Pedersen, Charles John (1904-1989), an American chemist, shared the 1987 Nobel Prize for chemistry with Donald J. Cram of the United States and Jean-Marie Lehn of France. Pedersen was awarded the prize for developing a group of organic compounds called macrocyclic polyethers or crown ethers. The molecules in these substances typically consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms arranged in a “crown” shape, or ring. By changing the structure of the crown, Pedersen could trap a variety of metal ions (electrically charged atoms or groups of atoms) in the center of the crown.
Cram and Lehn expanded on Pedersen’s research to produce artificial molecules that can “recognize” one another and “choose” which other molecules they will combine with. These molecules can, to some extent, perform the same functions as molecules of living things, such as enzymes (molecules that speed up chemical reactions).
Pedersen was born on Oct. 3, 1904, in Busan (also called Pusan), Korea, the son of a Japanese mother and a Norwegian father. Pedersen attended preparatory school in Japan. He left Japan in the early 1920’s to study at the University of Dayton in Ohio, where he received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1926. He earned a master’s degree in organic chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1927. Pedersen became a U.S. citizen in 1953.
In 1927, Pedersen joined E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company as a research chemist. His early work led to improvements in the process for making tetraethyl lead, a gasoline additive. Pedersen later worked on synthetic antioxidants. These compounds work to block the effects of oxidation, a chemical reaction in which a substance loses electrons, often while combining with oxygen. He discovered crown ethers in the 1960’s, near the end of his career. Pedersen reported his findings in 1967, two years before he retired. He died on Oct. 26, 1989.
