Lehn, Jean-Marie, zjahn mah REE (1939-...), a French chemist, shared the 1987 Nobel Prize for chemistry with American scientists Donald Cram and Charles Pedersen. Lehn was awarded the prize for developing complex molecules that can "recognize" and bind themselves to specific atoms or molecules. Scientists may one day use such complex molecules to imitate the action of the large biological molecules that control processes in living things. Lehn contributed to the chemistry of nervous processes when he produced a molecule capable of recognizing acetylcholine, a substance of key importance in transmitting nerve signals (see Brain).