Chemistry AND Creativity with Nobel Prize winner Jean-Marie Lehn

According to Nobel Prize laureate Jean-Marie Lehn, chemistry isn’t just part of the solution to humanity's biggest challenges: it is the solution! That’s because chemistry can create solutions that do not yet exist. Ilham and Professor Lehn have a fascinating conversation about chemistry and creativity, failure and serendipity in science, and how companies play a crucial role in bringing scientific solutions into the world.

Professor Jean-Marie Lehn is a French chemist known for his groundbreaking synthesis of cryptands, which led to an entirely new field of supramolecular chemistry. In 1987 he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Donald Cram and Charles Pedersen for the “development and use of molecules with structure‐specific interactions of high selectivity”. He is a Professor at the University of Strasbourg Institute of Advanced Study and the Chair of Chemistry of Complex Systems. He is also the Director, Chemistry Laboratory of Molecular Interactions, at the Collège de France.

Timestamps
2:03 - Inspiration from school science teacher
5:40 - Supramolecular chemistry
7:29 - Chemistry: part of the solution
12:03 - A creative science
14:17 - Science, failure and serendipity
17:38 - Companies play an important role
23:40 - Diversity, equity and inclusion in science
26:38 - Love of classical music - and the connection to science
29:11 - Winning the Nobel Prize
30:40 - Chemistry and architecture

Syensqo is proud to partner with the Jean-Marie Lehn Foundation. Through this strategic collaboration, we are working together to achieve breakthroughs in the design of sustainable and ecological materials, and the synthesis of renewable and polyfunctional building blocks.

For additional details about the podcast, show notes, and access to resources mentioned during the show, please visit https://www.syensqo.com/en/podcast

Transcript

Ilham Kadri: Hello, everyone. I am beyond excited to be here today with Nobel Prize laureate Jean Marie Lehn. Professor Lehn is, of course, one of the top scientists in the world. And he has a very special place in my heart because he was my professor at the University of Strasbourg. He made me love science and encouraged me to pursue a career in chemistry. Jean Marie is a professor at the University of Strasbourg Institute of Advanced Study and the Chair of Chemistry of Complex Systems. He won the Nobel Prize back in 1987 for his synthesis of cryptands. And his groundbreaking research led to an entirely new field of chemistry known as supramolecular chemistry. I'm happy to say that he's actually the fourth Nobel Prize winner to come on this podcast. But again, he's extremely special to me and to us. And I can't wait for this conversation. Jean Marie, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Jean Marie Lehn: Ilham, thank you so much for inviting me. Very happy to have people like you, you know, this is when you are a professor. You are supposed to do your research, of course, but you are also training people and seeing how people change over the years during their studies and so on is fantastic. And you are a special case, no doubt.

Inspiration from school science teacher 

Ilham Kadri: Oh, thank you, Jean Marie, and you've impacted many lives. But before we get there, because obviously we're going to talk about the training and education, you are known throughout the world, Jean Marie, for your breakthrough research, and we want to hear all about it. But I'd like always to start by asking my podcasters, by asking you, where did it all begin? I know you grew up in Alsace in the beautiful you know, Alsace in France. So where did that little boy remind you that little boy first encounter science and what made you fall in love with it and what put you on the path to eventually becoming a Nobel Prize laureate?

Jean Marie Lehn: Yeah, you know, this trip along the years is different for everybody. And I think so often when I ask questions, how did you get there and so on, trying to find out if there are common ways, common paths, but for each of us, it's different. For me I was at primary school. Okay. I was all right, but I was not especially good. I was in a small city. And so we had a very good, no, this is important to say. I had a very good teacher, somebody,

Ilham Kadri: yeah,

Jean Marie Lehn: A primary school teacher, 

Ilham Kadri: yeah. 

Jean Marie Lehn: Very, very dedicated to his pupils and doing overtime to teach them and to get them into high school. He did that. Without any more money and so on, just, he did it over time for his work, for bringing young youngsters into high school, and this was probably what he called, what he was looking at, his price, his reward, to bring them into high school. So his name is Pierre Charlier, and I owe him quite a lot, I must say. I have always recognized that.

So after that, I went to high school and after high school all right oh yeah, that was very funny also. At that time, the classical studies were much more famous than the mathematics and physics and so on.I started at the beginning learning first Latin and then Greek. Classical Greek, Modern Greek so I was in the literature section, the classical section, and then when, once I arrived in the, towards the end of high school, I began to be interested in sciences, and I took some maybe some books from the people who were more into sciences and that then sort of hooked me and I started to be, become very interested in science and especially in chemistry because it looked like an area where you can, you have regularities.

