Polymer Chemistry Blog

Julian Zhu, professor of chemistry at Université de Montréal, obtained his B.Sc. from Nankai University in China and his Ph.D. from McGill University in Canada in 1988.  Having worked as a postdoctoral researcher in France and in Toronto, he started his academic career at Université de Montréal, where he is now a holder of the Canada Research Chair on Polymeric Biomaterials. 

His research interests are in the synthesis and characterization of new polymeric materials that can be used for biomedical and industrial applications.  Examples include new hydrogels for soft tissue replacement, biodegradable polymers for drug delivery systems, dental filling resins and polymeric support materials in combinatorial synthesis in drug discovery. Various advanced nuclear magnetic resonance techniques including NMR imaging have been used in the characterization of polymers, especially in the study of diffusion of small and macromolecules in polymeric systems. He and his co-workers have also proposed a new physical model of diffusion which has been used successfully in the interpretation of the diffusion phenomenon in polymer gels. He and his research group have made many contributions in soft materials sciences and polymer chemistry. He has co-authored more than 180 research articles published in scientific journals.  He has been invited to give lectures on his research work in international conferences as well as in many research institutions.  He has been awarded the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship as well as the AstraZeneca Research Award by the Canadian Society for Chemistry. His collaborations with other colleagues in Canada and other countries have been fruitful. Many researchers and students from other countries (including France, Germany, Spain, Romania, Czech Republic, China, India, Chili, Mexico, just to name a few) have made their research stays in his lab.  This further enhanced the research capacity and progress of his group.

The inherently interdisciplinary nature of the research work in Zhu’s group creates many natural links with other established areas of strength at the Université de Montréal, the École Polytechnique, McGill University and several research institutes and hospital research centers in the area. As a result, research in this area will gain increasing international visibility for Université de Montréal in ways that can strengthen its traditional areas of excellence and make it likely that new fields are developed.

He presently directs a group of 11 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.  His group offers a multidisciplinary environment for the training of young researchers in the development of integrated skills in synthesis, structural analysis, and physical characterization.  Students trained in this environment will help provide Canada with the skilled personnel it needs to remain competitive in materials science. For more information, see here: www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/zhuj.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

Chemistry offers solutions to the problems encountered to have sustainable economic and technological developments: such as energy shortage, environmental protection, resources, etc. A polymer chemist can help to solve many of these problems. I often tell the students: The public often has the false impression that chemistry caused many problems related to our environment; we need to re-affirm to the public that we chemists are part of the solution to the problems. With new and better chemistry, we can address such problems.

(The real answer: I actually wanted to be a mathematician, but I had a very good score in chemistry for my entrance exam held in China that year and I was assigned to a chemistry department. It happened that Nankai University had a very good chemistry department and I loved chemistry ever since and became a polymer chemist.)

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper?
(DOI: 10.1039/C2PY20168B)

We wanted to use natural compounds to prepare new materials to improve the biocompatibility and bioacceptance of polymers to be used in biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. Bile acids are natural compounds that are stored in our gallbladder in large quantities and help in the digestion of lipids in our body (and also in most animals). We use bile acids and other biomolecules to make new polymeric materials, study their properties and explore their potential use.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

Polymer Chemistry is a new journal with a good visibility in our field. We have published several papers in this journal including an invited review paper.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I attend ACS meetings regularly and will attend the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for Chemistry to be held in Calgary in May this year. I was also invited to attend the International Symposium on Polymer Chemistry to be held in Changchun, China in June.

How do you spend your spare times?

I love gardening, and I grow all kinds of vegetables. I bring the over-supplies to my friends, neighbors and students. The only problem for me is that the summer is a bit too short in Canada.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I have not given much thought about an alternative profession in life. I always liked to teach and to do research. I may want to be a lawyer, not for the money, but for the sake of a good argument. I may also want to be a linguist or a translator; all the different languages in the world fascinate me.

Bin Liu received her BSc degree in organic chemistry from Nanjing Universiy and Ph.D.degree in polymer chemistry from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2001. She was a postdoctoral fellow and an assistant researcher from 2001-2005 at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She joined the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department of NUS as an assistant professor by the end of 2005 and was promoted to associate professor in 2010. Her current research focuses on conjugated polymers in sensing, imaging and optoelectronic device applications.

