Paper of the Month: Geared photochemistry: an interdependent heterogeneous near-infrared catalytic system using up-conversion glass and g-CN for CuAAC chemistry

Kocaarslan et al. employ a heterogeneous near-infrared catalytic system using up-conversion glass (UCG) and g-CN to synthesize (macro)molecules via click chemistry.

 

 

The efficiency and accessibility of “click” chemistry, and more specifically the copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition reaction (CuAAC), have been valorized in synthetic macromolecular chemistry via a plethora of approaches. In this synthetic arena, photochemical process have been shown to efficiently achieve the in situ reduction of air-stable copper(II) species to the active copper(I) species catalyzing CuAAC.

Expanding the scope of current CuAAC photocatalysis, Yagci and coworkers developed a “geared photochemistry” approach for NIR induced CuAAC click chemistry using a dual-heterogeneous photocatalyst that generates light emission in upconversion materials combined with graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN). To achieve this, it is shown that Tm3+ and Yb3+ ion-doped zinc-tellurite glass that absorbs laser irradiation at 975 nm and is capable of emitting blue light at 475 nm, can photocatalytically activate g-CN via an internal light emitting process. For the CuAAC process, this visible light excitation of g-CN in the presence of CuCl2/PMDETA was proven to generate active copper(Ι) species able to catalyze a CuAAC click reaction between various azide and alkyne compounds. This system was proven efficient in click reactions between macromolecular chains such as azide functional polystyrene (PS-N3) and alkyne functional poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL-alkyne) yielding block copolymers with structurally different segments. In the same vein, photoinduced crosslinking could also be achieved upon irradiation of multifunctional click components (such as bisphenol A di(3-azido-2-hydroxy propan-1-ol) ether and 1-(prop-2-yn-1-yloxy)-2,2-bis((prop-2-yn-1yloxy)methyl) butane) with a 875 nm laser in the presence of mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride (mpg-CN) and CuCl2/PMDETA under open air conditions within 2 hours. Importantly, the heterogeneous catalyst prepared via the combination of graphitic carbon and UCG could be successfully used several times enhancing the applicability of the system.

The interdependent heterogeneous system using UCG in conjunction with g-CN under NIR light presented in this study, offers a highly efficient click methodology for (macro)molecules in synthetic (polymer) chemistry.

 

Tips/comments directly from the authors:

  • Our group’s research activities focus on the development of new photoinitiating systems for macromolecular synthesis. In this line, many photoinitiators acting at wide wavelength range of the electromagnetic spectrum were developed. “Geared photochemistry”, introduced for the first time in this paper, reflects the light-triggered reaction sequence that interdependently proceeds .  In this approach, up-conversion glass absorbs light at NIR region and convert it to visible light. Upon absorption of the emitted visible light graphitic carbon nitride (mpg-CN) in the reaction media creates electron and hole pairs. The copper (II) complex, which has no absorbance at these two wavelengths, is reduced from copper II to copper I by the released electrons. After all this gear-like system, copper I ions catalyze the click reaction between azide and alkyne compounds to form a triazole ring. We are happy to publish this work in an important journal in polymer science, Polymer Chemistry.
  • This approach will open new horizons not only for click chemistry, but also for many synthesis procedures involving electron transfer reactions. It should be considered that the change of absorbance with upconversion glasses is important for many light-activated photocatalysts.

 

Citation to the paper: Geared photochemistry: an interdependent heterogeneous near-infrared catalytic system using up-conversion glass and g-CN for CuAAC chemistry, Polym. Chem., 2022,13, 6393-6399, DOI: 10.1039/D2PY01075E

 

Link to the paper:

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/py/d2py01075e

 

Kelly Velonia is saddened to hear about the passing of Prof. Yusuf Yagci, an exceptional scientist and person. Condolences to his family and loved ones. The polymer community will certainly miss him.

