INTERVIEW
Interview
From Auld Reekie to the City of Angels, and all
the Meccano in between: A Glimpse into the
Life and Mind of Sir Fraser Stoddart
D
Alex N. Capecelatro
r. Fraser Stoddart, Professor of
Chemistry and Biochemistry at
UCLA, is the Fred Kavli Chair
of NanoSystems Sciences and Director
of the California NanoSystems Institute
(CNSI). Dr. Stoddart received his B. Sc.,
Ph. D., and D. Sc. degrees from Edinburgh
University in 1964, 1966, and 1980,
respectively. He is internationally renowned
for his pioneering work in chemistry and
molecular nanotechnology. Stoddart has
featured and popularized the mechanical
bond in the making of compounds he calls
catenanes and rotaxanes. Bistable variants
of these compounds have been employed as
molecular switches and motor-molecules.
Sir Fraser Stoddart has employed his
natural tendency towards creativity over
the past few decades to promote the field of
NanoElectroMechanical Systems (NEMS),
as it relates to molecular computing and
health care.
“There is a lot of room for creativity to be expressed in chemistry by someone
who is bent on wanting to be inventive and make discoveries.”
Sir Fraser Stoddart
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INTERVIEW
Alex N. Capecelatro
Unique childhood experiences help people blossom into
distinct individuals. From lawyers to doctors to car salesmen,
everyone develops a distinctive passion for life. Regardless of their
chosen career, individuals often have the opportunity to succeed
because of these experiences, which have often taught them to
set goals and achieve them. Truly great men, as exemplified by
Sir Fraser Stoddart, not only succeed but repeatedly persevere in
any situation.
Stoddart, at age three, pushing a wheelbarrow at his childhood farmhouse.
Fraser Stoddart was born on Victoria Day (May 24) in 1942
in Edinburgh, Scotland. The son of a tenant farmer, he grew up
in a home without electricity or any modern day conveniences.
While Stoddart was an only child, supportive parents and an
abundance of puzzles and toys sparked a yearning in him for
knowledge. Although he showed prodigious ambition at an
early age, his parents never imagined how successful he was to
become.
Dr. Stoddart explains that his mother, however, always “had
some sort of intuitive feeling that her only son would accomplish
something worthwhile.” He was the apple of her eye. She
expected him to leave Scotland with a good education and go
out into the world and do something reputable. The fact that both
his parents were “extremely supportive” was the key to his being
able to build a good foundation for his future. “If you don’t have
that [support] from your family, forging out a career in science
will be an up-hill battle. The process is challenging enough. I was
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lucky. It is important that you get off to a good early start in life,”
Stoddart reflected.
With his parents’ full blessing, he went to Edinburgh
University in 1960 and quickly discovered a path of creative,
intellectual endeavors. Stoddart recalled, “I started off at
Edinburgh with the feeling that my future, like many young
Scots bought up on farms before me, would be in medicine.
The path to get into medicine involved interacting closely with
the sciences and so I started off by studying chemistry, physics,
and mathematics. Soon, I became more and more interested in
the sciences, and medicine started to pale into insignificance in
my mind. While I reckoned I could possibly help people more
directly if I were in the medical profession, I became concerned
that I would not be able to pursue my passion for research, which
had already started to develop inside me. I found the challenge
of tackling problems in research that no one knows the answer
to beforehand as increasingly rewarding. I was captivated by the
wonder of making discoveries. I wanted to achieve on a scale that
would not only reflect well on me, but might also produce some
benefits for society in the fullness of time. I was soon to realize
that among the sciences, chemistry would give me, by far, the
biggest opportunity to be creative. As a chemist, just as if you are
an artist, you can create an object that no one has made before
and then study it for its properties and functions. More than in
any other science, chemistry gives you that feeling of being
able to pose problems and solve them. That aspect of chemistry
appealed to me, for growing up on a farm in the lowlands of
Scotland in the 1950s had been all about solving problems: it was
all about being creative against the clock with limited resources
to hand.”
Stoddart continued to develop his passion for research,
which he had begun as an undergraduate student, during his
graduate studies in chemistry at Edinburgh. His passion for
research reached extraordinary heights. He published his first
paper in 1964 and earned his Ph. D. two years later under Sir
Edmund Hirst, before spending three years in Canada at Queen’s
University as a postdoctoral researcher.
