This book commemorates the 25th anniversary of the International Izatt-Christensen Award in Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry. The award, one of the most prestigious of small awards in chemistry, recognizes excellence in the developing field of macrocyclic and supramolecular chemistry

Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry: How Izatt-Christensen Award Winners Shaped the Field features chapters written by the award recipients who provide unique perspectives on the spectacular growth in these expanding and vibrant fields of chemistry over the past half century, and on the role of these awardees in shaping this growth. During this time there has been an upsurge of interest in the design, synthesis and characterization of increasingly more complex macrocyclic ligands and in the application of this knowledge to understanding molecular recognition processes in host-guest chemistry in ways that were scarcely envisioned decades earlier.

In October 2016, Professor Jean-Pierre Sauvage and Sir J. Fraser Stoddart (author for chapter 22 "Contractile and Extensile Molecular Systems: Towards Molecular Muscles" by Jean -Pierre Sauvage, Vincent Duplan, and Frédéric Niess and 20 "Serendipity" by Paul R. McGonigal and J. Fraser Stoddart respectively) were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside fellow Wiley author Bernard Feringa, for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.