Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

Journal of Materials Chemistry B and companion journal Nanoscale are delighted to announce an open call for submissions to a themed collection on ‘Nanozymes’ to be published in Summer 2023.

Guest Edited by:

Professor Shaoqin Liu (Harbin Institute of Technology, China), Professor Vincent Rotello (University of Massachusetts, USA), Professor Asier Unciti-Broceta (University of Edinburgh, UK) and Professor Hui Wei (Nanjing University, China)

Deadline to submit: 1 May 2023

Nanozymes are nanomaterials with enzyme-like characteristics. They have been developed to address the limitations of natural enzymes and conventional artificial enzymes. Along with the significant advances in nanotechnology, biotechnology, catalysis science, and computational design, great progress has been achieved in the field of nanozymes since the discovery of peroxidase-like iron oxide nanozyme in 2007. Nanozymes have been explored for a variety of applications, ranging from biosensing and therapeutics to environmental protection and national security. To our knowledge, more than 400 laboratories from 35 countries are working on nanozymes. Notably, both the publications and citations on nanozymes have been growing rapidly, showing the enormous research interest from the field.

To further advance the field of nanozymes and highlight recent progress, we are delighted to invite you to contribute to this themed collection. We believe such a special collection will not only accelerate the development of the nanozyme field, but also attract more researchers to explore the hidden characteristics of nanomaterials for broad applications.

We welcome submissions from now until the deadline, with articles being published in the next available issue on acceptance and collated into an online collection. This allows greater flexibility for you to publish your research when it is ready, while ensuring your article is published quickly. The collection will be promoted in the second half of 2023 and beyond, ensuring maximum visibility of your article within the materials chemistry community.

Submissions to the collection should fit within the scope of Journal of Materials Chemistry B or Nanoscale. Please see the journal websites for more information about the scope, standards, article types and author guidelines. We would suggest that any manuscript focusing on the materials chemistry and bio-application of the nanozyme material would be better suited to Journal of Materials Chemistry B, whereas work more focused on the nanoscience, properties and insights of nanozymes with application in the biosciences, environmental sciences and beyond would be better suited to Nanoscale.

For this collection, we welcome full Papers and Communications. Review article submissions are by invite-only and as such we generally will not consider review proposals as a result of the open call.

All submissions will undergo a rigorous initial Editorial assessment as to suitability for the journal before potential peer review. Please note that peer review and acceptance of your submission will not be guaranteed.

We look forward to receiving your submissions and to featuring your latest nanozymes work in the collection.

Read the Editor’s Choice Collection

Current Li ion batteries are relying on critical materials that have a high risk linked to their supply, while their demand is constantly rising. Moving towards a circular battery economy is one solution, but this alone will not be able to address the issue of critical materials. The other solution is developing alternative battery chemistries based on abundant materials to complement Li-ion batteries in the future and diversify the battery market to match requirements for different applications. This collection, selected by Associate Editor Professor Magdalena Titirici, Imperial College London, UK, highlights some progress made in this direction based on recent papers published in Materials Advances and Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

Journal of Materials Chemistry B is delighted to announce an open call for submissions to a cross-journal themed collection on ‘Microneedles’ with companion journal Biomaterials Science.

Guest edited by Dr Ester Caffarel-Salvador (Scientific Consultant, USA) Professor Ryan Donnelly (Queen’s University Belfast, UK), Professor Harvinder Gill (Texas Tech, USA) and Professor Hyungil Jung (Yonsei University, Korea).

Submissions open until 1 March 2023

Microneedles, since their inception as a unique transdermal drug and vaccine delivery system, have become a noteworthy system used in multiple routes, including gastrointestinal, oral (mouth cavity) and ocular, to name a few. The range of illnesses being targeted by microneedles has also increased significantly and includes infectious diseases, pain, diabetes, and allergies for example. Sensing is another upcoming application of microneedles. Innovation in microneedle fabrication continues to not only push the drug-carrying and delivering capacity of microneedles, but also making mass manufacturing feasible and economical. There is also increased activity in the commercial sector with different companies attempting to bring the first microneedle-based medical device to market.

