Interview with Nobel prizewinner Bernard Feringa

Bernard (Ben) Feringa is a professor of chemistry at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. In 2016 he, Jean-Pierre Sauvage and Fraser Stoddart were awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry ‘for the design and synthesis of molecular machines’. Ben Feringa recently visited the University of York, and Sam Daly took the opportunity to interview him for CHEMISTRY REVIEW

SD What did it feel like to be awarded the 2016 Nobel prize in chemistry?

BF It came as a big surprise and I was greatly honoured. When I got this call from Stockholm I was in my office talking to my students. Suddenly the telephone rang and it was the secretary of the Nobel committee, and I was so much in shock that he said ‘Dr Feringa, are you still there? It’s just so quiet’ and I said ‘Yeah, but I don’t know what to say!’