Roeland J. M. Nolte was a titan of polymer science, supramolecular chemistry, and nanotechnology — recognized equally properly for the breath and ambition of his work as for his kindness, heat nature and for being a real gentleman. His background was in bodily natural chemistry, coming into the supramolecular chemistry discipline within the late Nineteen Eighties. He went on to be one of many trailblazers of biomimetic nanotechnology on the flip of the millennium. He’s finest recognized for his pioneering work on the synthesis of bio-hybrid supplies, for example by combining enzymes and polymers to create novel nanostructures. His beloved polyisocyanide derivates and his biomimetic molecular machines (P. Thordarson et al., Nature 424, 951–918; 2003) for catalysis, polymer threading and encoding of digital info have left an enduring legacy within the nanoscience discipline. His polyisocyanide-based hydrogels are utilized in many functions as we speak, together with biomaterials for cell development.
Credit score: Picture courtesy of Johan Hoogboom
What set Roeland aside from most different scientists was his ‘Nolte strategy’, because it got here to be recognized among the many many scientists he mentored, who’ve since turn into profitable researchers. He by no means hesitated to make use of novel or uncommon characterization strategies or devices to resolve the analysis challenges he was engaged on. He was, for example, one of many first chemists to routinely use electron and atomic drive microscopy to review gentle self-assembled supplies. By the identical token, he was additionally unafraid of switching between numerous courses of supplies or molecules, slightly than simply sticking to at least one favorite system.
Roeland was born in 1944 in Bergh, The Netherlands. Already in highschool, he grew to become enthusiastic about chemistry and in 1973 he defended on the Utrecht College a really positive dissertations on ‘The synthesis and polymerization of isocyanides’ underneath the mentorship of Wiendelt Drenth. Along with Yoshio Okamoto and Mark Inexperienced, he developed the sector of chiral artificial polymers into a big analysis space. He married Helma in 1969 they usually had two kids, and immediately after his PhD, he grew to become lecturer in Utrecht. In 1981 they loved a sabbatical with Donald Cram at UCLA. This keep opened his eyes to the facility of supramolecular chemistry. Roeland at all times stated that his stick with Cram modified his scientific considering and moulded his strategy to analysis for the remainder of his life. It was the start of the sector of supramolecular chemistry and Roeland seen that. On his return to Utrecht, he immediately began engaged on novel supramolecular hosts — the molecular clip — which, after his transfer to Nijmegen as a professor in 1987, grew to become one other mainstay of his analysis efforts.
Roeland’s group in Nijmegen grew quickly and his work began to converge in direction of the bio-hybrid supplies that put him at forefront of the nanoscience discipline. At the moment he additionally established sturdy ties and friendships with a number of different analysis teams within the Netherlands — making the nation a worldwide superpower of exercise in supramolecular chemistry and nanoscience. Roeland was one of many members of the ‘Dutch Golden Quartet of Supramolecular Chemistry’, a time period typically utilized by Fraser Stoddart.
Certainly one of Roeland’s favorite artists was the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher, widely known for his ‘unimaginable’ symmetry and geometrically elegant woodcuts and lithographs. Along with his pioneering cross-disciplinary strategy, Roeland himself grew to become recognized for making ‘unimaginable’ molecular supplies and units that ceaselessly left the viewers gasping when he introduced these at conferences for the primary time. There was typically this outstanding magnificence in Roeland’s work, echoing Escher’s artwork and talent to indicate order within the chaos. It was maybe no coincidence that Roeland was an early adapter of microscopy strategies as a result of he at all times wished to visualise the techniques he was engaged on. He would illustrate this in his lectures, with stunning slides together with one with the braids of his daughter’s hair alongside microscopy photos to indicate supramolecular chirality.
Roeland liked working with college students and continued to take action even after his formal retirement in 2010. He took up a particular emeritus chair in molecular nanotechnology specializing in his quest for making molecular machines that might write information on to polymer, which he hoped would finally result in a catalytic molecular Turing machine. For that, he was awarded two occasions an ERC Superior Grant after his formal retirement, an achievement with out precedent.
Roeland was a real gentleman, an inspiration for his mentees and constant caring buddy. As well as, he was very humble, the pursuits of others at all times took priority. He at all times tried to affix the morning tea break within the lab and meet up with his college students and associates. He was at all times excited each time that somebody made a discovery, and he additionally had a tremendous means to know the influence of those discoveries in a bigger context however on the identical time ensuring that the person who acquire these outcomes knew how extremely proud he was of them. He can be deeply missed by all of us that had the fortune to know him.