New themed collection: Soft Matter Aspects of Cancer

We are very pleased to announce a themed collection in Soft Matter on the Soft matter aspects of cancer.

 

This special issue presents important developments in cancer cell mechanics, mechanobiology, tissue mechanics and bioengineered models of cancer, in addition to emerging technologies in the field. The Guest Editors for this collection are:

  • Professor Tanmay Lele (Texas A&M University, USA)
  • Professor Anna Taubenberger (Technische Universität Dresden, Germany)

In their Editorial, Guest Editors Tanmay and Anna discuss the importance of understanding the biophysical changes in cancers and how these can be studied through the lens of soft matter research.

The full collection can be found here and we have also highlighted a selection of articles below. We hope you enjoy these, and the rest of the articles included in the collection.

 

Materials-driven approaches to understand extrinsic drug resistance in cancer
Justin R. Pritchard, Michael J. Lee and Shelly Peyton

Soft Matter, 2022, 18, 3465-3472

 

Towards an integrative understanding of cancer mechanobiology: calcium, YAP, and microRNA under biophysical forces
Chenyu Liang, Miao Huang, Tianqi Li, Lu Li, Hayley Sussman, Yao Dai, Dietmar W. Siemann, Mingyi Xie and Xin Tang
Soft Matter, 2022, 18, 1112-1148

 

On the origins of order
Jeffrey J. Fredberg

Soft Matter, 2022, 18, 2346-2353

 

Cell adhesion strength and tractions are mechano-diagnostic features of cellular invasiveness
Neha Paddillaya, Kalyani Ingale, Chaitanya Gaikwad, Deepak Kumar Saini, Pramod Pullarkat, Paturu Kondaiah, Gautam I. Menon and Namrata Gundiah

Soft Matter, 2022, 18, 4378-4388

 

Skin epithelial cells change their mechanics and proliferation upon snail-mediated EMT signalling
Kamran Hosseini, Palina Trus, Annika Frenzel, Carsten Werner and Elisabeth Fischer-Friedrich
Soft Matter, 2022, 18, 2585-2596

 

All the articles in the collection are currently FREE to read until 31 March 2023!

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Soft Matter Emerging Investigator – Moyuan Cao

Dr. Moyuan Cao is currently a professor and principal investigator at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nankai University, China. He received his B. Eng. Degree (2010) and M. Sc. Degree (2013) in Macromolecular Science and Engineering from Zhejiang University, China. In 2016, he received his Ph.D. Degree in materials sciences under the supervision of Prof. Lei Jiang at Beihang University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is also a member of Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations (Tianjin, China) and Smart Sensing Interdisciplinary Science Center of Nankai University. He has published over 60 peer-review papers in Matter, Adv. Mater., Mater. Horiz., Adv. Funct. Mater., etc. His citation number is over 4100 with an H-index of 35. He serves as an Editorial member of Frontiers in Chemistry, Polymers, Chinese Chemical Letters and is an Advisory Board member of Materials Horizons. His present scientific interests are focused on the design and the applications of bio-inspired asymmetrical interfaces for fluid manipulation, including (1) Self-propelled fluid delivery on open interfaces; (2) Bubble manipulation on hydrophobic slippery surfaces; (3) Janus structures with superwettability for novel applications.

 

 

Find out more about his work via:

Website: https://mse.nankai.edu.cn/cmy_en/list.htm

 

Read Moyuan Cao’s Emerging Investigator article: http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM01547A

 

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

Even as an undergraduate student, I knew Soft Matter as an important journal in the field of polymers, interfaces and fluid dynamics. As a traditional journal, Soft Matter has published a lot of theoretical and scientific papers which can serve as inspiration and provide references for analyzing related experimental phenomena. When my students feel puzzled about some theoretical examples to explain a result, I may ask them to find some references in Soft Matter. For this review article we published, lubricant-infused slippery surfaces have been considered as a new and useful functional interface for versatile applications (1). The design, mechanism, and applications of such interfaces are of interest, and the related information can be helpful for researchers in the fields of materials chemistry, physics, interfacial science and other areas. Therefore, in my opinion, such topics that combine theory and applications are suitable for Soft Matter.