 

 

Dr. Kelly Velonia is an Advisory Board Member and a Web Writer for Polymer Chemistry. She joined the Department of Materials Science and Technology at the University of Crete in 2007. Research in her group focuses on the synthesis and applications of bioconjugates and biopolymers. You can follow Kelly on twitter @KellyVelonia


 

 

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Polymer Chemistry are delighted to welcome Prof. Dominik Konkolewicz to the Editorial Board

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dominik Konkolewicz (Miami University, USA) has joined the Editorial Board of Polymer Chemistry as an Associate Editor

 

Dominik Konkolewicz is currently a Professor of Chemistry at Miami University in Oxford Ohio (USA). He earned a PhD from the University of Sydney in 2011, advised by Prof. Sébastien Perrier, and completed postdoctoral work at Carnegie Mellon University, in the group of Prof. Krzysztof Matyjaszewski. Dr. Konkolewicz has led a team of 10-15 polymer chemists and materials scientists at Miami University since 2014. His research interests lie at the intersection of polymerization kinetics, macromolecular engineering, biohybrids, and responsive materials. The Konkolewicz group designs polymer materials from a mechanistic perspective, with research efforts across dynamic covalent and non-covalent chemistry, biomaterials and bioconjugates, and light driven polymerization and degradation reactions. Particular focus areas are at the intersection of polymer science and sustainability, and polymers interacting with biomolecules.

Check out our interview with Dominik below:

 

What are you most looking forward to about your role as a Board member for Polymer Chemistry?

Overall I am excited to work with the team of editors, authors and reviewers to discover the newest developments in polymer science. I am especially excited to work with the multidisciplinary team at Polymer Chemistry to highlight the best and most exciting work in new macromolecules and applications of polymer materials.

 

What are your thoughts on the future of the polymer chemistry field and the role of Polymer Chemistry?

Certainly there are many important directions for the field of polymer chemistry. One that is important societally is sustainable use of polymers and plastics. I am looking forward to excellent papers in Polymer Chemistry that will develop practical solutions towards this substantial challenge.

Also we are already seeing the emergence of polymers in healthcare, and with milder polymerization methods and better controlled polymer synthesis, I anticipate that polymers impact on health science will continue to grow.

 

Would you be able to select a few of your favourite recent articles in Polymer Chemistry that you find particularly interesting or insightful?

It is hard to identify just a few papers, but I am excited about several different areas in Polymer Chemistry. There has been a lot of interest in recovering monomers post polymerization, which could have substantial impacts on sustainability. There are some great papers from the Anastasaki group on light driven depolymerization and bulk polymerization and depolymerization of caprolactone (DOI: 10.1039/D2PY01383E) which can be bio sourced from the Wang group (DOI: 10.1039/D2PY00953F)

Harrisson wrote a thought provoking paper on control, variability and dispersity in polymers, focusing on standard deviation as an important metric of precision (DOI: 10.1039/C8PY00138C)

I am also very excited to see design of polymers impacting the material’s final properties, the the impact of composition, blending and architecture on thermal properties from the Lawrence group (DOI: 10.1039/D2PY00819J), using new chemistry to stabilize nano-objects from the Blasco group (DOI: 10.1039/D1PY00032B), and the complex networks made by combining cationic and radical polymerization from the Satoh and Takeoka groups (DOI: 10.1039/D2PY00554A)

 

Read Dominik’s Editor’s Choice articles here

Light-accelerated depolymerization catalyzed by Eosin Y
Valentina Bellotti, Kostas Parkatzidis, Hyun Suk Wang, Nethmi De Alwis Watuthanthrige, Matteo Orfano, Angelo Monguzzi, Nghia P. Truong, Roberto Simonuttia and Athina Anastasaki
Polym. Chem., 2023, 14, 253-258, DOI: 10.1039/D2PY01383E

 

Closed-loop chemical recycling of poly(ε-caprolactone) by tuning reaction parameters
Jiafeng Su, Guangqiang Xu, Bingzhe Dong, Rulin Yang, Hongguang Sun and Qinggang Wang
Polym. Chem., 2022, 13, 5897-5904, DOI: 10.1039/D2PY00953F

 

Versatile strategies to tailor the glass transition temperatures of bottlebrush polymers
Michael Dearman, Nduka D. Ogbonna, Chamberlain A. Amofa, Andrew J. Peters and Jimmy Lawrence
Polym. Chem., 2022, 13, 4901-4907, DOI: 10.1039/D2PY00819J (Featured in our ‘Tailoring dispersity and shape of molecular weight contributions’ themed collection)

 

One-pot synthesis of structure-controlled temperature-responsive polymer gels
Tomoki Sakai, Nagisa Ito, Mitsuo Hara, Takahiro Seki, Mineto Uchiyama, Masami Kamigaito, Kotaro Satoh, Taiki Hoshino and Yukikazu Takeoka
Polym. Chem., 2022,13, 4230-4240, DOI: 10.1039/D2PY00554A (Featured in our ‘Polymer Networks’ themed collection)

 

Stabilizing self-assembled nano-objects using light-driven tetrazole chemistry
Martina Nardi, Torsten Scherer, Liang Yang, Christian Kübel, Christopher Barner-Kowollik and Eva Blasco
Polym. Chem., 2021,12, 1627-1634, DOI: 10.1039/D1PY00032B

 

The downside of dispersity: why the standard deviation is a better measure of dispersion in precision polymerization
Simon Harrisson
Polym. Chem., 2018, 9, 1366-1370, DOI: 10.1039/C8PY00138C

 

 

These articles are FREE to access until 28 February 2023

 

We were delighted to announce Dominik as the recipient of the 2022 Polymer Chemistry Lectureship. Check out some of his recent work in our Lectureship winners collection

If you know someone as deserving as Dominik for the 2023 Polymer Chemistry Lectureship, nominate them before 28 February. More details here

 

Please join us in welcoming Dominik to the Editorial Board of Polymer Chemistry!

 

Submit your best work to Dominik and our team of fantastic Associate Editors on Polymer Chemistry now! Check out our author guidelines for information on our article types or find out more about the advantages of publishing in a Royal Society of Chemistry journal.

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Polymer Chemistry Overview of 2022

Now that 2022 has come to an end, join us as we look back at some of the highlights of last year and forward to our upcoming activities in 2023!

 

Polymer Chemistry Top Picks of 2022

We have selected some of the most cited, most downloaded and most shared articles published in Polymer Chemistry from the last year for our Most Popular 2022 collection.

All articles in this collection are FREE to read until 28 February 2023.

Congratulations to all featured authors!

 

Editorial Board

We would like to thank Professor Wei You for his support of Polymer Chemistry as he stepped down from his role on the Editorial Board at the end of 2022.

 

Polymer Chemistry Lectureship

The Polymer Chemistry Lectureship 2022 was awarded to Professor Dominik Konkolewicz (Miami University, USA). This annual award was established in 2015 to honour an early-stage career scientist who has made a significant contribution to the polymer field. The Konkolewicz group explores a range of topics in polymer chemistry, including radical polymerisation mechanisms, dynamically bonded polymer materials, light driven reactions, bioconjugates and polymer based self-assembly. Find out more about Dominik and his research on our Lectureship winner blog post. You can check out articles from Dominik and our previous winners in the Lectureship winners collection.

Profile picture of Dominik Konkolewicz

Did you know that nominations for the Polymer Chemistry Lectureship 2023 are now open? If you know an outstanding early career researcher in polymers, nominate them before the 28 February 2023.

Full details about eligibility and the nominations process can be found here

Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigators

Polymer Chemistry is proud to spotlight our ongoing Emerging Investigators Series. Our Emerging Investigators are at the early stages of their independent careers and invited for this collection in recognition of their potential to influence future directions in the field. Congratulations to all the featured researchers on their important work so far!

Read the collection

Meet the Scientists

 

Themed collections

Polymer Chemistry is delighted to have featured some of your best work in our themed collections in 2022.

We promoted themed collections on ‘Molecularly defined polymers: synthesis and function’ Guest Edited by Jeremiah Johnson, Filip Du Prez and Elizabeth Elacqua, ‘Sustainable Polymers’ Guest Edited by Antoine Buchard and Tanja Junkers,  ‘Photopolymer science’ dedicated to Prof. Ewa Andrzejewska and ‘Synthetic Methodologies for Complex Macromolecular Structures in honour of Prof. Yusuf Yagci’s 70th birthday

Check out some of these ongoing collections:

 

Browse all past collections on our platform and see our upcoming collections on our calls for submissions page. We will be announcing more collections during the year, so keep a look out!

 

HOT articles

Remember to check out our ongoing Polymer Chemistry HOT articles collection featuring articles highlighted by our Editors and referees. All articles in the collection are FREE to read until 28 February 2023.

 

 

Paper of the Month blogs

Our Web Writer and Advisory Board member Dr Kelly Velonia publishes a blog highlighting an interesting publication of her choice each month. She summarises the work and interviews the authors for tips and comments about their work.

Check out the ‘Paper of the Month’ blogs for 2022 here

 

Open Access

The Royal Society of Chemistry has announced that all 31 fully-owned hybrid journals, including Polymer Chemistry, have been approved as “Transformative Journals” with cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations. Find out more about our strive towards 100% Open Access here.

 

#RSCPoster: Save the date

#RSCPoster is a global Twitter Poster Conference, held entirely online over the course of 24 hours. The event brings together the global chemistry community to network with colleagues across the world and at every career stage, share their research and engage in scientific debate.

The 2023 #RSCPoster Twitter Conference will be held from 12:00 (UTC) 28 February 2023 to 12:00 (UTC) 1 March 2023.

How you can help…

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you in addition to our authors, reviewers and readers for their support throughout 2022. Here are some of the ways in which you can continue to make a positive contribution to Polymer Chemistry:

Submit to one of our open themed collections and encourage your colleagues to submit.

If you are organising a conference or virtual event, please do let us know if you would like to arrange mutual promotion between the conference and Polymer Chemistry. We can offer poster prizes, social media and blog promotion, and adverts in the journal and on the journal web page.

Read our recent articles and follow the latest news on the Polymer Chemistry blog and on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Send your best research to Polymer Chemistry.

Sign up to be a reviewer for Polymer Chemistry.

 

Thank you for your continued interest in and support of Polymer Chemistry. We look forward to seeing what 2023 brings!

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Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigator- Guoming Liu

Guoming Liu received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS) (2011). Since then, he has been working at ICCAS, where he is currently Professor. From 2016 to 2018, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, as a Newton International Fellow of the Royal Society. His research interests include structure-property relationships of polymers, polymer crystallization and relaxation in confined space, and structure characterization by X-ray and neutron scattering.

 

Read Guoming’s Emerging Investigator article, ‘Achieving High Elasticity of Trans-1, 4-Polyisoprene with a Combination of Radiation Crosslinking and Thiol-ene Grafting’, DOI: 10.1039/D2PY01218A

 

Check out our interview with Guoming below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is one of the top journals in polymer science with a focus on polymer synthesis and applications of polymers. It has established high criteria for paper quality and a good reputation among authors and readers. I definitely would like to publish my next research paper in Polymer Chemistry.

2. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

One of the most important questions is how to develop sustainable polymer materials economically. This may require new monomers from renewable resources, new chemistry for polymerization/depolymerization, and new processing technologies.

3. Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

It is important to establish unique expertise in the field, either by setting up new tools or developing new methods or technologies.

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Paper of the month: Using precision polymer chemistry for plastics traceability and governance

Johnson et al. propose that a synergy between chemical sciences and law research needs to be deployed to address the plastic pollution challenge through tracing technologies.

Among the major challenges faced by societies worldwide is the reduction of plastic pollution which has risen to be one of the largest environmental issues of the planet. A key barrier to improving plastic management is the inability to trace plastics along supply and value chains.

Addressing this issue, Johnson, Barner-Kowollik and colleagues with equal first authors Chambers and Holloway highlight how valorization of state-of-the-art chemistry could help eradicate plastic anonymity and propose that plastic management can become efficient once production of traceable plastics is implemented and incorporated into the legal frameworks for plastics governance.

To embed information into plastics and access it throughout its lifetime, both the inherent chemical composition of the macromolecules and chemical labelling can be exploited. Spectroscopic identification can fingerprint polymer chemistry but tracing a specific polymer to the producer would require introducing unique labels in the plastic material, with little information depth. Alternatively, information can be introduced through physically labelling the surface of a material. Both approaches carry information that can be readily affected by degradation over time. Chemical labeling with sequence-defined polymers on the other hand can be used to embed all necessary information within the material without being compromised by degradation. Barner-Kowollik and coworkers highlight state-of-the-art synthetic routes toward sequence-defined polymers, review the approaches to decode them and provide a set of criteria to be fulfilled by advanced read-out methodologies in order to successfully integrate such advanced plastics into recycling facilities.

