About David Leigh (scientist)
David Alan Leigh (born May 31, 1963) FRS FRSE FRSC is a British chemist, Royal Society Research Professor and, since 2014, the Sir Samuel Hall Chair of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manchester. He was previously the Forbes Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh (2001–2012) and Professor of Synthetic Chemistry at the University of Warwick (1998–2001). He is President-elect of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2026-28; President 2028-2030). == Education == Leigh was educated at Codsall Community High School and the University of Sheffield. == Career and research == He is noted for the invention of fundamental methods to control molecular-level dynamics and entanglement. His group's experimental designs established Brownian ratchet mechanisms as a general principle for achieving directionality, transport, energy transduction and function in chemical systems far from equilibrium. Key advances include catalysis-driven (autonomous) chemically fueled systems, molecular assembly, entanglement and weaving, novel and general strategies to rotaxanes, catenanes and molecular knots, and some of the earliest synthetic molecular motors, molecular robots and functional nanomachines. Using mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures he prepared a novel molecular information ratchet that employs a mechanism reminiscent of Maxwell's demon (although it requires an energy input and so does not challenge the second law of thermodynamics). He has developed a rotaxane based photoactive molecular switch with the capability of changing the hydrophobicity of a surface and thus causing small droplets of liquid to move up hill, against the force of gravity. In 2009 he reported the first small-molecule walker-track system in which a 'walker' can be transported directionally along a short molecular track in a manner reminiscent of the way that biological motor proteins 'walk' along biopolymers in the cell.
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