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

Our research is focused on fluid-manipulating interfaces: most of our ideas are inspired by nature, so we call them bioinspired interfaces. The first question in such research is to understand the natural evolution logic for special functions. Why does an organism adopt such complex structures for controlling fluid manipulation such as drinking and sweating?  After understanding this logic, artificial interfaces with similar or improved performance can be designed, such as the lotus-like Janus floater (2), the Pistia-inspired 3D floater (3), and the cactus-inspired fog collector (4). The most exciting part of bioinspired research is finally knowing nature’s secret and unraveling it with artificial design. It makes me feel “Nature, I know you”, just like the saying “Man thinks, God laughs”. We might not totally understand the inner logic of even one simple creature, but what we can do is illustrate one little aspect of nature’s design. The most challenging part of our research is knowing how to bridge fundamental research with practical applications. Although we have designed and fabricated lots of materials for fluid manipulation, the practical application of such materials in industrial processes is still lacking. We believe that our materials can be useful and valuable in our daily life. However, it is a very difficult and complicated process for us to transform fundamental results. We hope that we can propose one or two products relating to fluid manipulating interfaces some day.

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

The most important question in the field of my research is why nature has an ultrahigh efficiency of mass transfer. Compared with our modern techniques, nature has a lot of advantages in mass transfer, energy conversion, information storage etc. With respect to fluid manipulation, nature’s strategy is always fantastic. Can you believe that the tiny proboscis of a butterfly or a mosquito sucks viscous liquid without blocking? Do you know how a tall tree can continuously uplift fluid to over 100m high? The ultrahigh efficiency and the ultralow energy consumption of nature’s design is both mysterious and enlightening for us.

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

Choose your own adventure, make your own brand, and stick with it…..

References

(1) Xinsheng Wang, Haoyu Bai, Zhe Li, Moyuan Cao*; Fluid manipulation via multifunctional lubricant infused slippery surfaces: principle, design and applications, Soft Matter, 2023, D2SM01547A.

(2) Yuyan Zhao, Cunming Yu, Hao Lan, Moyuan Cao*, Lei Jiang*; Improved interfacial floatability of superhydrophobic/superhydrophilic Janus sheet inspired by lotus leaf, Advanced Functional Materials, 2017, 27: 1701466.

(3) Yifan Yang, Haoyu Bai, Muqian Li, Zhe Li, Xinsheng Wang, Pengwei Wang*, Moyuan Cao*; An interfacial floating tumbler with a penetrable structure and Janus wettability inspired by Pistia stratiotes, Materials Horizons, 2022, 9: 1888.

(4) Haoyu Bai, Tianhong Zhao, Xinsheng Wang, Yuchen Wu, Kan Li, Cunming Yu*, Lei Jiang, Moyuan Cao*; Cactus kirigami for efficient fog harvesting: simplifying a 3D cactus into 2D paper art, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2020, 8: 13452.

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Soft Matter Emerging Investigator – Jinhye Bae

Jinhye Bae is an Assistant Professor in the Department of NanoEngineering at the University of California, San Diego. She received her Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2015, then worked in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Her research focuses on understanding the physical and chemical properties of polymeric materials to program their shape reconfiguration and responsiveness. Her research interests also include the integration of material characteristics into new structural design and fabrication approaches for applications in biomedical devices, soft robotics, actuators, and sensors. She has received several awards including the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Award (2021) and the KIChE President Young Investigator Award (2021).

Find out more about her work via:

Group website: https://jbae.eng.ucsd.edu

Twitter: @jinhye_bae

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jinhye-bae-1388b01a/  

Read Jinhye Bae’s Emerging Investigator article http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM01104B

 

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

Soft Matter has been a go-to journal for publishing research on the topic of soft materials as it broadly covers the fields such as chemistry, physics, materials engineering, and biology, and includes experimental, theoretical, and computational research. Our research focuses on programmable shape reconfiguration and responsiveness of soft materials by the integration of functional materials in a controllable manner or their structural designs. I feel that Soft Matter is an excellent venue to disseminate our findings on this topic to a broad audience.

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

The most exciting aspect of our research is elucidating new fabrication-structure-property relationships of stimuli-responsive soft materials through the use of advanced small-scale fabrication techniques at the micro and nano-scales. I think this question can be the most challenging to address. To tackle this, we work on understanding the differences in physical and mechanical behaviors and the responsiveness of these materials at different scales, which can open up new possibilities for their application in areas such as micro-actuators, biomimetic systems, and biomedical applications.

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

In my opinion, important questions in the field of stimuli-responsive soft materials research include how much a system can be scaled down while maintaining its characteristics without becoming fragile, and how stimuli-responsive synthetic materials can be applied to engineer living systems by understanding their living/nonliving interface. In the longer term, understanding such questions will allow us to predict their properties and responsiveness in non-equilibrium conditions thus creating trainable and intelligent soft materials systems.

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

Do not hesitate to open up discussions with colleagues, mentors, and students – it can help you think outside the box. I have found that even failed trials or unexpected results can lead to exciting ideas, so be sure to set aside time to meet with your students and carefully listen to their observations and thoughts.

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Soft Matter Emerging Investigator – Siddhartha Das

Dr. Siddhartha Das is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park. His research focuses on the science and engineering of soft and polymeric materials, interfacial transport, and small-scale fluid mechanics for fundamental discoveries (in ion dynamics at soft interfaces, liquid transport in soft-material-functionalized nanochannels, drop behavior on squishy surfaces, and charge-driven nanoparticle-lipid-bilayer interactions) and cutting-edge applications (in additive manufacturing). He received his B.S. (or B-Tech.) and Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He has published more than 170 journal papers in world-renowned journals (such as Nature Materials, Science Advances, PNAS, PRL, JACS, APL, Matter, Nucleic Acid Research, Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, and ACS Nano) and has received numerous awards and accolades (including promotion to Associate Professorship with an early tenure, election as a Fellow to the Royal Society of Chemistry, Institute of Physics, U.K., and Institution of Engineering and Technology, U.K., Junior Faculty Outstanding Research Award of the A. James Clark School of Engineering, selection to contribute in the emerging investigator issue of the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics and Soft Matter, IIT Kharagpur Young Alumni Achiever Award, Hind Rattan award).

Find out more about his work via his group’s Twitter @smiel_umd

Read Siddhartha Das’s Emerging Investigator article: http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM00997H

 

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

Soft Matter is a wonderful venue for publishing exciting new works on soft materials, complex fluids, biological systems, etc. The present paper uses machine learning to unravel new characteristics of the water-water hydrogen bonds (HBs) inside the charged polyelectrolyte (PE) brush layer described using all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.  Papers in these areas of polymer systems and machine learning applications of soft matter systems have been extensively published in Soft Matter due to the sheer reach and the visibility of the journal to the soft matter and polymer science community. In that respect, I consider Soft Matter to be a perfect place to publish my research.

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

A big focus of my present research is to explore the properties and behaviors of polyelectrolyte brushes and brush-supported water molecules and ions using all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. Such all-atom simulations have been scarcely applied for PE brushes and my group was among the first to do so. Several of my previous papers have unraveled, for the first time, detailed properties and behaviors of PE-brush-supported water molecules and counterions. This present paper employs machine learning (ML) to take this endeavor further: ML enables us to identify structures and properties of water molecules and counterions inside the brush layer that are distinctly different from that outside the brush layer. In that way, we converge upon new definitions of water and ion properties inside the brush layer (e.g., the conditions that define water-water hydrogen bonds inside the brush layer). This is what I am really excited about at this moment: how the interplay of highly resolved atomistic simulations and machine learning algorithms enable us to obtain hitherto unknown properties of water and ions inside a PE brush layer. Such findings will lead to a paradigm shift of the way in which PE brushes are viewed by the research community: these brushes, henceforth, will be considered as a medium that triggers very rich water and ion science.