Although his successes were already considerable, Stoddart
still had a lot to learn about the world around him when he
landed his first academic position in England in Sheffield
University in 1970. He reflected, “I was ill-equipped to deal with
senior colleagues who were devious in their dealings with me
and envious of my achievements in research. I had come from
a community of farmers in Scotland who had been extremely
supportive of each other. It never occurred to me that, because
I was successful and [would be] soon doing research that was
receiving international attention, this level of accomplishment
would become a focal point for envy and resentment and all the
discomfort that follows in their wake. The 1970s was a stressful
decade for me and it was only after taking a three-year sabbatical
at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) Corporate Laboratory
in Runcorn that I was able to make the necessary personal
INTERVIEW
Sir Fraser Stoddart
adjustments. I had to cast off a reserved and serene demeanor
and become much more aggressive and combative.”
So Stoddart had to change from having a shy, retiring
demeanor, to displaying an authoritative, assertive one. His
future successes were to rely heavily on adopting this proactive
mindset. He exemplified this when he “started to write to the
national press and put my arguments forward publicly for reform
of the UK academic system. I challenged the fact that most
British academics were too ready to whine about a perceived lack
of funding as an excuse for their lack of research productivity. I
was not popular for breaking out on the scene saying, ‘No, it’s
not a question of there not being enough money, it’s a question
of the waste of money after it is handed out far too easily.’ I
called for a more competitive funding strategy. My stance was far
from a popular one. I made a lot of enemies. The outcome was
that I was not appointed to a full professorship [at Birmingham
University] until aged 49.
“My fortunes were completely transformed by my move to
the chemistry department at Birmingham University in 1990,”
Stoddart added. “I only accepted the Chair of Organic Chemistry
after asking for start-up funds that were unheard of in the
UK at the time. I thought the university would turn me down
but they gave me all I asked for! There was again some local
resentment but I had learnt by this time how to confront it. The
Birmingham era was a highly productive one, during which time
the size and stature of my research group rose rapidly and the
department was almost completely refurbished into the bargain.
The transformation had a huge impact on the rest of the UK
community in chemistry. Chairs in other chemistry departments
could point to what Birmingham had done for Stoddart and insist
that it should happen in their university, and, in most cases, it did!
There was a lot of satisfaction to be had at the end of the day, but
it was a pretty hard 27 years I had to hoe to prove my point.”
Tough as those years in the UK were, Stoddart reflects that
he wouldn’t have had it any other way, now in retrospect. He
comments, “It proved to me that I could always get round adversity
in life by asking how to turn a difficult set of circumstances to
my advantage. I came out of it a lot wiser and with increased
confidence in my own abilities. My creative talents had also
been enhanced by always having to be one step ahead of my
A timeline of Stoddart’s work from 1978-1994.
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Alex N. Capecelatro
protagonists, or to be able to outflank them if I wasn’t.”
After his ultimately successful tussle with the academic
system in the UK, Stoddart started to set his sights on coming to
the United States. He did so to UCLA in 1997. Stoddart recalled,
“When I first arrived, I held the Saul Winstein Chair in Organic
Chemistry. Winstein had been the intellectual leader in physical
organic chemistry through the 40s, 50s, and 60s.
“Many people at UCLA believed Winstein was in line to
receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry when he died tragically in
his swimming pool from a heart attack at a relatively young age
in 1969. Some time after his death, a chair was endowed in his
name and, Don Cram, one of his younger colleagues, became its
first holder. When Don started to downsize his research effort in
the 1990s, I was offered the chair. By accepting it, I immediately
put myself under a lot of pressure. Don Cram was a legend in
his time and had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in
1987. The double act of Winstein and Cram was a particularly
challenging one for me to follow.”
