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Ben L. Feringa received his PhD degree from the University of Groningen in 1978 with Professor Hans Wynberg on the topic of asymmetric phenol oxidation. He was a research scientist with Royal Dutch Shell, both at the Shell Research Center in Amsterdam and at the Shell Biosciences Laboratories in Sittingbourne, UK, from 1978 to 1984. He joined the department of chemistry at the University of Groningen in 1984 as a lecturer and was appointed full Professor at the same University in 1988.

In 2003, he was appointed the distinquished Jacobus H van 't Hoff Professor of Molecular Sciences. He was visiting professor at the Universities of Leuven, Santiago de Compostella and Potenza, awarded a JSPS fellowship and the Novartis lectureship at the University of Colorado. Achievements in fundamental research on synthesis, asymmetric catalysis and nanotechnology have been awarded with the 1997 Pino gold medal of the Italian Chemical Society, Novartis Chemistry Lectureship Award 2000-2001, the joined 2003 Koerber European Science Award, the 2003 Guthikonda Award (Columbia University), the 2004 Dauben Lectureship (Berkeley), the Marvel Lectureship (University Illinois), the Gassmann lectureship (Minnesota) and the Solvias Ligand contest award (Switserland, 2005).

In 2004, he was elected foreign honory member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and recently received the Spinoza award, the highest scientific award in the Netherlands, from the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research.

His research has a focus on stereochemistry and his present research interest include organic synthesis, homogeneous (asymmetric) catalysis, molecular switches and motors, self-assembly, nanosystems and new organic materials.

Professor Feringa is cofounder of the contract research company SelAct and the scientific Editor of the RSC journal Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry.