Molecular Systems Design & Engineering Blog

Luke Connal is an Associate Professor at the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University (ANU) where he is an ANU Futures Fellow.  His research program is in the design of advanced polymeric materials for applied systems. He has been recognised by numerous awards such as the ACS Chemical and Engineering News Talented 12. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeConnal.

Luke’s favourite MSDE articles

Here are three publications that Luke has chosen as his favourite recent articles in MSDE.

Optimum in ligand density for conductivity in polymer electrolytes
Nicole Schauser, Peter Richardson, Andrei Nikolaev, Piper Cooke, Gabrielle Kliegle, Ethan Susca, Keith Johnson, Hengbin Wang, Javier Read de Alaniz, Raphaële Clément and Rachel Segalman
MSDE, 2021, 10.1039/D1ME00089F

SARS-Cov-2 spike protein N501Y mutation causes differential species transmissibility and antibody sensitivity: a molecular dynamics and alchemical free energy study
Xudong Hou, Zhilin Zhang, Jiali Gao and Yingjie Wang
MSDE, 2021, 10.1039/D1ME00086A

Controlling polymer architecture to design dynamic network materials with multiple dynamic linkers
Jafer Vakil, Nethmi De Alwis Watuthanthrige, Zachary Digby, Borui Zhang, Hannah Lacy, Jessica Sparks and Dominik Konkolewicz
MSDE, 2020, 5, 1267-1276

All these articles are currently FREE to read until 15 November 2021!

We are delighted to welcome Linda Broadbelt, Luke Connal, Andrew Ferguson, Niveen Khashab and Patrick Stayton to the Molecular Systems Design & Engineering Editorial Board.

Linda Broadbelt is Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and the Associate Dean for Research of the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University.

Her honors include selection as the winner of the R.H. Wilhelm Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering from AIChE, the E.V. Murphree Award in Industrial Chemistry and Engineering from the American Chemical Society, the Dorothy Ann and Clarence Ver Steeg Award, a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, and an AIChE Women’s Initiative Committee Mentorship Excellence Award, selection as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of AIChE, and a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar, appointment to the Defense Science Study Group of the Institute for Defense Analyses, and selection as the Su Distinguished Lecturer at University of Rochester, Ernest W. Thiele Lecturer at the University of Notre Dame and the Allan P. Colburn Lecturer at the University of Delaware.

Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of multiscale modeling, complex kinetics modeling, environmental catalysis, novel biochemical pathways, and polymerization/depolymerization kinetics.

Luke Connal is a Senior Lecturer at the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University (ANU) where he is an ANU Futures Fellow.

He received a bachelor of Chemical Engineering and a PhD in polymer chemistry both from the University of Melbourne, Australia. In 2009 he completed a post-doctoral position with Frank Caruso developing new techniques for the self-assembly of polymers. He was then a joint Sir Keith Murdoch postdoctoral Fellow and Australian Linkage International Fellow at University of California Santa Barbra with Prof Craig Hawker. In 2013 Luke returned to the University of Melbourne as a veski Innovation Fellow and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. In 2017 he moved his group to the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University.

His research program is in the design of advanced polymeric materials for applied systems. He has been recognised by numerous awards such as the ACS Chemical and Engineering News Talented 12.

Luke’s MSDE paper 2D and 3D-printing of self-healing gels: design and extrusion of self-rolling objects won the IChemE Senior Moulton Medal in 2017.

Andrew Ferguson is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago.

He earned an M.Eng. in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London in 2005, and a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Princeton University in 2010 where he worked with Thanos Panagiotopoulos, Pablo Debenedetti, and Yannis Kevrekidis. From 2010 to 2012 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT working with Arup Chakraborty. He commenced his independent career in the department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in August 2012, and was promoted to Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in January 2018. He joined the IME in July 2018.

His research uses computation and theory to understand and design self-assembling materials, macromolecular folding, and antiviral therapies.

Andrew is the recipient of a 2017 UIUC College of Engineering Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research, 2016 AIChE CoMSEF Young Investigator Award for Modeling & Simulation, 2015 ACS OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, 2014 NSF CAREER Award, 2014 ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator, and was named the Institution of Chemical Engineers North America 2013 Young Chemical Engineer of the Year.

Andrew’s MSDE paper Rational design of patchy colloids via landscape engineering won the Best Paper by an Emerging Investigator Award at the Frontiers of Molecular Engineering Symposium in Chicago in September 2018.

