HANOVER, N.H. – February 14, 2020 – Chenfeng Ke, an assistant professor of chemistry at Dartmouth, has been awarded the 2020 Cram Lehn Pedersen Prize in Supramolecular Chemistry.
The prize, awarded annually by the International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry (ISMSC), recognizes significant, original and independent work by an early-career researcher in the area of supramolecular chemistry.
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| Chenfeng Ke, winner of the 2020 Cram Lehn Pedersen Prize in Supramolecular Chemistry. Photo: Eli Burakian/Dartmouth College |
“It is a great honor to receive this award as a supramolecular chemist.” said Ke. “I really appreciate the support from the community. My aspiration is to contribute to the development of supramolecular chemistry by bringing these dynamic systems across the nano-to-macroscale, developing macroscopic machinery materials that operate cohesively at the molecular level.”
Supramolecular chemistry studies the structures that mimic biological machineries such as double-stranded DNA, enzymes, proteins and their substrates. In the past few decades, this concept has been extended to make responsive polymers for 3D printing, functional biomaterials for therapeutics, as well as applications in data storage and processing.
“In his short career, Professor Chenfeng Ke has shown outstanding creativity in the development of 3D-printed mechanically interlocked monoliths,” said Roger Harrison, secretary of the ISMSC International Committee. “He has also discovered transformations of fluorescent supramolecular networks and their guest-induced expansion. These and other innovations show that Professor Ke is a premier supramolecular chemist.”
The Cram Lehn Pedersen Prize is named in honor of Donald Cram, Jean-Marie Lehn and Charles Pedersen, winners of the 1987 Nobel Prize in chemistry for establishing the supramolecular chemistry research field.
Dartmouth’s Ke Functional Materials Group focuses on developing smart materials for 3D and 4D printing applications, elastic crystalline porous organic materials for energy and environmental related applications, and carbohydrate receptors for biological applications.
The award will be presented at the International Symposium on Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry in Sydney, Australia from July 16-20, 2020. As part of the prize, Ke will participate in a lecture tour organized by Chemical Communications, a journal of the Royal Science of Chemistry.
