Jean Pierre Sauvage

Jean-Pierre Sauvage is a French chemist, a pioneer in the field of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures.

Sauvage was born in Paris in 1944. He obtained his Ph. D. from the university of Strasbourg under the supervision of J.-M. Lehn. After postdoctoral research in Oxford (UK) with M. L. H. Green, he went back to Strasbourg where he is now a CNRS Director of Research. His current interests range from models of the photosynthetic reaction center using transition-metal complexes and porphyrins to topology to molecular machines and motors.

Jean-Pierre Sauvage is a pioneer in the field of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures. In 1983 he published the first templated and high yielding synthesis of a catenane. This kind of molecule, featuring two interlocked rings, opened a new field in chemistry, that of interlocking molecules - now the subject of thousands of publications. He used a similar strategy to synthesis a molecular knot. The field of applications goes from fundamental research to, eventually, molecular computers.

He was elected a correspondent member of the French Academy of Sciences on March 26, 1990, and a member on November 24, 1997. He is currently the Director of Research of the Organo-Mineral Chemical Laboratory of Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg.