Bartosz Szyszko, 2025 NCN Award winner, will deliver an online lecture: ‘Chemical topology: From Molecular Knots to Molecular Machinery’. The event is organised by the Copernicus Centre and will be held on 17 December, at 6 p.m..
Bartosz Szyszko, photo by Łukasz Bera/NCN
Dr hab. Bartosz Szyszko, Professor at the University of Wroclaw, specialises in supramolecular chemistry. Last October, he was presented with the NCN Award for outstanding research achievements.
‘Chemists usually study molecules connected through classical covalent or ionic bonds, whereas I wanted to explore chemical topology”, he says. ‘At the core of this field are systems that form a whole through a non-obvious interlinking of their components’.
Prof. Szyszko’s team will focus on the synthesis and investigation of rotaxanes, catenanes and molecular knots – mechanically interlocked molecules that resemble the links of a chain. Such systems exhibit entirely different properties, dynamics and reactivity compared with compounds known from classical chemistry. The achievements of his group include the development of new methods for constructing structures with nontrivial topology, including approaches that use metal ion clusters as structural templates. The researchers have also discovered a new type of molecular motion in rotaxanes, which they have termed “fluttering.” ‘Understanding the behaviour of individually mechanically interlocked molecules, gaining greater control over their dynamics, and explaining why they undergo specific reactions in one way rather than another brings us closer to the stage of their practical application in the design of advanced, intelligent materials and nanomachines – whose potential uses we may not yet be able to fully imagine’, he adds.
Rotaxanes are already being used for the controlled release of active substances within the body and for the production of gel-based materials capable of changing their volume in response to external stimuli – applications that are finding use, among others, in soft robotics. The researcher’s work may provide the foundation for the development of new functional materials and nanoscale devices, such as chemical sensors, substance carriers, nanomachine components or intelligent catalysts.
Prof. Szyszko’s research footage.
The lecture will be streamed online on 17 October, at 6 p.m.
This is the final lecture in the ‘Science at the Centre’ series, following lectures by Łucja Kowalewska and Maciej Stolarski. The first lectures were delivered by the 2020 NCN Award winners and 17 meetings have been organised so far. They are all available online.
We are grateful to the Copernicus Centre for organising the series.