Now, as the director of the CNSI, Stoddart has broadened
the scope of his research from a predominantly chemistry base
to include more and more molecular nanotechnology. When
asked if he had any advice for someone wanting to follow in
his tradition of doing research, Stoddart replied, “There are now
lots of opportunities to do ground-breaking research in chemistry
that addresses areas of complexity and emergent phenomena
and how they can contribute to molecular nanotechnology in a
fundamental manner. There is a lot of room for creativity to be
expressed in chemistry by someone who is bent on wanting to be
inventive and make discoveries. If, as an undergraduate student,
the opportunity arises to spend time in a faculty member’s research
laboratory, then this experience is one to grasp quickly. It is what
I did myself. Although course work is important for acquiring a
basic fundamental knowledge in chemistry, the real excitement is
to be had in the research laboratory. Just get in there, roll up your
sleeves and find out if going down the path of doing something
new gives satisfaction. I got involved in research very quickly as
an undergraduate student and I was soon engaged in experiments
that I had thought up and designed myself. Ownership of research
is important. I knew I was at the cusp of having the opportunity to
invent and make discoveries. I found the whole experience to be
additive. It became difficult to drag myself away from the lab.”
Stoddart has worked in and around a lab since 1962.
All these years later, he has delivered almost a thousand
lectures about his research at different venues all around the
world. Between January 1996 and June 2006 alone, he published
309 papers which have chalked up no less than 13,567 citations.
These metrics leave Stoddart, according to the Institute for
Scientific Information, as the third most highly cited researcher
in chemistry in the world today. When asked about this ranking,
Stoddart commented, “I have in the region of 800 publications
out there in the scientific literature which is probably too many!”
But then in defense of this large number, he added, “As time
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goes by they are less important for me and more important for
the young people who have done their research in my lab.”
Stoddart believes quite strongly that young scientists, who are
going to succeed, need to register their productivity in research
and their ability to write papers before they pursue independent
academic careers. Creativity is doing research that has not been
done before, and doing it over and over again. He cites Mozart
and Beethoven as good examples of creative individuals due to
their contributions to classical music.
Dr. Stoddart is credited with playing a major role in
introducing a new type of bond into chemistry, the mechanical
bond. He takes advantage of molecular recognition and selfassembly processes in order to make mechanically interlocked
molecular compounds called catenanes and rotaxanes. A
catenane is a molecule composed of two or more interlocked
rings. It derives its name from the Latin word catena, meaning
chain. The simplest rotaxane has a dumbbell component with
a ring encircling it that is prevented from escaping because
of the stoppers at the ends of the dumbbell. Rota comes from
the Latin words, rota, meaning wheel, and axis, which means
axle. These mechanically interlocked molecular compounds are
unique because they create different topologies, depending on
the orientations and linkages between the rings and dumbbells.
The Borromean rings, which have long been a symbol of interest
to artists and mathematicians, was first made in its molecular
form in Stoddart’s group in 2004. The molecular Solomon’s knot
followed in 2006.
As suggested by his artistic rendering of molecules, Stoddart
looks at his laboratory as a blank canvas, ready to be painted
upon. Commenting on the field in which he has devoted a lifetime
of study, Stoddart said, “The one thing you have got to appreciate
about chemistry is that it’s not a mathematical science; it’s not
black and white but rather many different shades of grey.”
Stoddart’s research on “Molecular Meccano,” as he calls it,
could have far-reaching implications for molecular computing.
He reflected on how it all began back in the late 60s when he
was a postdoctoral fellow in Canada by reminiscing, “As far
as learning the art of designed molecular recognition and selfassembly, that started for me in 1967 with a seminal publication
from the DuPont Laboratories by Charles Pedersen, another of
the [three] Nobel Laureates in Chemistry in 1987. He had used
the weak interactions that exist between hard metal ions, like
sodium and potassium ions, to assemble large rings under the
templating influence of the ions. I realized that the chemistry
associated with these interactions provided the chemist with
a completely new way of making chemical compounds which
would be very difficult to make by any other means. Templation is
a concept that I knew pervaded both architecture and biology and
so why shouldn’t it be a concept that could be used in a chemical
context? And so my chemistry became, like much of biology,
that of molecular recognition and self-assembly processes in
support of template-directed synthesis. Simply by transferring a
INTERVIEW
Sir Fraser Stoddart
A timeline of Stoddart’s work, from 2001 to present, including catenanes (A, E)
concept from biology into chemistry, we ended up by creating
compounds which contain mechanical bonds. And what’s more,
the chemistry is highly modular. All the ingredients were in
place to build artificial molecular machines, so that’s what we
did. As somebody who had tinkered with a lot of machinery at a
very basic level on a farm during an era when automobiles and
tractors were very easy to take apart and put together again, I was
fortunate to come face-to-face with a similar kind of activity in
chemistry. To begin with, it was an activity that interested very
few chemists, and so there was a great opportunity in the early
days to develop a new area of chemistry, along with no more than
half-a-dozen other people in the world.”
