Sauvage was born in Paris in 1944,[4] and earned his
PhD degree from the
Université Louis-Pasteur under the supervision of
Jean-Marie Lehn, himself a 1987 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. During his doctoral work, he contributed to the first syntheses of the
cryptand ligands.[5] After postdoctoral research with
Malcolm L. H. Green, he returned to
Strasbourg, where he is now emeritus professor.
Sauvage's scientific work has focused on creating molecules that mimic the functions of machines by changing their conformation in response to an external signal.[6]
His Nobel Prize work was done in 1983, when he was the first to synthesize a
catenane, a complex of two
interlocking ring-shaped molecules, which were
bonded mechanically rather than chemically. Because these two rings can move relative to each other, the Nobel Prize cited this as a vital initial effort towards making
molecular machine. The other two recipients of the prize followed up by later creating a
rotaxane and a
molecular rotor.[7][8]
^Cesario, M.; Dietrich-Buchecker, C. O.; Guilhem, J.; Pascard, C.; Sauvage, J. P. (1985). "Molecular structure of a catenand and its copper(I) catenate: complete rearrangement of the interlocked macrocyclic ligands by complexation". Journal of the Chemical Society, Chemical Communications (5). Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC): 244.
doi:
10.1039/c39850000244.
ISSN0022-4936.
^Albrecht-Gary, A. M.; Meyer, M.; Dietrich-Buchecker, C. O.; Sauvage, J. P.; Guilhem, J.; Pascard, C. (1993). "Dicopper (I) trefoil knots: Demetallation kinetic studies and molecular structures". Recueil des Travaux Chimiques des Pays-Bas. 112 (6). Wiley: 427–428.
doi:
10.1002/recl.19931120622.
ISSN0165-0513.