Critical improvements to regulation policies need to be implemented to leverage on advanced plastics and especially sequence-defined polymers traceability. The authors propose that five key areas need to be addressed in law and policy: design or eco-design standards to reduce the environmental impacts of products and services along their entire lifecycle, consumer behavior to reduce consumption and encourage eco-friendlier choices, recycling systems to compensate the high cost of collecting, sorting and recycling materials, extended-producer responsibility schemes to respond to plastic waste, and combatting illegal waste streams that breache domestic or international laws.

This perspective is a critical overview on how chemistry, law and social sciences should advance, coordinate and collaborate in order to address the issue of plastic pollution in the most efficient manner.

 

Tips/comments directly from the authors:

  1. It’s been an amazing journey for our team of chemists to work with colleagues from the faculty of law. It took many conversations, lots of explanations and the willingness on both sides to learn about law and chemistry, respectively. The process was enormously rewarding for the entire team, who continues to work together on developing plastic tracers in a joint effort between law and chemistry.
  2. We highly recommend to all chemistry colleagues to research out into the humanities and social sciences for collaboration opportunities. These research fields have equal importance to the natural sciences and engineering, deliver enormous value and help chemists to put an entirely different perspective onto their own research. We believe the chemistry community should be at the absolute forefront of engaging with the social sciences and humanities.
  3. We are very proud of Polymer Chemistry (RSC) for opening the journal to law research that speaks to chemical problems and being a trailblazer for true transdisciplinary research.

 

Citation to the paper: Using precision polymer chemistry for plastics traceability and governance, Polym. Chem., 2022, 13, 6082-6090.

Link to the paper: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/py/d2py01180h

 

Follow Christopher Barner-Kowollik on Twitter @BarnerKowollik and the QUT Centre for Materials Science @QUTmaterials to keep up to date with their latest research

 

Dr. Kelly Velonia is an Advisory Board Member and a Web Writer for Polymer Chemistry. She joined the Department of Materials Science and Technology at the University of Crete in 2007. Research in her group focuses on the synthesis and applications of bioconjugates and biopolymersYou can follow Kelly on twitter @KellyVelonia


 

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2023 Polymer Chemistry Lectureship – Open for nominations

Do you know an early-career researcher who deserves recognition for their contribution to the polymer chemistry field?

 

Polymer Chemistry is pleased to announce that nominations are now being accepted for its 2023 Lectureship award and will close on 28 February 2023. This annual award was established in 2015 to honour an early-stage career scientist who has made a significant contribution to the polymer field.

 

Polymer Chemistry Lectureship graphic asking who will you nominate. Deadline 28 February 2023

 

Eligibility

To be eligible for the lectureship, candidates should meet the following criteria:

  • Be an independent researcher, PhD students postdoctoral research associates are not eligible
  • Be actively pursuing research within the polymer chemistry field, and have made a significant contribution to the field
  • Be at an early stage of their independent career (this should typically be within 12 years of attaining their doctorate or equivalent degree, but appropriate consideration will be given to those who have taken a career break, work in systems where their time period to independence may vary or who followed an alternative study path)

 

How to nominate

Nominations must be made via email to polymers-rsc@rsc.org, and include the following:

  • The name, affiliation and contact details of the nominee, nominator and referee
  • An up-to-date CV of the nominee (1 – 3 A4 page maximum length)
  • A letter of recommendation from the nominator (500 words maximum length)
  • A supporting letter of recommendation from a referee (500 words maximum length). This could be from the nominee’s postdoc, PhD supervisor or academic mentor for instance
  • The nominator must confirm that to the best of their knowledge, their nominee’s professional standing is as such that there is no confirmed or potential impediment to them receiving the Lectureship

Please note:

  • Self-nomination is not permitted
  • The nominee must be aware that he/she has been nominated for this lectureship
  • Previous winners and current Polymer Chemistry Editorial Board members are not eligible
  • As part of the Royal Society of Chemistry, we have a responsibility to promote inclusivity and accessibility in order to improve diversity. Where possible, we encourage each nominator to consider nominating candidates of all genders, races, and backgrounds. Please see the RSC’s approach to Inclusion and Diversity.