You have access to many different building blocks of chemical objects and you have laws which seem to be obeyed. We know that it doesn't always work, but this you learn later. As long as in the books, it looks like everything works all the time. And then from there, this was in Aubernay, close to Rosheim, where I was born. And then I went to University of Strasbourg and then things sort of took a normal, a normal road, so to say. 

Supramolecular chemistry

Ilham Kadri: Thank you for reminding us that the primary teachers in primary school are important all the way to PhD, whatever. So, let's move to your work now, because it's truly groundbreaking and actually defined an entirely new field of chemistry. Can you explain to our listeners the discovery and its impact, Jean Marie? 

Jean Marie Lehn: Yeah. You know, like molecular chemistry, the way you make molecules from atoms. This has always existed, like supramolecular chemistry has always existed. And I think a way to explain what supramolecular chemistry is, is rather simple. I take a very simple example, water. Water is a very simple molecule with two hydrogen and one oxygen.

Now, if water is in the gas phase, molecules are separated from each other and they have specific properties, properties of isolated molecules. But they cannot boil, they do not boil, they do not freeze. They have no viscosity, they have no index of refraction and so on. Now you take a glass of water. What is a glass of water doing?

A glass of water can freeze. A glass of water can boil, it has an index of refraction, it has a viscosity. What's the difference? The difference is that a glass of water is many, many molecules in interaction. So I would say, in a very trivial way, that an isolated molecule is molecular chemistry, pure molecular chemistry, and the chemistry of assemblies which interact is supramolecular, so going from an isolated molecule of water to a glass of water, you go from molecular to supramolecular. I think everybody can understand that.

Chemistry: part of the solution

Ilham Kadri: Yeah, when you explain it, it looks so obvious and simple and that's what I love it. I love it. And now I think the listener, they understand why you as a professor and a teacher, you know, who just loved it. And as you know, this podcast, by the way, Jean Marie, is about The AND, A-N-D, the power of the , AND and how we can make, for example, our businesses.

You have a lot of listeners who are in the business world, both sustainable and profitable. And of course, science plays a huge role in creating a more sustainable world. Now, I know you would agree with me that while chemistry has been part of the problem, and we heard it a lot, chemistry is part of the problem. It's also importantly part of the solution.

Jean Marie Lehn: It is part of the solution, in fact, it is the solution.

Ilham Kadri: I love it. So because chemistry is the science that can actually create what doesn't yet exist, right? How do you think chemistry is the force for good in this world? What is the role of chemistry in humanity's progress, Jean Marie?

Jean Marie Lehn: Aha, aha, now you're touching a fiber. First of all, chemistry is not just a science which will solve the problems which others have created. It can contribute to it, it will very much contribute to it. But I think chemistry is much more. And let me tell you a short story, which is, I mean, I don't remember exactly the words which were used, but what the crux of the matter is the following.

I got a phone call from somebody's writer, a scientist, science writer who was working for one of the high impact journals, as they are called. And he said, look, I am working on the important problems in science. So I go to the physicists. They tell me we are working on the laws of the universe. That's a big problem.

Then I go to the biologists and they tell me we are working on the origin of life and the way life functions. Big problem. What are the chemists doing? They make new molecules, new materials, new drugs. Nice. Good. Everybody's happy about that. But where is the big problem? So I told him, look, wait a minute.

Maybe chemistry has the crux problem, the one which is very important. And what is that? How do you go from the general laws which rule our universe to the expression of those laws in an organism like the one biologists are studying? What is the way, how can you go from very general physical laws? These physical laws rule our universe, but they say there must be a pathway from these general laws to a very, very complex organism, and especially to a brain.

The brain is, of course, the top, the top organ we have in our body. That's why we talk to each other. Otherwise, we don't talk to each other. And so I think that chemistry has this mission to try to understand the pathway leading from general laws to specific expression of these laws in a given complex organism.

And it was quite funny, in 2011 was the international year of chemistry. So the French Physician Society asked me to write a piece on chemistry for their magazine called Reflet de la Physique. So I wrote something about okay, self organization and these kind of things. But I concluded by saying the following in a sort of a little bit sort of, humoristic fashion, and also somewhat controversial yeah, by saying that chemistry is to physics what a quartet of Beethoven is to the laws of acoustics.

The laws of acoustics are general. You can write all music with it, but there is a specificity. The laws of acoustics can contain all what can contain what is done with them, but it does not exist before it has been written. So I stand with this. Chemistry is to physics what a Beethoven quartet or symphony or whatever you want is to the laws of acoustics.

A creative science

Ilham Kadri: love it. I love it. I love it. Wow. I think I need to learn it and repeat it going forward. And it's great that you connect the dots. I welcomed in the podcast, Nuno Maulide, who is a musician and a chemist of the University of Vienna. So Jean Marie, he really played, actually, piano and Bach and all of this, and showed us how chemistry connects with music. So it's great that you remind our listeners, you know, the university of such connectivity. And I've heard you say, Jean Marie, that Chemistry is a creative science, which I think is so true, but it might sound surprising to some people. Can you tell our listeners what you mean by creative science?

Jean Marie Lehn: Yes. The problem with chemistry is that molecules are very small. You don't see them. But like I have also in one of my general public lectures, I use a picture of the hand of the artist expressing out of stone a human figure. This is by Gustav Rodan. That's a very famous artist, very famous statue which is in the Rodan Museum.

And what chemistry can express through very intimately through the recomposition of atoms in molecules and of course the supramolecular interactions of the assemblies are very creative. You don't see it, that's the point. And chemists make many objects which don't exist because, before the chemists have made them.

That is creative. Like a statue, like a painting, does not exist, or a piece of music, does not exist before they have been created. So I think chemistry is as creative. It's taking matter as a raw material, so to say, and shaping out of it other elements, other matter, and not only, you know, I could even go further.

A painting. You see the surface in. In chemistry, you see the, in intimate structure, the intimacy of the material.

Science, failure and serendipity

Ilham Kadri: So, yeah, it's almost the art of chemistry. So it's not only a science you can, you know, so, then I would like, you know, to bring us in this conversation to failure. Jean Marie, science is also a field where you are likely to fail more than you succeed. What's your experience is with failure in your own lab and where did it lead you?

Jean Marie Lehn: Yeah. Failing. Okay. You learn something in other words, there is this famous sentence which says Sometimes we fail and sometimes we learn. So, yeah, and you can win by getting what you want, and when you do not win, then you will learn something. Of course, you are very happy if you don't fail. Ultimately, that's what you want. But we are still on a learning curve. We still have lots of things we don't know, so we have to accept that some things are not not predictable. There are failures along the way, but you should try to use these failures as a pathway of learning, 

Ilham Kadri: absolutely. 

Jean Marie Lehn: of getting closer and closer.

Ilham Kadri: And we know some innovations, Jean Marie came out of what was perceived as failing and then become serendipity, a big success, right? So we, we don't know what we don't know.

Jean Marie Lehn: Serendipity, that's an interesting thing. People think serendipity, but you know serendipity, I think it's Pasteur who said it. It comes to a prepared mind. If your mind is prepared, then serendipity comes up. Because you notice things. If you don't have your mind prepared, you just, you don't see it. It just passes through.

Ilham Kadri: It's amazing what you say, Jean Marie, because many people in the company are talking about being grounded and balanced, having a clear mind to see things. And that's what you are saying and telling us is that your mind needs to be in a calm, in a very, you know, grounded and balanced way to be alert to the serendipity passing by. If not, you don't see the train passing by, right? Yeah.

Jean Marie Lehn: Yeah, you see, sometimes, they are all very eager to ask, how do you get a Nobel Prize? I said, no, wait a minute, it's not complicated. First is, don't miss the train. That means if a train passes, You should notice it, because this train may be something very important, or this event may be very important.

So don't miss events which you did not predict, which you did not wait for, but the way you see it, huh? Um there is a French philosopher who said that one has to wait for the unexpected. Just put yourself in a position where you wait for what you did not expect, but you have to see it. You have to notice that there is something unexpected, and in many cases, the unexpected is more interesting than what you wanted to do.

Because if you get what you want to do, then of course, you made, as you might say, a measurement, or you got a product. But if you get something which you didn't want, if the result is something you didn't expect, You may make a great discovery.

Companies play an important role

Ilham Kadri: Yeah, I love it. Yeah. If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it. And as you often point out and I couldn't agree more. I think you, and we discussed many times during our conversation and the Solvay conferences, companies play an important role. And because it's the companies who put those scientific solutions out in the world through products and applications. This is the mission of companies like ours. We are obviously a science company after all. How do you think, Jean Marie, businesses can do better in the mission to put science at the service of humanity?

Jean Marie Lehn: Yeah, I think in fact, they do it. I can give you an example. When we introduced in 1990, The idea of supramolecular polymers, that means polymeric materials, let's say called for general public, a plastic material, which was not the classical one, but it was based on this question, the fact that the molecules interact.

This is okay, this is, this was a new field, so it developed, it developed by the work of not just us, but many people. Of course, if the rest of the chemists are not interested, you have wasted your time. But the chemists get interested more and more. A lot of research is going on. And it developed by different groups.