Stoddart’s work, although ground-breaking and welldocumented in the top chemistry journals, was not accepted as
being of any real importance by the chemistry community in the
early days. He commented, “Our initial research on catenanes and
rotaxanes was seen by many as being ‘cute’ but they questioned
if it had any use at all. It was nice but would probably never
find a niche was the popular opinion. Well, these comments were
all I needed. They acted as a spur and also made me turn my
thoughts more seriously to moving to the US.” Very soon after
Stoddart left the United Kingdom to come to California, he found
that the opportunities for collaboration at UCLA were more than
he and his group could embrace all at once. They were spoilt
for choice. His research, which had started out at a fundamental
level, was now ready to become application driven, in part at
least.
Stoddart observed, “I don’t believe there’s any other culture
in science and engineering, other than here in the US, that is quite
as focused on the challenge of taking fundamental discoveries
and inventions into a situation where they are almost ready to be
taken into the marketplace. This is a country which has devised
the mechanisms of funding and nurtured the minds of academics
to think in a particular way when it comes to benefiting society
at large.” By coming to UCLA, the opportunity was suddenly
there to work collaboratively with a colleague, Jim Heath, on
the construction of a molecular computer, and, in more recent
times, with another colleague, Jeff Zink, on the fabrication
of functioning nanovalves operated by motor-molecules
for applications in health care. Both these lines of research
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depend heavily on the design and construction of switchable
catenanes and rotaxanes. Stoddart emphasized, “We were greatly
encouraged by the potential applications of the research in the
design and evaluation of these molecular switches. All that has
happened at UCLA was anticipated for me by Don Cram back in
early 1997, before I arrived in the US. I remember sitting down
with Don and asking him what chances our molecular switches
would have of finding applications in devices if I were to come
to UCLA and he responded right away, saying, ‘You will find
that in a very short period of time you will have many more
opportunities to collaborate than you will have the time or the
energy to give to the collaborations.’ He was right.” Stoddart
continued, “Once we had the basic building blocks in place and
we had some identifiable functions in mind, we realized we were
standing at the entrances to several gold mines. This situation
is an ideal one from which to launch vigorous collaborative
research programs.”
When asked why his fundamental work was ripe for
exploitation on his arrival at UCLA, Stoddart speculated, “We
were able to bring something to the table which was quite unique.
That uniqueness centers round the chemistry of the mechanical
bond. We were not only able to present the mechanical bond as
having form, but also function when the catenanes and rotaxanes
were rendered bistable, that is capable of existing in two states.
We could use the fact that the most stable configurations of
the molecules can be switched to less stable configurations by,
for example, using redox reagents to carry out reductions and
oxidations on the molecules. Such molecules are said to be redoxactive; by taking electrons away and putting them back again,
we can even make them switch, one component with respect to
the other. The redox chemistry can be done with chemicals, or
with electricity in an electrochemical cell, or we can use light
to stimulate the supply of electrons in appropriately designed
molecules.”
On December 30, 2006, Fraser Stoddart was made a knight
bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to chemistry and
molecular nanotechnology. Dr. Stoddart’s humble disposition
is demonstrated by his request that no one in the United States
address him as “Sir”. Although he has received numerous prizes
and awards throughout his professional career, he cares little for
personal recognition. He insists, “Any pleasure I feel is because of
the recognition they bring to my research group and the different
institutions that have supported me over the years. I am in no way
egocentric. I am not living for the next piece of recognition to
happen, for I am not. If it happens, then so be it. Gongs [awards]
are not high on my pecking order of what’s important in life.” He
added, “But they are important for my students, both past and
present. They need to become calibrated as to how significant
their research is in the world at large. Awards to me are awards
to them for it calibrates them and raises their visibility. They act
as a tremendous fillip to my whole research group, urging its
members on to even greater levels of achievement. They also
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help to raise UCLA’s standing and visibility. If an individual
receives a major prize [Dr. Stoddart very recently won the King
Faisal International Prize in Science] then the institutions with
which that individual is identified gain considerable kudos.”