Niveen M. Khashab is an Associate Professor at the Physical Sciences and Engineering Division at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

During her doctoral studies at the University of Florida, Prof. Khashab trained in organic chemistry in the laboratory of Prof. Alan R. Katritzky. During her post-doctoral studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and then at Northwestern University, Prof. Khashab continued her training in Sir Fraser Stoddart’s laboratory, where she worked on designing and making mechanized silica nanoparticles and molecular switches. Prof. Khashab has received the Crow award for organic innovation in 2006 and AlMarai award for excellence in nanotechnology in the Middle East region in 2013. She is also the 2017 recipient of the L’Oreal-Unesco international women in science award.

Her current efforts focus on the design, synthesis, and applications of organic-inorganic hybrid materials that are porous and dynamically controlled by stimuli (pH, light, magnet, enzymes….). Her lab aims to develop systems that can be triggered on demand using molecular self-assembly and supramolecular tools.

Patrick Stayton serves as Distinguished Career Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington. He is the founding Director of the Institute for Molecular Engineering and Sciences.

He received his B.S. in Biology (summa cum laude) from Illinois State University, his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois, and was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, also at the University of Illinois. He has been elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and has been the recipient of the Clemson Award from the Society For Biomaterials and the CRS-Cygnus Recognition Award from the Controlled Release Society.

His research group works at the interface of fundamental molecular science and applied molecular bioengineering in the drug delivery, diagnostics, and regenerative medicine fields. Dr Stayton has a strong interest in translating the group’s research, and is a co-founder of the company Jewel Biotherapeutics based on drugamer and cell therapy work, PhaseRx Inc. based on RNA delivery, and Nexgenia Inc. based on pharma bioprocessing.

Please join us in warmly welcoming the new members of the MSDE Editorial Board!

We are delighted to welcome Professor Andrew deMello (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) to the Molecular Systems Design & Engineering Editorial Board.

Andrew is currently Professor of Biochemical Engineering in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zurich and Head of the Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering. Prior to his arrival in Zurich he was Professor of Chemical Nanosciences and Head of the Nanostructured Materials and Devices Section in the Chemistry Department at Imperial College London.

He obtained a 1st Class Degree in Chemistry and PhD in Molecular Photophysics from Imperial College London in 1995 and subsequently held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley working with professor Richard Mathies.

His research interests cover a broad range of activities in the general area of microfluidics and nanoscale science. Primary specializations include the development of microfluidic devices for high-throughput biological and chemical analysis, ultra-sensitive optical detection techniques, nanofluidic reaction systems for chemical synthesis, novel methods for nanoparticle synthesis, the exploitation of semiconducting materials in diagnostic applications, the development of intelligent microfluidics and the processing of living organisms.

Please join us in warmly welcoming Professor deMello to the MSDE Editorial Board!

We are delighted to welcome Professor Kristi Kiick (University of Delaware, USA) to the Molecular Systems Design & Engineering Editorial Board.

Kristi Kiick is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Deputy Dean of the University of Delaware College of Engineering. Following a BS in chemistry at the University of Delaware, Professor Kiick received MS in chemistry from the University of Georgia, USA then an MS and PhD in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA before returning to join the faculty of the University of Delaware in 2001.

Professor Kiick has been awarded several honours, including the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation New Faculty Award, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Young Investigator Award, an NSF CAREER Award, the DuPont Young Professor Award, and the Delaware Biosciences Academic Research Award.

The Kiick Research Group current research programs are focused on combining biosynthetic techniques, chemical methods, and bioinspired assembly strategies for the production of advanced multifunctional biomaterials.

Please join us in warmly welcoming Professor Kiick to the MSDE Editorial Board!

We are delighted to welcome Professor Yongye Liang (Southern University of Science and Technology, China) to the Molecular Systems Design & Engineering Editorial Board, and the new members of our Advisory Board.

Yongye is Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Southern University of Science and Technology, China. Following a BS in chemistry at Nanjing University, he received an MS and PhD in chemistry at the University of Chigago, then carried out postdoctoral research at Stanford University until joining Southern University of Science and Technology in 2012. Professor Liang was named by Thomson Reuters as a 2016 Highly Cited Researcher.

