistry to join seven Nobel Prize winners in Stockholm at the Nobel Jubilee Symposium “Frontiers of Molecular Sciences.�

At present, Stoddart’s group is focusing on employing the numerous methods of self-organization of molecules to marshal not only catenanes and rotaxanes but other interlocked molecules, which behave like muscles and elevators in polymers, in condensed phases, on surfaces and at interfaces, and act as thick, single-molecule layers in solid-state devices. A fundamental understanding of the operation of these half and full devices is a prerequisite for making meaningful progress in the design and construction of nanoelectromechanical systems.

A recent bonus from these investigations is the emergence of an electrochromical system in which red, green and blue can be generated within a single molecule. This holds out the intriguing prospect that Stoddart’s molecular switches could become the basis for the displays in a future generation of computers and other technologies. Stoddart is quick to point out, however, that it is not the prospect of applications that drives his research program forward.

“It is the opportunity to take a unique class of functioning molecular nanosystems and put them through their paces in different environments and note how their performance changes on going from one setting to another,� he said. “For there to be any genuinely new nanotechnology, there must first of all be good, sound nanoscience, based on a fundamental understanding of the principles that emerge from enlightening and penetrating experimentation, carried out in an incremental way.�

Stoddart is the recipient of many awards, including the International Izatt-Christensen Award in Macrocyclic Chemistry (1993), the American Chemical Society’s Cope Scholar Award (1999) and the Nagoya Gold Medal in Organic Chemistry (2004). He serves on the international advisory boards of numerous journals, including the Journal of Organic Chemistry, Angewandte Chemie and the European Journal of Chemistry. He is the editor of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s monograph series on supramolecular chemistry. In July 2003, he became an associate editor of the journal Organic Letters. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1994 and of the German Academy of Natural Sciences (the Leopoldina) in 1999.

Since 1992, Stoddart has published more than 70 papers in the “Molecular Meccano� series, a joint project of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the Journal of Organic Chemistry and the European Journal of Chemistry. His research has been summarized in high-profile reviews and journals (Accounts of Chemical Research, Chemical Reviews and Angewandte Chemie) and has been the subject of numerous cover stories (Accounts of Chemical Research, Angewandte Chemie and Bioconjugate Chemistry in 2001; ChemPhysChem in 2002; and Macromolecules, Applied Physics Letters and Nanotechnology in 2003).

Stoddart has delivered more than 600 invited lectures around the world. He has been honored as a named lecturer at many universities, including, in the past 12 months, the Liversidge Lecture at the University of Sydney in Australia, the Spinks Lectures at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada and the Lansdowne Lectures at the University of Victoria in Canada. He has been elected a Carnegie Centenary Professor for 2005 to contribute to the academic and scientific developments in Scottish universities. His former graduate students and postdoctoral fellows occupy senior positions in universities, government laboratories and industry throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, India, Japan, Korea and Australia.

Stoddart came to UCLA in 1997 from England’s University of Birmingham, where he was a professor of organic chemistry and headed the university’s school of chemistry.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1942, Stoddart received his B.Sc. (1964) and Ph.D. (1966) degrees from Edinburgh University, where he worked with Sir Edmund Hirst. He pursued postdoctoral studies with Ken Jones at Queen's University (1967–69) in Canada, and with David Ollis at Sheffield University (1970) in England as an Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) research fellow. He was appointed a lecturer in chemistry at Sheffield University in 1970, and was promoted to a readership in 1981 after a sabbatical period at UCLA (1978) with Donald Cram and at the ICI corporate laboratory in Runcorn, England (1978–81). He was awarded a D.Sc. degree by the University of Edinburgh 1980 for his research on stereochemistry beyond the molecule. In 1990, Stoddart moved to the chair of organic chemistry at the University of Birmingham. He joined UCLA’s faculty in 1997.

Stoddart succeeded Donald Cram, the 1987 Nobel laureate in chemistry, as holder of UCLA’s Saul Winstein Chair in organic chemistry.

Stoddart is passionate in his belief that the CNSI must have a vigorous intellectual life in order to generate intellectual property. To this end, he has launched a relentless drive to bring the international leaders in nanosystems-related research to UCLA on a weekly basis to meet with faculty and students under the auspices of a CNSI-sponsored seminar series. In addition, the CNSI organizes regular one-day symposia, debates and poster days, with participation by faculty and students from UCLA and UCSB, to which leaders in business, commerce, education, government and industry are invited. The CNSI will hold its first UCLA NanoSystems International Symposium on Dec. 13, 2003.

Over the next couple years, the CNSI anticipates the appointment of between 15 and 20 new faculty members associated with various departments in a wide range of colleges and schools at both UCLA and UCSB. According to Stoddart, “A bottom-up approach to enhancing the international stature of the institute will be crucial to bringing about the sea-change that is necessary to do cutting-edge research in a highly collaborative manner across numerous disciplines. A historically vertical structure in universities has to yield to a much more horizontal one where boundaries are blurred and territory and property are much less well-defined and guarded.�

“The CNSI is poised to help drive the state’s economy with evolutionary advances in health care and medical treatment, in environmental remediation and protection, in information technology, in homeland security, and in multimedia entertainment,� Stoddart said.

The Winstein Chair will be held in abeyance while Stoddart serves as director of the CNSI.