The most challenging part of my research is to connect these very interesting discoveries on PE-brush-supported ions and water to a larger scale description of the PE brush systems. Such a thing could possibly be accomplished by a multi-scale description of the PE brushes (where all-atom MD simulations and coarse-grained MD simulations are coupled) and ML methods will be useful for not only achieving such coupling but also for performing the sampling over a much larger time window.

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

PE brushes have great potential for a multitude of applications in medical, chemical, engineering, and diagnostic sciences. The central tenet of these applications is the responsiveness of such brushes to environmental stimuli. These responses strongly depend on the structure of the PE brushes and the behavior and properties of the brush-supported water molecules and counterions. Given that we are now able to explore unprecedented atomistic details of such brush-supported water and ions, the most important questions to be answered in the field are as follows:

  1. How the properties of such brush-supported water and ion properties can be regulated for ensuring desired responsiveness of the brushes (and hence achieving unprecedented efficiency in certain established brush-driven applications and develop new applications of brush-based systems) to environmental stimuli?
  2. How to model reactive brushes and their responses to environmental stimuli?
  3. How liquid and ion transport take place at such brush-grafted interfaces?
  4. How machine learning can improve our predictions of all these effects?

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

For early-career scientists, my one piece of career-related advice will be to have fun in doing new things in research. Very often the burden of the tenure-track system (or similar conditions) forces early career scientists to do research on things that are safer and on which they have previous experience. However, in that way, the fun of discovering new things and contributing to new areas goes completely missing and makes the life of early career scientists more stressful and the work less exciting.

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Soft Matter Emerging Investigator – Ankur Gupta

Dr. Ankur Gupta is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the principal investigator in the Laboratory of Interfaces, Flow and Electrokinetics (LIFE). His research interests include interfacial phenomena, complex fluids, multiphase flows and electrokinetics. His work has applications in energy storage, desalination, and lab-on-a-chip technologies. He is the recipient of NSF CAREER Award, Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) Award IIT Delhi, DARPA Riser Award, ACS PRF Doctor New Investigator Grant, Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award in Chemical and Biological Engineering at CU-Boulder, Publons Peer-Review Award, Hugh Hampton Young Fellowship, and President’s Gold Medal (IIT Delhi). He has given invited talks about his work at more than 25 universities and national labs across the USA, Canada, India, and Singapore.

Find out more about his work via:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ankurg90

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankurg90/

Research group Twitter: https://twitter.com/LIFE_Boulder

 

Read Ankur Gupta’s Emerging Investigator article http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM01549H

 

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

Soft Matter is one of the best journals to share this work due its interdisciplinary yet dedicated readership. Many important contributions on diffusiophoresis were previously published in Soft Matter and thus we are excited to share our findings with the community.

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

Prior literature on diffusiophoresis has primarily focused on the response of colloidal particles to one-dimensional solute gradients. The exciting aspect of this work is that it highlights that two-dimensional solute gradients can be spatially and temporally controlled to optimize colloidal banding. However, realizing some of these effects experimentally remains a challenge.

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

Some of the important questions in diffusiophoresis include the impact of particle shape and heterogeneity on mobility parameters, diffusiophoresis in complex fluids, and diffusiophoresis in two and three-dimensional gradients. Recent research has already begun to answer these questions and we anticipate that this area will remain quite active.

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

I have learned to not compare my scientific journey with other early career scientists. While it is good to draw inspiration from the work of others, incessant comparison with others is generally detrimental and counterproductive.

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Soft Matter Emerging Investigator – Henry Chu

Henry Chu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at University of Florida (UF).  He obtained a M.Phil. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Hong Kong in 2012 under the supervision of Professors Chiu-On Ng and Kwok-Wing Chow.  He earned a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 2017 under the supervision of Professor Roseanna Zia.  Following his Ph.D., he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, working with Professors Aditya Khair, Robert Tilton, and Stephen Garoff.  In 2021, he joined UF.  The theme of his research is heterogeneous soft matter transport and design, covering topics such as complex fluid dynamics, colloid and interface science, electrokinetics, and rheology.  His research develops predictive multi-scale computational tools and fundamental theory to address emerging National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges for Engineering in these research areas, emphasizing on close collaboration with experimental groups to translate knowledge into applications.  His work has been recognized through several awards, including Clyde W. Mason Scholarship (Cornell), Research Travel Grant Award (Cornell), Student Member Travel Award (American Institute of Physics), and Global Faculty Fellowship (UF).  We welcome collaboration with academia, government agencies, and industry sponsors.