One, especially in the Netherlands, of Bert Mayer. And so that then developed. And then, in 2013, which was 23 years after we had introduced the concept. I got an email from a small company, we say, who told me, this email said that we have developed super molecular materials which are biocompatible.

And out of that they made a material which could be used to reconstruct the heart of children who had a severe heart malformation. To reconstruct it. And this was done. And in 2013, the first little girl was implanted with such a material in the heart. So for us, this was fantastic to see that something we had had, we were miles and miles and miles away from thinking it would end this way.

But what did this do? This was due to the work of many people. We introduced the concept, but then many chemists worked on it, they developed it, a lot of intelligent people around the world, and then the companies came up and decided, somebody decided and had, they had finances also, they decided we want to push it, and they succeeded, and this was the work of engineers, technicians industrial scientists and so on.

So, when everybody works together, you can have fantastic output. And this was very, very, very, in fact, very comforting that even when ideas seem to be far fetched, there will be practical applications and there are some people who will find them.

Ilham Kadri: yeah, it's amazing. And the example you are giving you don't imagine that you are on something which can save lives later, and that's what you say about fundamental science, having a clear mind, accepting, you know, to go to that breakthrough. What do you think? Is there, is there a next big breakthrough in chemistry, Jean Marie, that will truly make a big difference today? Or we don't know? Yeah.

Jean Marie Lehn: I think, first of all, yes, we don't know. It can come up from anywhere. Take the vaccines. Who was thinking that it would come out this way? When the pandemic started, we all were thinking that we would be sitting in our, confined in our rooms for eight years. It was found in less than a year.

So, what does that mean? It meant that the science was ripe. The science was ripe. Messenger RNA had been studied for many years. The people who got the Nobel Prize for that were from Institut Pasteur. And, of course, many other people have contributed. So the Nobel Committee had to make a selection. And so the science was ready.

And then after the science being ready, one had to make this chemical change, which is to use one letter to change, one letter of the acids zine to pseudo uridine. And that allowed things. Now it's very short, what I'm telling you. It's much more, it's more complicated. But basically it was a small chemical change which led finally to the development of these vaccines in less than a year. And then of course, companies had to jump in. Without companies, you cannot produce millions of doses. So you need a big element, which they are able to produce

Nowadays, people want to close up on themselves. Countries want to put borders again. I hate that.I am European. So this is terrible, but if you look at how, who finally was recognized for the vaccines that other people contributed, of course, this was a Hungarian lady. An American colleague, they did the basic research. Then a big company, which was able to develop, but to develop what? The vaccine, which had been first developed by BioNTech in Germany, headed by two persons, Ugo Sein and Özlem Ciolici who were of Turkish descent. So look at that. What is it? What a mixture. Hungarian, American, Turkish descent. 

Diversity, equity and inclusion in science

Ilham Kadri: Yeah, incredible, Jean Marie. And you are talking about our friend, Kati Kariko, obviously. Yeah, she started in Hungary. I interviewed her. She won the Solvay Prize and now the Nobel Prize. And all that she left with a hundred bucks in her you know the puppy of her daughter, you know, leaving in Eastern Europe. She's amazing. And you are amazing. I want to switch gears. Maybe to another important topic, which is diversity, equity and inclusion. There still aren't enough women, as you know, in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We call them STEM fields, both in the academic, but also in the industrial side. And our companies are struggling to attract more women and girls into the STEM area. What are your thoughts on this, Jean Marie?And what are you seeing? Do you see improvements in the university system? What can we do more to encourage more diversity in science?

Jean Marie Lehn: I think make it possible, not trying to push too hard,I think let people do what they like and what they feel like. Of course, one has to do to make the possibilities available for a given individual to develop herself or himself. this is still, of course, one has, one needs some positive discrimination, as these things are called, that okay, to help change the picture.

But on the other hand when these things came up I went back to the, we have, we have we have in the lab photographs of all the people who were in the lab. We called the Trombinoscope, and when we went there and we counted, because at that time this was starting in 1965, and we counted and there were almost equal men and women.

Nothing, just because the people come, they apply. You look at that, you look at what they have been doing and you pick them up. And so that's with no pre no configuration of what you we want to do. Now, of course, the interesting thing would now be to look at where they went later on. Did they become some more important people in their field. Some of them, yes, but it's difficult. 

Ilham Kadri: Yeah. I like it. And I think you, you started with this when I asked you my first question, where did it come from? As a little boy, you also talked about primary teachers and the importance that the, it's not the dolls for the girls and the tracks for the boys. That's, you know girls and women can do anything, right. But as you said, is about passion and finding it. 