Stoddart went on, “In my case, I hope the CNSI will be a major
beneficiary and that UCLA is also put on the map as a result. It
is all part of the synergy to attract good faculty to come and join
your department, to entice the very best postdoctoral scholars to
come and work in your research group, and to encourage highly
talented graduate and undergraduate students to choose to come
to UCLA. In the pursuit of excellence, gongs are much more
about the institutions than they are about the glorification of an
individual. The one thing I have learned by this stage in my life is
that our time on the planet is finite and people tend to forget about
you quite quickly after you are no longer around. Science is more
important than any one scientist. We should not be blinded by
our own self-importance. I often say that, if you were to stop a
man or woman in the street and ask them to name five leading
scientists in the last century, many people would have difficulty
identifying five. So let’s keep our feet on the ground and not get
carried away by our achievements, however great we might think
they are.”
Stoddart research group, 2007, forming a rotaxane molecule.
Stoddart has always held his students to the high level of
excellence to which he holds himself. He strives everyday for
perfection, pointing out that in order to be a successful academic
in the sciences, “You need the strength of a horse, the hide of
an elephant, and the work ethic of a honey bee.” He motivates
others to achieve the best of their abilities. Stoddart commented,
“One of the challenges I put before my very best postdocs and
students comes after they have been a little time in my group
and are doing well by any stretch of the imagination, I will say
INTERVIEW
Sir Fraser Stoddart
to them, ‘Right, you are doing well but do you know you could
do 200 times better,’ and I expect them to raise their game in
response to my raising the bar. If they look surprised, I just say,
‘You are so talented, you can do a lot more with your talents. I
am going to make your life hell on earth until you reach a level
of achievement and productivity that commensurates with your
knowledge base and innate ability.’ I don’t think there has ever
been someone who has not risen to the challenge of the 200
factor. In fact, at the end of it all, the young person usually comes
back to me, recalls the challenge, and thanks me for issuing it.
Too many young people underachieve because they have never
discovered the pleasure of becoming an overachiever.”
Dr. Stoddart continually praises the excellence of his
collaborators and students. He admits very readily that his
achievements are a result of the many individuals who have
shared his vision and passion over the years. They have been not
only colleagues, but have been friends of his for life as well. He
added, “There are close on 300 graduate students and postdoctoral
scholars that have played a huge role in our success as a group.
The youngsters, as I often call them, are the people who have
driven me on from day to day. I have always looked upon the
opportunity to interact with young people between the ages of
18 and 28, many of them blessed with an incredible amount of
talent, as a real privilege indeed. It certainly keeps you on your
toes.”
Dr. Stoddart has been successful in part because he is always
willing to ask for help. He insists that he learns something new
every day. He never stops asking questions. He is so capable and
creative because he has that innate ability to admit to his faults
and to ask for help. Stoddart reflected, “To be successful you
have got to be able to look at yourself and say what’s going to
have to be learned today, accepting that you still have a lot to
learn. You have got to be constantly reinventing yourself and
also to be prepared to maybe go to basics if everything else fails.
You cannot entertain the fear of failure. I am forever quoting the
impresario, Noel Coward, who said, ‘The secret of success is the
capacity to survive failure.’ All of us live lives that are full of
failures and disappointments. The things that you would like to
happen to you don’t always happen, so it’s how you respond to
failures and disappointments that ultimately decides your level of
achievement. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”
Stoddart concluded by offering a few final words of wisdom
about becoming successful, “My father used to say, ‘Son, stick
in until you stick out.’ Whether it’s passing examinations when
you are a student, obtaining an academic position, getting grant
applications funded, or publishing articles in the best journals,
you just have to hang in there until it works out for the best. You
will have your setbacks, and it’s how you respond to them that
will determine who you will become.”
Clearly, Fraser Stoddart overcame setbacks. He grew up on
a remote farm, worked his way up to positions of influence, and
succeeded where so many others have failed. Stoddart’s positive
mindset and strong work ethic have set an example from which
even the very best can learn. A professor to plenty, a friend to
many, and a collaborator to a few, Sir Fraser is an exceptional
man who is influencing the way in which science and scientists
develop in the future.
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