 

Selection

  • All eligible nominated candidates will be assessed by a judging panel made up of the Polymer Chemistry Editorial Board, any Editorial Board members with a conflict of interest will be ineligible for the judging panel.
  • The judging panel will consider the following core criteria:
    • Excellence in research, as evidenced in reference to originality and impact
    • Quality of publications, patents or software
    • Innovation
    • Professional standing
    • Independence
    • Collaborations and teamwork
    • Evidence of promising potential
    • Other indicators of esteem indicated by the nominator
  • In any instance where multiple nominees are judged to be equally meritorious in relation to these core criteria, the judging panel will use information provided on the nominee’s broader contribution to the chemistry community as an additional criterion. Examples of this could include: involvement with RSC community activities, teaching or demonstrating, effective mentorship, service on boards, committees or panels, leadership in the scientific community, peer reviewing, promotion of diversity and inclusion, advocacy for chemistry, public engagement and outreach.

 

Previous winners

2021 – Dominik Konkolewicz, Miami University, USA

2021 – Brett Fors, Cornell University, USA

2020 – Rachel O’Reilly, University of Birmingham, UK

2019 – Frederik Wurm, University of Twente, The Netherlands

2018 – Cyrille Boyer, University of New South Wales, Australia

2017 – Julien Nicolas, Université Paris Sud, France

2016 – Feihe HuangZhejiang University, China

2015 – Richard HoogenboomGhent University, Belgium

 

Nominations deadline: 28 February 2023

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Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigator- Junliang Zhang

Junliang Zhang received his B.S. in Pharmaceutical Engineering (2009) and M.S. in Applied Chemistry (2012) from Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, China. He obtained his PhD in Chemistry in 2017 at the University of Warwick, UK, under the supervision of Prof. Sébastien Perrier, working on the synthesis of multiblock copolymers with intricate nanostructures through reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. He then moved to Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Ulrich S. Schubert’s group, to investigate the self-assembly of gradient and multi-block copolymers. In October 2018, he joined the School of Chemistry of and Chemical Engineering at Northwestern Polytechnical University. His current research interests mainly focus on the design and synthesis of liquid crystalline (multi)block copolymers and their applications in elastomeric, thermally conductive, and wave-transparent materials.

Read Junliang’s Emerging Investigator article, ‘Enhancing intrinsic thermal conductivities of epoxy resins by introducing biphenyl mesogen-containing liquid crystalline co-curing agents’ DOI: 10.1039/D2PY01157C

Check out our interview with Junliang below

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is one of the leading journals in design, synthesis, and application of polymeric materials. The submission and reviewing experience has always been very pleasant. By submitting our manuscripts in Polymer Chemistry, we can always expect a professional and timely processing. I am very excited to publish our work on thermally conductive polymeric materials in Polymer Chemistry.

 

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

What I am most excited about at the moment is we can make polymers with precisely controlled molecular structures, the properties and functionalities of which can be tuned on demand. The biggest challenge is how to make our designed polymeric materials through a straight-forward procedure and at a low cost for practical applications.

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Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigator- Hossein Roghani-Mamaqani

Hossein Roghani-Mamaqani received his BSc and MSc degrees in polymer engineering at Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT). He was awarded the outstanding MSc researcher prize by AUT in 2009. He completed his PhD course in 2013 at AUT and has been honored as a highly intelligent student in his MSc and PhD courses by AUT talented student association. He was selected as recognized PhD student by National Elite Foundation in 2011-2013 and also Iran’s recognized PhD student by ministry of science in 2013. He worked in Petrochemical Research and Technology Company as a researcher from 2007 to 2009. He also worked as a researcher in Research Institute of Petroleum Industry from 2009 to 2013. He joined Sahand University of Technology (SUT) as an assistant professor in 2013. He was nominated as the recognized young assistant professor by National Elite Foundation in 2013. He was selected as the recognized researcher at Polymer Engineering Department of SUT in 2015, 2018, and 2021 and also as the recognized researcher at SUT in 2019-2021. He was selected as the recognized researcher at East Azarbaijan province in 2020 and recognized Elite Scientist by Iran Science Elites Federation in 2021. He was also selected as the outstanding young researcher in chemical engineering by Iran Academy of Sciences in 2022. Currently, he is a professor of polymer engineering at SUT. His research interest is in the area of polymer chemistry, controlled radical polymerization, surface modification reactions, polymer colloids, hydrogels, optical sensors, and also smart polymers.