Love of classical music - and the connection to science 

Let me switch gears. Pierre Boulez, you know, a great French composer and good friend of yours at the Collège de France wrote a piece for you in honor of your Nobel Prize. So not only do you win the most prestigious prize, you also have it commemorated by one of the greatest composers of our time. And our listeners may not know this, but you are not only a brilliant scientist. You are also an accomplished musician and you play the piano and organ beautifully. I'd love to hear this by the way, one day, but you, you, you know, I mean, you, you are not the only great scientist to have this love for music, right? I mean, and you know, in some of the conferences, we welcomed Albert Einstein in our home. He played the violin and Max Planck, he played the piano. They sometimes play duets at scientific conferences.So what does music mean to you, Jean Marie? Do you have a favorite composer? And do you also find a strong connection between chemistry and music?

Jean Marie Lehn: I was very happy that Pierre Boulez dedicated a piece to me which of course I cherish, I have at home, and we'll see what I do with it. I will give it to some, some, maybe, maybe the foundation or something, 

What is chemistry or science to do with music? For me, music is very organized. I like things which are organized. And my preferred composer is Beethoven, who organized, he is organized at the same time, very passionate.

So for me, that is, he's for me, you cannot say the top because there are many other people also, but there are some things he has written which are a gift to mankind. No doubt, no doubt about that. So I would say that The structure of music, vertical, horizontal, and time dependent. There are these three, it's like a three dimensional world, so to say, when a, when a score, when you look at a score, it has a vertical organization, an horizontal organization, and this means also a time dependent, time dependence of when you play it, because there's a given speed, there's a given idea, emotions, and so on. So it's very complete. Of course, another artist would tell you painting is the same, being a sculptor is the same. Sure, sure, but I'm specialist in music.

Winning the Nobel Prize

Ilham Kadri: I love it. I love it. I ask the other Nobel Prizes the same question. There are only so few people have won these prizes. What did winning the Nobel Prize mean to you? How, how did that feel, Jean Marie?

Jean Marie Lehn: It's a question which has been asked many times, of course. First of all, I wanted not to change what I was doing, but of course one of the persons of the Nobel Committee told me, you will see your life will change. And I was saying, look, what is that changing your life? But indeed, he was right Because you get more invitations you have  to try to speak for science.

I would say science in general, not just chemistry to make people aware of the power of science, of the fact that, yeah, one of my mottos is when I, at the end of the, some of these general public lectures, Science shapes the future of humanity. Science shapes the future of humanity. And then we are students there, I add, participate.

I don't say that we should all be scientists, but we should all know some science. Because it really shapes the thing. The universe is, so to say, science. 

Chemistry and architecture

Ilham Kadri: It's so inspiring to hear you that I mean, what you say that everyone should spend time getting to know and understand science because it's important to our everyday lives. Well, I mean, last, very last you know, question, obviously you do research, teaching music, full of passion. Do you have other hobbies? Jean Marie, what do you do outside reinventing chemistry and playing piano?

Jean Marie Lehn: A good, like, like many people around the world, not just scientists, we would like to do much, much more, many other things. I would be, for instance, a good, I would like to have been an architect, for instance, but this is also just like molecules, this is perhaps reflected in making, handling molecules.Molecules are an architecture of the intimate architecture of matter molecules. So of course, a real architect changes the life of a citizen because the many buildings change totally their life. For instance, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao changed totally Bilbao. I was in Bilbao before the Guggenheim existed.And now at the beginning, it was just Wasted land where there were industrial wasteland, and now it's a city which is on the map because an architect had, has built this this, this museum, which is changed, has changed the life of the city. And so I would like to do many other things, but we say in French, qui trop embrasse, If you want to embrace many, many people, you don't hold them strongly.

Ilham Kadri: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So focus and choose. Well, what a beautiful note to end this fascinating conversation. Jean Marie you are one of the role models for many, one of our heroes, and you know that already. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your passion.

Jean Marie Lehn: One word about heroes… Francois Jacob who was not a minor scientist. He said, I don't like heroes because they think they are always right. 

Ilham Kadri: No, you know, you are a scientist, so you are a hero who challenged himself. You're, but, but seriously, your leadership lessons, your love for science. I'm sure our listeners have heard it, have felt it, and will be inspired by the creativity, inheritance of the study of science, and specifically chemistry. And what chemistry brings today and will bring in the future. And as you said, everyone should spend time getting to know and understand science. I loved it. Thank you very much, Jean Marie, for inspiring us and inspiring me today.

Jean Marie Lehn: Thank you very much. I'm happy about that.