David Leigh (scientist)

David Leigh
Nationality	British
Fields	Organic chemistry
Institutions	University of Manchester University of Edinburgh University of Warwick University of Sheffield
Alma mater	University of Sheffield (BSc, PhD)
Thesis	The synthesis and properties of novel and natural macrocyclic trichothecenes (1987)
Doctoral advisor	Sir Fraser Stoddart
Known for	Catenanes, Rotaxanes, Molecular knots, Molecular machines
Notable awards	Fellow of the Royal Society Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (2007)
Website www.catenane.net

David Alan Leigh FRS FRSE FRSC is a British chemist and currently the Sir Samuel Hall Chair 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).

He is noted for the development of new methods to construct rotaxanes, catenanes and molecular knots and for the invention of some of the first synthetic molecular motors and functional nanomachines. Using mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures he prepared a novel molecular information ratchet that employs a mechanism reminiscent of Maxwell's demon (although it requires an energy input and so does not challenge the second law of thermodynamics).

Research

He has developed a rotaxane based photoactive molecular switch with the capability of changing the hydrophobicity of a surface and thus causing small droplets of liquid to move "uphill," against the force of gravity.

In 2009 he reported the first small-molecule walker-track system in which a ‘walker’ can be transported directionally along a short molecular track in a manner reminiscent of the way that biological motor proteins ‘walk’ along biopolymers in the cell. In 2011 his research group described the smallest molecular knot prepared to date (a 76-atom-loop trefoil knot - three crossing points) and also the most complex non-DNA molecular knot yet constructed (a 160-atom-loop pentafoil knot - five crossing points). In 2013 the Leigh group reported a small-molecule machine capable of detaching and assembling a series of amino acid building blocks from a track into a peptide of specific sequence, a very primitive version of the task performed by the ribosome.

Honors

• Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Supramolecular Chemistry (2003)
• Royal Society of Chemistry Interdisciplinary Award (2004)
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2004)
• Institute of Chemistry of Ireland Annual Award for Chemistry (2005)
• Swiss Chemical Society Troisième Conferencier in Chemistry (2005)
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2005)
• Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award (2005)
• EPSRC Senior Research Fellow (2005–2010)
• Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Nanotechnology (2005)
• Royal Society of Chemistry-Real Sociedad Española de Química (RSC-RSEQ) Prize for Chemistry (2007)
• International Izatt-Christensen Award in Macrocyclic Chemistry (2007)
• Foresight Nanotech Institute Feynman Prize (Theory) (2007)
• EU Descartes Prize for Research (2007)
• European Research Council Advanced Grants (2008 [inaugural call] and 2013)
• Fellow of the Royal Society (2009)
• Royal Society of Chemistry Merck Award (2009)
• Royal Society of Chemistry Tilden Prize (2010)
• Royal Society Bakerian Lecture (2013)
• Royal Society of Chemistry Pedler Prize (2014)
• Academia Europaea (2015)

See also

• Supramolecular Chemistry

External links

• Leigh's Group's illustrated explanation of the "ratchet"