Read Hossein’s Emerging Investigator review article,‘Water treatment using stimuli-responsive polymers’

Check out our interview with Hossein below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is one of the leading journals in the field of polymer design, synthesis, and applications. Professional editorial board, timely reviewing and publication, interesting scope with emphasis on the new polymerization methods, and publication of high-quality articles make this journal totally fitted to my interests. By taking my research field into consideration, Polymer Chemistry is a right place to publish new results in the synthesis and applications of colloidal polymers, living polymers with well-defined structures, and smart polymers.

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

The structure and property relationship in polymers can be manipulated by the polymerization methods. My group is able to synthesize well-defined polymer structures, surface-grafted polymers, and colloidal polymers with tailored characteristics. For instance, in the design and synthesis of smart photo-responsive polymers, polymer structure can affect optical properties of the final products, which has applications in anticounterfeiting systems, sensors, smart coatings, smart membranes, etc. Photochromic and fluorescent polymers with the ability of color changing and light emission in response to different stimuli are among the most exciting smart polymers.

3. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

How can we inspire from nature to design polymers with smart characteristics? For example, chameleons display a wide range of body color in response to variations of the environmental conditions. It has been a significant challenge to design and fabricate such systems, with the ability of reversible and fast color change. The other example is self-cleaning ability of the plant leaves, flowers, butterfly, etc. which is used in the preparation of self-cleaning coatings. It has been a significant challenge to design such systems, with the ability of complete cleaning of different impurities.

How can we use the smart characteristics of polymers in our daily life? Smart polymers can be used in lots of innovative applications, which are shape-memory, self-reporting, self-cleaning, and self-healing polymers, smart coatings, smart windows, spoilage indicators of food materials, anticounterfeiting systems, sensors and indicators, etc. which have been investigated in our recent studies.

 

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Paper of the month: Redox-triggerable firefly luciferin-bioinspired hydrogels as injectable and cell-encapsulating matrices

Jin et al. employ redox activated macromers to achieve precise control over the gelation onset and kinetics of a redox-triggerable, firefly luciferin-inspired hydrogel platform.

Stimuli-responsive hydrogels are porous crosslinked networks which have recently attracted tremendous interest thanks to their unique response to external stimuli allowing to tune their properties on demand. In particular, chemically-responsive hydrogels that can be actuated via mild redox reactions are quite promising for biomedical applications once biocompatible and non-cytotoxic. Despite the remarkable progress in the field, lack of precise triggering of the gelation onset and control over the rate of the gelation process of responsive hydrogels restricts a range of applications. In their current contribution, Paez and coworkers report on a novel firefly luciferin-inspired hydrogel platform endowed with redox-triggering ability and tunability of its mechanical and biological properties. To achieve this goal, protected macromers (PEG-Cys(SR)) which can be activated in the presence of a mild reductant were used as hydrogel polymeric precursors. This design allowed to in situ trigger gel formation and achieve a high degree of control. Importantly, the gelation onset and rate could be fine-tuned via altering the molecular characteristics of the precursors (e.g., structure of the protecting group, reductant type) and/or the environmental parameters of the deprotection reaction (e.g., pH, temperature). Specifically, gelation could be achieved in times spanning from seconds (CBT–Cys(SEt) / TCEP) to hours (CBT–Cys(StBu)/DTT) using precursors with good long-term stability upon storage in physiologically-relevant aqueous conditions. Furthermore, high stem cell viability was observed after 1–3 days of encapsulation in biofunctionalized CBT–Cys(SR) hydrogels. The authors anticipate that the precise control over the gelation onset and kinetics of this this redox-triggerable system, will facilitate its use for drug delivery and tissue engineering as well as inks for extrusion-based printing of soft constructs for regenerative medicine.