Find out more about his work via:

Website: http://www.chugroup.site/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HenryCWChu

Read Henry Chu’s Emerging Investigator article: http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM01620F

 

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

Soft Matter is a great place to publish our Emerging Investigator article on diffusiophoresis in porous media.  In the article, we develop a mathematical model that predicts the diffusiophoretic motion of a colloidal particle driven by a concentration gradient of a binary monovalent electrolyte in porous media.  In addition to unveiling the impacts on colloid diffusiophoresis by porous media, our model predictions agree excellently with recent experiments, which otherwise could not be done with existing theories.  Our model could also predict diffusiophoresis in porous media filled with any monovalent electrolyte.  We believe that our model will motivate and benchmark future theories and experiments.

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

As a computation/theory group focusing on soft matter transport and design, we are excited about leveraging our discoveries to develop practical applications and to explain novel transport phenomena.  Our strategy is always to develop models which are as simple as possible but can capture the key physics of a system.  Although these are not easy tasks, I enjoy tackling these challenges with my students and collaborators!

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

I think one promising future direction is diffusiophoresis in porous media, which is the theme of our Emerging Investigator article.  To date, excellent theories and experiments have been done on diffusiophoresis in free electrolyte solutions but not in porous media.  Many novel applications, however, involve diffusiophoresis in porous media.  I believe that the huge potential of diffusiophoresis will start a new wave of research that addresses both the fundamental and application aspect of the topic.

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

I would share the advice that I gladly have from my respected research advisors 🙂  Work on things that you are passionate about.  Enjoy your work with your students and collaborators.

I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge my research advisors, colleagues, and friends, who have given me great support in my early career, thank you!

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Soft Matter: Overview of 2022

Welcome to the Soft Matter overview of 2022 blog post! We wanted to update you on some of the exciting happenings from Soft Matter from last year, plus a look ahead to 2023.

 

Editorial Board

In January 2022, Professor Alfred Crosby (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA) commenced his stewardship of the journal as Editor-in-Chief of Soft Matter. His research interests lie generally in bio-inspired materials mechanics, especially topics including adhesion, nanoparticle assemblies, gels, thin films, fracture, hierarchical materials, and elastic instabilities.

Quote from Alfred Crosby on the future of the soft matter field

Additionally, in 2022 we welcomed Professor Guruswamy Kumaraswamy (IIT Bombay, India) as an Associate Editor and Professor Lorna Dougan (University of Leeds, UK) to the Editorial Board of Soft Matter.

 

Soft Matter Lectureship

Profile picture of Xuanhe ZhaoWe announced Professor Xuanhe Zhao (MIT, USA) as the winner of the 2022 Soft Matter Lectureship. This annual award was established in 2009 to honour an early-stage career scientist who has made a significant contribution to the soft matter field. The mission of Zhao Lab is to advance science and technology on the interfaces between humans and machines for addressing grand societal challenges in health and sustainability. To learn more about Xuanhe’s research have a look at some of his recent publications in Soft Matter, and you can also check out articles from our previous lectureship winners in our lectureship winners collection.

 

 

Nominations are currently open for the 2023 Soft Matter Lectureship; these will close on 28 February 2023. Full details on who is eligible and how to nominate, along with further details on selection and previous winners can be found on our website.

Image asking who will you nominate for the Soft Matter Lectureship

 

Soft Matter Emerging Investigators

Soft Matter 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!

Click here to read the collection Click here to meet the scientists

Do you know any exceptional early career researchers in the area of soft matter who you would recommend for this collection – you can nominate them now! Information on eligibility and how to nominate can be found on our blog.

 

Themed collections

Recently published and ongoing themed collections in Soft Matter are shown below. 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!