This cross-journal themed collection on ‘Microneedles’ in Journal of Materials Chemistry B and Biomaterials Science aims to bring together recent advancements in the field of microneedles that readers will find informative and useful. The topics could include microneedle fabrication and development approaches, applications of microneedles that add a new dimension to existing core knowledge in the microneedles field, sensing applications and clinical studies that evaluate efficacy or other aspects of microneedle use in humans.

Submissions to the journal should fit within the scope of Journal of Materials Chemistry B or Biomaterials Science – Please see the journal website for more information on the journal’s scope, standards, article types and author guidelines. We encourage you to submit your work to the journal that you feel best reflects the scope of your work.

The call for papers is open for the following article types:

• Communications
• Full papers
• Reviews
• Perspectives

If you would like to submit to this themed collection, you can submit your article directly to the online submission platform for Journal of Materials Chemistry B or Biomaterials Science. Please mention that this submission is a contribution to the Microneedles collection in the “Themed issues” section of the submission form and add a “Note to the Editor” that this is from the Open Call. The Editorial Office reserves the right to check suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of both the journal and the collection, and inclusion of accepted articles in the final themed issue is not guaranteed.

Please note that all submissions will be subject to initial assessment by the journal editors and as such we cannot guarantee peer review or final acceptance of your manuscript. If you have any questions about the collection, email us at materialsb-rsc@rsc.org.  We look forward to receiving and featuring your submissions in this exciting collection!

Journal of Materials Chemistry B are delighted to announce an open call for submissions to our themed collection on ‘Materials, Physical and Biological Chemistry of Protein Cages’.

Guest Edited by:

Prof. Jeroen Cornelissen (University of Twente, the Netherlands)

Prof. Feng Li (Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)

Dr Frank Sainsbury (Griffith University, Australia)

Protein cages are highly ordered macromolecules that can be genetically encoded and chemically modified. They are characterized by well-defined structures, controllable self-assembly, capacity for cargo loading, and facile chemical or genetic engineering. Protein cages hold great potential as versatile platforms in diverse fields. Applications include biomedicine and drug delivery; enzymology and biocatalysis; bioinspired materials and templates for inorganic chemistry. These applications are underpinned by fundamental science drawing on the fields of biological chemistry, biophysics, physical chemistry, and computational chemistry.

In this context, it is pertinent to compile this themed collection on the materials, physical and biological chemistry of protein cages. To this end, this themed collection of Journal of Materials Chemistry B aims at providing a platform for recent developments in this rapidly evolving field of protein cages including, de novo design, biophysics of self-assembly, permeability, biocatalytic nanoreactors, artificial organelles, delivery of bioactive molecules, bioimaging and biosensing, multifunctional nanodevices and other applications. We hope that readers find this themed collection informative and that it will act as an up-to-date insight into the fascinating potential of protein cages in chemistry.

Submissions to the journal should fit within the scope of Journal of Materials Chemistry B– Please see the journal website for more information on the journal’s scope, standards, article types and author guidelines.

Submission Deadline: 1 February 2023

We strongly encourage you to submit an original research article. If you are interested in submitting a review-type article, please contact the Editorial Office in the first instance with a proposed title and abstract as initial approval is required before submission to limit the number of review-type articles and avoid potential topic overlap.

All submissions will undergo a rigorous initial Editorial assessment as to suitability for the journal before potential peer review. Please note that peer review and acceptance of your submission will not be guaranteed. All accepted articles will be added to the online web collection as soon as they are published and will be featured in the next available issue of Journal of Materials Chemistry B.

Manuscripts can be submitted here https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jmchemb

Please add a “note to the editor” in the submission form when you submit your manuscript to say that this is a submission for the themed collection. The Editorial Office and Guest Editors reserve the right to check suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of the collection and inclusion of accepted articles in the collection is not guaranteed.

We look forward to receiving your submissions for this collection!