Research Group(s)

• Catalysis
• Efficient chemical synthesis
• Inorganic Synthesis
• Material Synthesis
• Molecular machines
• Nanomaterials
• Nanotechnology
• Organic materials and polymers
• Organic Synthesis
• Polymerization
• Supramolecular chemistry

David A. Leigh FRS is a Royal Society Research Professor and the Sir Samuel Hall Professor of Chemistry. His research established fundamental principles by which directionality, transport and function can arise in chemical systems far from equilibrium. Leigh and co-workers pioneered ratchet mechanisms and kinetic asymmetry as practical design principles for controlling molecular-level behaviour, demonstrating how reaction networks can be organised to produce directional processes, energy transduction and function. Their work has led to major advances in autonomous chemically fuelled systems, out-of-equilibrium networks, molecular transport, molecular robotics, endergonic synthesis, and the assembly of complex molecular topologies including catenanes, rotaxanes and knots. His contributions have had wide-spread influence across chemistry and the molecular sciences.

Selected contributions

• Pioneered and experimentally demonstrated how to achieve ratchet mechanisms and kinetic asymmetry in chemical processes.
• Showed how out-of-equilibrium reaction networks can be engineered to generate transport, function and energy transduction at the molecular scale.
• Developed autonomous chemically fuelled systems in which catalysis drives and sustains non-equilibrium behaviour.
• Pioneered the understanding of directionality in chemical systems, linking mechanism, network structure and function.
• Expanded molecular topology through new and general strategies to catenanes, rotaxanes, molecular knots and woven molecular architectures.

Research interests

The Leigh group explores ways to control and exploit out-of-equilibrium processes in (supra)molecular chemistry, including molecular machinery. They pioneered the use of Brownian ratchet mechanisms as a general design principle for generating directionality in chemical cycles and reaction networks, including the first molecular energy ratchets and information ratchets (the latter a diabatic molecular incarnation of the Maxwell Demon thought experiment). Building on this framework, they demonstrated how catalysis can drive information ratchets and transduce chemical energy, and how chemical fuelling enables endergonic synthesis, molecular robotics and other types of task performance. They also develop strategies and synthetic methods to mechanically interlocked molecules (catenanes, rotaxanes and molecular knots), including active template synthesis, molecular chaperones, interwoven molecular grids and 2D molecular weaving.

KEYWORDS: Organic synthesis, supramolecular chemistry, chemical topology, catalysis, molecular motors, molecular machines, nanotechnology, advanced materials

For more information see: www.catenane.net