Dr. Ben Feringa | 2025 Feynman Prize Winner

Why It Matters

Feringa’s breakthroughs demonstrate that controllable molecular machines can revolutionize data storage and precision medicine, offering scalable solutions to drug resistance and next‑generation information technologies.

Key Takeaways

• Molecular motors mimic biological machines at nanometer scale
• Light-driven molecular switches enable reversible control of function
• Applications include optical data storage, smart pharmaceuticals, drug delivery
• Directional rotation achieved through interdisciplinary collaboration across chemistry, physics
• Nanotech promises to transform medicine and information technology industries

Summary

Dr. Ben Feringa, 2016 Nobel laureate in chemistry, was honored with the 2025 Feynman Prize and delivered a lecture on the art of building molecular switches and motors. He framed the discussion around dynamic molecular systems that bridge chemistry, physics, engineering, and computer science, emphasizing the need to control motion at the nanoscale rather than merely observe Brownian activity.

Feringa highlighted the core challenge of achieving directional rotation and amplifying motion, crediting colleagues Jean‑Pierre Sauvage and Sir Fraser Stoddart for pioneering rotaxane and catenane approaches. His own work focuses on light‑driven overcrowded alkenes that toggle chirality, enabling optical read‑out without destroying the switch. These molecular switches have been embedded in polymers, hydrogels, and protein channels to create reversible optical memories, patterned surfaces, and controllable nanopores.

Concrete examples included a prototype optical disc storing megabytes of data via single‑molecule bits, a photo‑responsive antibiotic that activates only under specific wavelengths, and engineered bacterial porins that open on command to release drugs. He also described recent advances in photo‑controlled circadian‑rhythm regulators, illustrating how precise wavelength tuning—from blue to infrared—can achieve therapeutic activation without tissue damage.

The implications are profound: nanoscopic motors and switches could redefine data storage density, enable on‑demand drug activation to combat resistance, and usher in a new class of smart therapeutics that operate with cellular precision. As the field matures, interdisciplinary collaboration will be essential to translate these laboratory demonstrations into commercial technologies.

Original Description

Apply to join Foresight Molecular Machines program: https://foresight.org/focus-areas/nanotechnology/

A group of scientists, entrepreneurs, and institutional allies who cooperate to advance molecular machines, applications in energy, medicine, and material science, and long-term progress toward Richard Feynman’s vision of nanotechnology.

Dr. Ben Feringa | 2025 Feynman Prize Winner

This year, we have the honor of celebrating the accomplishments of our 2025 winner in the Experiment category, Dr. Ben Feringa.

Bio: Ben L. Feringa obtained his PhD degree at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands under the guidance of Professor Hans Wynberg. After working as a research scientist at Shell in the Netherlands and the UK, he was appointed lecturer and in 1988 full professor at the University of Groningen and named the Jacobus H. van't Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences in 2003. He is member and former vice-president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. He was elected Foreign Honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The German Academy Leopoldina, the Chinese National Academy of Sciences, Foreign member of the Royal Society (London) and Member of the US National Academy. In 2024 he was elected member of the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia). Ben Feringa is member of European Research Council ERC. In 2008 he was appointed Academy Professor and was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands and in 2016 promoted to Commander in the order of the Dutch Lion. Feringa’s research has been recognized with a number of awards including the Koerber European Science Award (2003), the Spinoza Award (2004), the Prelog gold medal (2005), the Norrish Award of the ACS (2007), the Paracelsus medal (2008), the Chirality medal (2009), the RSC Organic Stereochemistry Award (2011), Humboldt award (2012), the Nagoya gold medal (2013), ACS Cope Scholar Award 2015, Chemistry for the Future Solvay Prize (2015), the August-Wilhelm-von-Hoffman Medal (2016), the Tetrahedron Prize 2017, the Euchems gold medal and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (jointly with J.-P. Sauvage and Sir J.F. Stoddart).

Abstract: Inspired by Nature's principles of catalysis, molecular assembly, recognition, transport and motion, the goal is to exploit the full potential of synthetic chemistry to create new structures with dynamic and adaptive functions. Feringa has been a pioneer in molecular nanoscience, exploring molecular switches and motors, initiating one of the most important fundamental developments in the field of chemistry in the past decades, i.e. the control of molecular motion. The discovery of the world’s first rotary molecular motor powered by light set the stage for numerous developments in the emerging field of dynamic molecular systems, ranging from smart drugs (i.e. photo-pharmacology) to responsive materials, catalysts and soft robotics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Feringa

══════════════════════════════════════

About The Foresight Institute

The Foresight Institute is a research organization and non-profit that supports the beneficial development of high-impact technologies. Since our founding in 1986 on a vision of guiding powerful technologies, we have continued to evolve into a many-armed organization that focuses on several fields of science and technology that are too ambitious for legacy institutions to support. From molecular nanotechnology, to brain-computer interfaces, space exploration, cryptocommerce, and AI, Foresight gathers leading minds to advance research and accelerate progress toward flourishing futures.

We are entirely funded by your donations. If you enjoy what we do please consider donating through our donation page: https://foresight.org/donate/

Visit https://foresight.org, subscribe to our channel for more videos or join us here:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/foresightinst

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foresightinst

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/foresight-institute

══════════════════════════════════════

Timecodes

00:00 Introduction and Prize Context

01:10 Molecular Materials and Motion

04:10 Controlling Motion at Nanoscale

05:30 Molecular Switches and Light Control

08:20 Molecular Information Storage

11:10 Light-Controlled Drug Delivery

12:30 Photopharmacology and Smart Drugs

18:20 From Switches to Molecular Motors

22:40 Designing Light-Driven Motors

25:00 Multi-Rotor Systems and Motion Control

28:40 Dynamic Materials and Polymers

33:20 Amplifying Motion to Macroscale

36:20 Nanomachines and Applications

40:40 Molecular Car and Nanorobots

44:40 Q and A