From Matter to Life: Chemistry? Chemistry! by Nobel Laureate Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn

About the Speaker: Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn’s research developed a new field called supramolecular chemistry, the study of molecular systems and organized matter design. Lehn had developed the synthesis of cryptands, which are cage-like molecules with cavities to host certain molecules, paving the way to study the chemical basis of molecular recognition. Together with Donald Cram and Charles J. Pedersen, Lehn was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this research. After an early education in philosophy and natural sciences, Lehn chose to pursue a research career in organic chemistry. He received his PhD from University of Strasbourg where he returned to as an assistant professor after a postdoctoral stint at Harvard University. In 2002, Lehn founded the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (ISIS) in Strasbourg. Lehn has authored over 900 research publications and 2 books and is the member of several academies. Abstract of the Lecture: The evolution of the universe has generated more and more complex forms of matter through self-organization, from particles up to living and thinking matter. Animate as well as inanimate matter, living organisms as well as materials, are formed of molecules and of the organized entities resulting from the interaction of molecules with each other. Chemistry provides the bridge between the molecules of inanimate matter and the highly complex molecular architectures and systems which make up living and thinking organisms. Molecular chemistry has developed a very powerful set of methods for constructing ever more complex molecules. Supramolecular chemistry seeks to control the formation of molecular assemblies by means of the interactions between the partners. The designed generation of organized architectures requires the handling of information at the molecular level in a sort of molecular programming, thus also linking chemistry with information science. The field of chemistry is the universe of all possible entities and transformations of molecular matter, of which those actually realized in nature represent just one world among all the worlds that await to be created! Conceptual considerations on chemistry and science in general will be presented.