 

Tips/comments directly from the authors:

  •  We engineered macromers at the molecular level to achieve highly controlled gelation onset and kinetics. In the rheological characterization, it is recommended to prepare the hydrogel formulation by mixing polymer precursors solution and reductant solution in equal volume. This enables better mixing of the components and ensures good reproducibility of the rheological measurements. Two polymer precursor solutions can be mixed in advance (first half of the total volume) before adding the reductant (second half of the total volume) and loading to the rheometer.

 

  • We evaluated the cytocompatibility of the redox-triggerable hydrogels and found excellent cell viability after 1-3 days culture. Before doing 3D cell encapsulation, it is recommended to perform a preliminary experiment of gel preparation under same conditions but in the absence of cell suspension to estimate the gelation time. Cell suspension can be replaced by cell culture medium.

 

Citation to the paper: Redox-triggerable firefly luciferin-bioinspired hydrogels as injectable and cell-encapsulating matrices, Polym. Chem., 2022, 13, 5116-5126, DOI: 10.1039/D2PY00481J

Link to the paper:

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2022/py/d2py00481j

 

The Paez laboratory at the University of Twente:

Twitter account: @PaezLab

ResearchGate account: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Julieta-Paez

 

 

Dr. Kelly Velonia is an Advisory Board Member and a Web Writer for Polymer Chemistry. She joined the Department of Materials Science and Technology at the University of Crete in 2007. Research in her group focuses on the synthesis and applications of bioconjugates and biopolymersYou can follow Kelly on twitter @KellyVelonia


 

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Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigator- Julieta I. Paez

 

Julieta Paez is a group leader at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Julieta obtained her PhD in Chemistry at the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, working with Prof. Miriam Strumia on the synthesis of polymeric materials for sensing and antifouling applications. After her PhD, Julieta moved to Prof. Rainer Haag’s lab at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, as a Postdoctoral Researcher, to investigate biofunctional polymeric-protein surfaces. She then joined the group of Prof. Aránzazu del Campo at the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, where she developed photoactivatable peptides for cell-instructive materials and also worked with catechol-functionalized polymers for tissue gluing applications. Next, she moved to INM – Leibniz Institute for New Materials in Saarbrücken, first as Research Scientist and then as Project Leader, developing novel coupling chemistries for bioconjugation and gelation under physiological conditions. Since April 2021, Julieta is Assistant Professor at the department of Developmental Bioengineering at the University of Twente. Her main interest is the development of chemical strategies to (macro)molecularly engineer smart hydrogels that interact with living cells and tissues, for healthcare applications.

Find out more about Julieta’s research here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Julieta_Paez2

You can follow Julieta on Twitter @PaezLab

Read Julieta’s Open Access Emerging Investigator article, ‘Redox-triggerable firefly luciferin-bioinspired hydrogels as injectable and cell-encapsulating matrices’

Check out our interview with Julieta below:

1. How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is a top reputed journal in the field, and represents a paramount home for discussion of the state-of-the-art. I feel delighted to contribute whenever is possible!

 

2. What aspect of your work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about your research?

I am thrilled about the transversal nature of my research. My work combines tools from synthetic organic and polymer chemistry, biomaterials science, and cell biology; to engineer smart soft materials that interacts with living cells and tissues. One research line in my lab is the development of responsive hydrogels for cell encapsulation. These artificial models can be used to study the complex communication between cells and between cells and their native microenvironment. The biggest challenge is that the native cell niche is very dynamic, therefore, capturing such features in a synthetic material is complex but fascinating at the same time.

 

3. In your opinion, what are the most important questions to be asked/answered in this field of research?

We want to better understand how cells communicate with themselves and with their environment, so we can develop novel approaches in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In this regard, engineered materials whose properties can be regulated on demand can help us to investigate those type of questions. I am particularly interested in the possibility of controlling matrix viscoelasticity on demand to steer cell behavior. Thereby, I believe that the polymer chemistry field has much to offer by providing inspiration towards novel mechanoresponsive polymeric tools upon which smart biomaterials can be built.

 

4. Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I would encourage young researchers to get involved into (and, eventually, to create their own) diverse scientific teams. I have enjoyed very much my journey so far, since it allowed me to be surrounded and get inspired by researchers from diverse disciplines, career stage, geographical background and way of thinking. This multidisciplinary and multicultural ingredient of a scientific team, which has greatly impacted my career, is in my view what makes science very creative, rewarding and fun.

 

 

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