Bernard L. Feringa
Interview
Interview, January 2023
“Be open … and together you can do marvellous things”
On 26 January 2023, Ben Feringa, Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry 2016, was joined by 14 students from all over the world and from different disciplines within science for a conversation on the topic of being a scientist. Dr. Feringa gave his best advice for how to overcome failures in the lab, his best tips for maintaining a science career, and guidance to the students on how to handle ethical dilemmas while working in the lab.
Interview, November 2020
Bernard Feringa at Groningen University. Photo taken in November 2013.
Copyright © University of Groningen
“Every kid has a talent that we should encourage”
University professor and Chemistry Laureate Bernard Feringa is a firm believer that all children have a talent, it just needs to be found and encouraged. In this interview he speaks about how important that encouragement can be, and also about his own childhood and why he likes teaching so much.
Interview with the 2016 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Bernard L. Feringa on 6 December 2016, during the Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden.
Bernard L. Feringa talks about the objects he brought with him to donate to the Nobel Museum; the nano cars and how they can move (5:30); his invention and the breakthrough (9:21); the need to invest in fundamental research (15:11); what brought him to science (17:42); the importance of bringing people from different areas and backgrounds to the lab (21:05) and what it takes to achieve the Nobel Prize (23:28). Interviewer is Nobel Media’s Susanna Baltscheffsky.
“Let universities be playgrounds for the youth.”
In this interview from the Nobel Banquet on 10 December 2016, Bernard L. Feringa explains why he thinks universities should be playgrounds and how he thinks his students are smarter than he is. He also shares some thoughts about being awarded the Nobel Prize.
The 2016 Nobel Laureates gathered for a conversation about research, drive and vision on 11 December 2016. The conversation was filmed at the Grünewald Hall at Stockholm Concert Hall, and was hosted by BBC World’s Zeinab Badawi.
“We feel sometimes like kids playing with these molecules and seeing what are the possibilities to build”
Telephone interview with Bernard Feringa following the announcement of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Chief Scientific Officer of Nobel Media.
Interview transcript
Speaker: Hello.
Adam Smith: Oh hello, may I speak to Professor Feringa please?
Speaker: Who is this?
AS: This is Adam Smith calling from Nobelprize.org, the official website of the Nobel Prize.
Speaker: OK, can you hang on for a few seconds?
AS: Most certainly, yes.
[Clapping and cheers in the background]
Bernard Feringa: Hello, Ben Feringa.
AS: This is Adam Smith, many congratulations on the award.
BF: Thank you very much. Thank you. I’m emotional and I’m deeply honoured.
AS: And I can hear many happy people behind you.
BF: Ja, ja, ja. That is a huge number of people, the whole institute and all the students, and I think they deserve a lot of credit for all the work they did to make it possible.
AS: I just spoke to Fraser Stoddart and he emphasised how much of a scientific family you all are.
BF: Yes, you are absolutely right. We know the community, we are the scientific family, we have meetings, we cooperate, we encourage each other, we exchange students. You are absolutely right.
AS: How wonderful. So you describe your work as being inspired by nature?
BF: Ja, of course. If you look at the cells in our body or the functioning of the organism, it is flabbergasting. It is fantastic to see how this intricate machinery works. And when I’m taking about motors, as we focus on motors, if you look at the essential functions in the cell, like cell division, like transport, like making your muscles move, bacteria that go to food or [unclear …] it’s all controlled by molecular motors, and so the biological motors, and the biological machinery, is so crucial to all these functions. And of course we get great inspiration from that, while we as chemists are extremely good in building all kinds of materials, and that is what intrigued me. And there is where we look at mother nature, but of course we have to build it more or less from scratch because many of the systems that mother nature uses we cannot use in our nanomachinery, because they are soft materials that are not very stable that only function properly in the complex cell environment etc. So that is the reason that we build these machines. And compare it to a flying machine. We don’t build a Boeing after a pigeon. A pigeon flies perfectly, the bird flies, ja, but the Boeing is not the same materials, it has not the same flying principle, but it works perfectly to transport 3-400 people across the ocean.
AS: That’s perfect. And people often make the comparison with Lego. They say you’re building with the tiniest Lego.
BF: Absolutely. So we use molecules as a kind of Lego kit, ja. And so we have access to this unlimited number of molecules and we use them to build the new materials, the drugs of the future, and in this case also the nanomachinery and the smart materials of the future. And yes, I feel often, and me and my students and the team, and I’m sure that it’s the same for the other teams of Stoddart and Sauvage, we feel sometimes like kids playing with these molecules and seeing what are the possibilities to build, like with Lego. As a kid you had fun to build new kinds of castles, and that is actually what we are doing. And then hopefully, and this is our main goal of course, to build in all kinds of new functions. And in this case the function of transport, motion, machinery.
AS: That’s a fantastic, inspirational message for the next generation of scientists. Just go out there and express yourself and have fun.
BF: Thank you. Thank you so much.
AS: And you’ll come to Stockholm in December?
BF: Absolutely.
AS: Fantastic, we look forward to welcoming you very much.
BF: Thank you so much.
AS: Thank you.
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Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