Details of her research activities can be found at: http://cheed.nus.edu.sg/~cheliub/main.php 

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

My daddy, with a major in French, always had a dream to become a good scientist. He started training me to love science when I was a little girl. I enjoyed reading science books rather than literatures and novels in general. I was always curious about the ways molecules interact to transform into products. I was lucky to be trained as a chemist during undergraduate and graduate studies. I found being a chemist was very rewarding. I’m always delighted to see the impact that a chemist can make on our society by producing new materials and new technologies.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/c2py20113E)

My research group has a long-standing interest in developing conjugated polyelectrolytes (CPEs) for sensing and imaging applications. Our recent studies reveal that CPEs have shown high brightness, good photostability and low cytotoxicity, which are promising fluorescent probes for cellular imaging and subcellular protein sensing. It remains a challenge to develop CPEs with high fluorescence quantum yield in the far-red/near infrared (FR/NIR) region. Of equal importance is to develop CPEs with absorption maxima that match the commercial laser excitation sources for maximum performance. The paper reported a simple strategy to design CPEs that simultaneously meet the two challenges by clicking alkyne-PEG-COOH to azide-containing poly(fluorene-co-benzoxadiazole). The terminal –COOH allows further conjugation to peptide for targeted cancer cell imaging. This work represents a simple new strategy to synthesize CPEs, which will open new opportunities to optimize the CPE performance in various applications.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

We always try to balance our publications in different journals from ACS, RSC and Wiley. Polymer chemistry is an exciting new journal which publishes interesting and innovative research related to all aspects of polymers. I also enjoyed the fast review and publication process. The free-of-charge for color Figures is also very attractive.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

International Conference of Young Researchers on Advanced Materials, 2012, 1st – 6th of July, Singapore.

How do you spend your spare time?

Reading, cooking and playing with kids.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I would probably be a good chef, taking care of cooking and gardening. Can play some food chemistry too!

(On behalf of Cyrille Boyer)

Dr Kristofer Thurecht graduated from the University of Queensland, Australia, in 2005 with a PhD in polymer chemistry. He took up a postdoctoral position in the UK working on polymer synthesis in supercritical CO₂ with Prof. Steve Howdle at Nottingham University. In 2007, Dr Thurecht was simultaneously awarded a Ramsay Centenary Fellowship and 1851 Research Fellowship in the UK. Dr Thurecht returned to Australia in 2008 on an ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship. He currently holds a joint position with the Centre for Advanced Imaging (CAI) and the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) at the University of Queensland. His current interests lie in developing polymer architectures for theranostics. He is an ARC Future Fellow.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?
When I was in high school I had a fantastic science teacher who set up a lunch-time science club. He encouraged us to do many different experiments across all disciplines of science including biology, chemistry and physics. We made rockets, studied fossils and of course, blew things up! This was what piqued my interest in science and this carried through to University. I think this early excitement with the broader sciences has dictated my career path into polymer chemistry where research now is very much an interdisciplinary field.  

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry Minireview (DOI:10.1039/C2PY20132A)?
Nanomedicine is an extremely dynamic field that bridges various disciplines. One important component of nanomedicine is the ability to diagnose and monitor diseases, and ultimately, probe the efficacy of a treatment/therapy. An integral part of this research is the development of more sensitive molecular imaging agents. Polymers offer obvious advantages for molecular imaging, in particular the ability to control circulation times in vivo, excretion mechanisms as well as allowing the possibility for multi-modal imaging. We are particularly motivated by the exciting development of new hardware that allows dual imaging in a single instrument – advancement of this technology can only be realised by concomitant development of biologically relevant imaging probes. We believe that polymers will (and already do) play a significant role in this field and this inspired us to write the current research article.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?
In the two years since its inception, Polymer Chemistry has consistently published high quality articles in the various streams related to polymer research. I thought this was a great forum to describe the evolving application of polymers in molecular imaging. RSC journals also have a very fast publication rate which always is a bonus!

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

• 3rd International Nanomedicine Conference, Sydney, Australia, July 2-4, 2012.
• Warwick2012, Warwick, UK, July 9-12, 2012.
• World Molecular Imaging Congress, Dublin, Ireland, September 5-8, 2012.

How do you spend your spare time?
My spare time is almost always spent with the family. We love camping and fishing in particular, and also spend a lot of time in our vege garden (also a good way to get kids to eat their vegetables!!!!).

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?
If I wasn’t a chemist, I would probably have been a veterinarian, or maybe a marine biologist – working on the Barrier Reef every day is somewhat appealing!

(Posted on behalf of Cyrille Boyer)