IST-lecture: building small

Monday, 4th of June 2018, Brg19 Vienna once again had the pleasure to be invited to a lecture at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST) due to our school’s excellent connections with the institute through our headmistress Mag. Karin Dobler.

Many thanks to her for enabling us to enjoy these unique opportunities!

This time, Mr. Ben Feringa, winner of the noble prize in chemistry, was talking about “The art of building small”. Although I was absolutely clueless about the topic before the lecture, Mr. Feringa, with his sympathetic style, managed to concisely give a basic outline of his work with molecular motors. These are complex, artificially produced dynamic objects only few nanometres in size, which’s movements the scientist seeks to control. His research already enabled him (although the chemist always underlined the fact that he would not have been able to achieve anything without his team at the University of Groningen) to develop a nanocar (which literally is a microscopic vehicle) and quite recently even artificial muscle-like fibres (consisting to 95% of water) that are able to flex in the presence of UV-light. Feringa also accustomed his audience with the principle of molecular switches, small molecules that can be (de-)activated using light. The aim is to be able to use these in medicine, for example in cancer therapy, where one could apply this method to eliminate the cells only where they are malicious, in order to prevent the treatment from affecting other, non-cancer cells. The talk was so enjoyable and informative that, in the end, it gave one the feeling of understanding chemistry as well as the desire to learn more about it. As always, the lecture was followed by an excellent and diverse hot buffet.

To conclude, I genuinely enjoyed this evening and am looking forward to my next time at the IST.

Tim Prager