  • Soft Matter Emerging Investigator series
  • Soft matter aspects of cancer. Guest Edited by Anna Taubenberger (Technische Universität Dresden) and Lele Tanmay (Texas A&M University)
  • Polymer networks with companion journal Polymer Chemistry. Guest Edited by (Yukikazu Takeoka (Nagoya University), Matsumoto Akira (Tokyo Medical & Dental University), Akira Kakugo (Hokkaido University), Jian Ping Gong (Hokkaido University) and Alfred Crosby (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
  • Soft Robotics. Guest Edited by Anand Mishra (Cornell University), Zhihong Nie (Fudan University), Jamie Paik (EPFL) and Rob Shepherd (Cornell University)
  • Honorary collection for Thomas P. Russell with companion journals Journal of Materials Chemistry A and Nanoscale. Guest Edited by Zhiqun Lin (Georgia Institute of Technology), Xiaodan Gu (University of Southern Mississippi), Ilja Gunkel (Adolphe Merkle Institute), Duyeol Ryu (Yonsei University), Jiun-Tai Chen (National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University) and Jodie Lutkenhaus (Texas A&M University)

 

Open Access

The Royal Society of Chemistry has announced that all 31 fully-owned hybrid journals, including Soft Matter, 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

Banner announcing the return of #RSCPoster#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 Soft Matter.

  • 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 Soft Matter. 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 Soft Matter blog and on our Facebook and Twitter
  • Send your best research to Soft Matter.
  • Sign up to be a reviewer for Soft Matter.
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Soft Matter Emerging Investigator – Jeremy Cho

Jeremy Cho is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Previously, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department where he studied water transport and solid mechanics of granular hydrogel systems. He received his PhD and SM in mechanical engineering from MIT where he focused on phase-change heat transfer and interfacial phenomena. He received his BSE in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan. In 2022, he received the National Science Foundation CAREER and the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator awards. As he is originally from Hawaiʻi, Jeremy named his group “Da Kine Lab” from Hawaiian Pidgin as the term is a placeholder similar to “whatchamacallit” representing the very diverse range of research topics he pursues: liquid-vapor phase-change phenomena, heat and mass transfer, interfacial and wetting phenomena, surfactant chemistry, and polymer physics.

 

Find out more about his work via:

Website: dakine.sites.unlv.edu

LinkedIn: Jeremy Cho – Assistant Professor – University of Nevada-Las Vegas | LinkedIn

Read Jeremy Cho’s Emerging Investigator article http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM01215D

 

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

To me, Soft Matter, is the catch-all journal for fields that are near and dear to me: polymers, mechanics, and transport. This is my third Soft Matter paper—and the journal has a special place in my heart as it is where I published my first paper with my own lab group since becoming faculty. I look forward to continuing to publish in Soft Matter and getting better connected with its highly diverse readers.

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

Actually, some of the most challenging things can be the most exciting parts. We deal with a lot of polymer theory and thermodynamics so we try to visualize how polymer strands behave—they’re too small to just fire up a microscope and observe. These are very difficult thought experiments, but over the course of many discussions and drawings with students and colleagues and poring over the literature, I found that analogies can be incredibly helpful. We end up coming up with pretty hilarious analogies—often with food—that we feel really illustrates certain concepts in a very obvious way. With this paper, it was a noodles as polymer strands analogy. And the analogy went deeper where if you imagine that if you are eating the noodles in a bowl of noodle soup, the volume fraction of noodles diminishes, loosening up the mixture—akin to a hydrogel becoming softer and permeable. I always felt that just throwing up an equation can only do so much. Being able to convey an understanding in a way that is relatable to the co-authors, readers, your family members, and really anyone is such a challenging yet exciting task. Nonetheless, I believe being an effective scientific communicator, both to our field and the public, is an important duty.

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

Sometimes, the best questions come from non-scientists who ask me about what the work in our field means. It helps us define a purpose for our research. I also believe it is important for us, in the field, to ask each other to “explain it like we’re five” as a constant check on the familiarity of our understanding on a topic.

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

Starting a brand new research group is tough! Getting your students to immediately understand your past work and continue it in their own way is something that doesn’t just happen as smoothly as an Olympic baton handoff. I would say that showing your passion and enthusiasm for a topic or skill set really does rub off on your students and eventually they will find their way.

