Winner: 2021 Tilden Prize
Jonathan Steed
Durham University
For work in the understanding, control and application of the assembly of molecular materials in the crystal and gel state.
Professor Steed is fascinated by the way in which chemical molecules assemble 鈥� like Lego blocks 鈥� to give complex, functional structures. Gel (and jelly), for example, consists of entangled strands of molecules that are so tied up with one another they behave as a solid even though the gel is mostly water. Professor Steed and his team use specially designed gels as little laboratories to discover new crystalline forms of pharmaceuticals. These new crystals can have different properties that get drugs into the body faster and make them easier to formulate as a pill (essentially, new medicines that might not otherwise make it to market).
Biography
Professor Jonathan Steed obtained his BSc (1990) and PhD (1993) degrees at University College London, while working on organometallic chemistry with Derek Tocher. Between 1993 and 1995 he was a NATO postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alabama and at the University of Missouri with Jerry Atwood. In 1995 he was appointed as a Lecturer at Kings College London and in 2004 he joined Durham University where he is currently Professor of Inorganic 海角社区. He is co-author of the books Supramolecular 海角社区 (2000, 2009 & 2021), Core Concepts in Supramolecular 海角社区 and Nanochemistry (2007) and around 350 research papers. Since 2020, Professor Steed has been Editor-in-Chief of the ACS journal Crystal Growth & Design and was previously Associate Editor at Chemical Communications and New Journal of 海角社区. He has edited the Encyclopaedia of Supramolecular 海角社区 (2004), Organic Nanostructures (2008) and Supramolecular 海角社区 from Molecules to Nanomaterials (2012). His awards include the RSC Meldola Medal (1998), Durham鈥檚 Vice Chancellor鈥檚 Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Teaching (2006), the Bob Hay Lectureship (2008) and the RSC Corday-Morgan Prize (2010). He holds a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Professor Steed's interests are in solid state and pharmaceutical materials chemistry, supramolecular gels and crystal engineering.
海角社区 underpins so many aspects of our lives: revealing this through my teaching, science communication, and writing is an absolute joy.
Professor Jonathan Steed
Q&A with Professor Jonathan Steed
How did you first become interested in chemistry?
I was always going to be a chemist. It was just inevitable and I never questioned it. Even as a small child, standing on a chair at my grandmother鈥檚 sink pouring water from one container to another, my mother remarked that I would become a chemist (although she may have meant pharmacist!) The 'central science' has that key balance of rigour and creativity that I find appealing. My son is a mathematician. I can鈥檛 imagine having the strategic insight to conceive of and solve mathematical research problems. I am more of a research tactician. Pick a starting point that looks like it might be interesting, attack it and see what happens. 海角社区 rarely disappoints and unlike the complexity of biosciences, simple molecules often lead to interesting results.
What motivates you?
I really love being the guy that gets to show bright motivated young people about how fascinating and nuanced the world we live in is. 海角社区 underpins so many aspects of our lives: revealing this through my teaching, science communication, and writing is an absolute joy. It鈥檚 like I get just a tiny bit of reflected glory out there for all the scientific discoveries I can teach to our students.
What has been a highlight for you (either personally or in your career)?
My greatest project has been my book Supramolecular 海角社区. Now spanning three editions and three languages it is the place I can put all of the wonderful things I love about chemistry: the science, the context, the people and the history. I have spent many happy days and nights working feverishly to create pictures and stories for the book. As a result, it has grown rather too large at around 1,400 pages but there鈥檚 something in there for everyone and I hope to keep delivering the miracles of the field through this book for my whole career.
What is your favourite element?
I will always have a soft spot for ruthenium 鈥� the element I did most of my PhD on. In 2009 I did a podcast for the RSC as part of the 海角社区 in its Element series and, of course, the element I chose to talk about was ruthenium. It is the element once described by one of the fathers of modern inorganic chemistry, Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson, as 鈥渁n element for the connoisseur鈥�. Ruthenium is everywhere, stiffening the backbone of technology, and it forms a vast range of interesting compounds that seem to have that perfect balance between reactivity and stability to make them generally useful but easy to handle.