 

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Soft Matter Emerging Investigator – Morgan Stefik

Morgan Stefik is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina and is the Founding Director of the South Carolina SAXS Collaborative. He obtained a BE degree in Materials Engineering from California Polytechnic State University in 2005 and a PhD degree in Materials Science from Cornell University in 2010. He then completed postdoctoral research at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. His accolades include a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2018, recognition as an Emerging Investigator by the Journal of Materials Chemistry A in 2017, a Breakthrough Star Award from the University of South Carolina in 2018, election to the council of the International Mesostructured Materials Association in 2018, selection as an ACS PMSE division Young Investigator in 2020, recognition as an Early Career Scholar by the Journal of Materials Research in 2022, a Garnet Apple Award for Teaching Innovation from the University of South Carolina in 2022, and a Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Fellowship in 2022.  Morgan can be found on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/morganstefik

 

Read Morgan’s Emerging Investigator article http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM00513A

 

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 most excited about kinetic-control broadly and particularly as applied to polymer assemblies. Rather than finding the singular equilibrium arrangement at some condition, kinetic-control opens up the possibility to make infinite different configurations.  Some of these new configurations can often enable new and useful properties or help solve existing problems. Reproducibility is a significant challenge with kinetic-control since such processes are inherently pathway-dependent and one often does not know which processing parameters are important at the beginning. Furthermore, many of the characterization techniques are only convenient at the end of processing which makes it that much more difficult to figure out what was happening throughout the entire processing timeline.  The tremendous potential for new and exciting capabilities, however, make this challenge worthy of attention from my perspective.

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Soft Matter Emerging Investigator – Ting Ge

Ting Ge is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina. He earned his BS degree in 2007 from the University of Science and Technology of China followed by a Ph. D. degree in 2013 from Johns Hopkins University. Subsequently, he worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Research Triangle of North Carolina in the USA, first at UNC-Chapel Hill and then at Duke University. He is interested in investigating the microscopic origin of the macroscopic behaviour of various soft matter systems. A combination of molecular simulations and theory is employed in his research activities.

They can be found on Twitter @TingGe15

Read Ting Ge’s Emerging Investigator article http://xlink.rsc.org/?doi=10.1039/D2SM00731B

 

 

 

How do you feel about Soft Matter as a place to publish research on this topic?

The interdisciplinary feature of Soft Matter makes it an ideal place for publishing my research on the force-driven active dynamics of nanorods in polymeric fluids. The microscopic insights from the combined computational and theoretical research are anticipated to intrigue the readers of Soft Matter across different disciplines, such as the material scientists who study the force-driven processing of functional nanorod-containing polymer composites and the biomedical engineers who develop nanorod-based techniques for drug delivery and imaging.

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

The most exciting aspect of my research is the elucidation of the microscopic origin of the macroscopic behavior of various soft matter systems. The goal is achieved through the combination of molecular simulations that have unparalleled access to detailed microscopic information and theoretical modeling that delineate the hierarchy of multiple time and length scales. Topics currently investigated include (1) the effects of polymer topology on the thermodynamics, rheology, and mechanics of polymeric materials, (2) the transport of nanoscale objects in complex polymeric environments, as well as (3) the scale-bridging physics in the fracture behavior of thermoplastics and elastomers. The most challenging aspect of these research topics is making close connections to the synthesis, characterization, and measurements of the relevant soft matter systems in real experiments, both in the setup of a sound model for the molecular simulations and theory and in the comparison between the simulation, theory, and experiments.

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

In my opinion, the most important questions in the research on nanoscale transport in a complex soft matter environment should target the active and far-from-equilibrium nature of a soft matter environment commonly present in living systems, which differ distinctively from the passive and equilibrium nature of many synthetic soft matter materials. One example is the diffusion of virus nanoparticles through a mucus gel network which is essential in preventing lung infection.

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

Starting my research group in January 2020 right ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic was not an easy task. I would love to share one quote with my fellow scientists, “The world’s most precious resource is the persistent and passionate human mind”.

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