His primary research interest is molecular engineering, which combines chemical design and synthesis with device studies to develop advanced functional materials for organic electronics, electrocatalysis, and bioimaging. His current research focuses on:

• Improving the performance of polymer solar cells by developing new materials for active layer and interlayer
• Designing and synthesizing non-precious metal based electrocatalysts for electrochemical energy conversion
• Developing organic based electrode materials and conducting organic binders for sustainable electrical storage
• Making new fluorophores with emission in the NIR region, high brightness and good biocompatibility

We also warmly welcome new Advisory Board members to the Molecular Systems Design & Engineering team, joining the full Advisory Board as follows:

• Alfredo Alexander-Katz, MIT, USA
• Helena Azevedo, Queen Mary University of London, UK
• Andre Bardow, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
• Jeremy Baumberg, University of Cambridge, UK
• Neil Champness, University of Nottingham, UK
• Jennifer Cochran, Stanford University, USA
• Marc-Olivier Coppens, UCL, UK
• Graeme Day, University of Southampton, UK
• Pablo G. Debenedetti, Princeton University, USA
• Robert Falconer, University of Sheffield, UK
• Andrew Ferguson, University of Illinois, USA
• C. Daniel Frisbie, University of Minnesota, USA
• Arthi Jayaraman, University of Delaware, USA
• Takashi Kato, University of Tokyo, Japan
• Ludwik Liebler, ESPCI Paris, France
• Sang Ouk Kim, KAIST, Korea
• Heidi Mansour, University of Arizona, USA
• Bert Meijer, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
• Axel Mueller, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
• Ki Tae Nam, Seoul National University, South Korea
• Mark Olson, Tianjin University, China
• Ho Bum Park, Hanyang University, South Korea
• Jon Parquette, Ohio State University, USA
• Boaz Pokroy, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
• Jeffrey Rimer, University of Houston, USA
• Shu Seki, Kyoto University, Japan
• Randy Snurr, Northwestern University, USA
• Doros Theodorou, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
• Matthew Tirrell, University of Chicago, USA
• Bernhardt L. Trout, MIT, USA
• Raymond W. Y. Wong, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
• Kim Woodrow, University of Washington, USA
• Jia Zhu, Nanjing University, China

The full Molecular Systems Design & Engineering team cam be found on our website.

We are guided by an expert Editorial Board of world renowned scientists and engineers, ensuring that Molecular Systems Design & Engineering is truly positioned to help build and support an emerging molecular engineering community.  Each member brings a wealth of expertise in their own aspect of molecular engineering, contributing to an overall vision for the future of the field.

© University of Chicago

Juan de Pablo is Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago’s Institute for Molecular Engineering, USA, and Molecular Systems Design & Engineering Editorial Board Chair. His research involves theory and simulation at a molecular level, studying the properties of molecules and how they can be assembled in an organised manner to have specific functions. His work with Paul Nealey into block copolymer self-assembly has proved a crucial development for the semiconductor industry. He also studies protein and DNA folding, glassy materials, and liquid crystals. See his recent papers in Soft Matter:

Homeotropic nano-particle assembly on degenerate planar nematic interfaces: films and droplets, Alejandro Londoño-Hurtado, Julio C. Armas-Pérez, Juan P. Hernández-Ortiz and Juan J. de Pablo, Soft Matter, 2015, 11, 5067–5076;

A molecular view of the role of chirality in charge-driven polypeptide complexation, K. Q. Hoffmann, S. L. Perry, L. Leon, D. Priftis, M. Tirrell and J. J. de Pablo, Soft Matter, 2015, 11, 1525–1538.

Professor de Pablo’s work is partially motivated by solving some of the major technological and humanitarian challenges of our time, but equally by a fascination for working on fundamental problems and developing a better understanding of nature. His recent interview in Chemistry World explains how his institute is structured to drive the connection between the two. He is a fellow of the AAAS and the APS, and received the 2011 Charles Stine Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Samson Jenekhe is Boeing-Martin Professor of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington, USA, and a Scientific Editor for Molecular Systems Design & Engineering, helping to ensure that articles meet the stringent criteria required for publication in the journal. His expertise lies in polymers – their design, synthesis and assembly; understanding and control of their electronic and photonic properties; and their implementation in device applications. Take a look at his work in ChemComm:

Side chain engineering of n-type conjugated polymer enhances photocurrent and efficiency of all-polymer solar cells, Ye-Jin Hwang, Taeshik Earmme, Selvam Subramaniyan and  Samson A. Jenekhe, Chem. Commun., 2014, 50, 10801–10804.

Professor Jenekhe was named by Thomson Reuters as one of the top 100 materials scientists of the decade (2000–2010), and also received the 2014 Charles Stein Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Niren Murthy is Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California at Berkeley, USA, and a Scientific Editor for Molecular Systems Design & Engineering, helping to ensure that articles meet the stringent criteria required for publication in the journal.  His research is focused on the development of new molecules and materials for molecular imaging and drug delivery.  A new class of fluorescent probes – hydrocyanines – that can be used to detect reactive oxygen species (ROS) in vivo and in vitro have been developed in his lab. His recent ChemComm article presents a new polyketal type polymer with application in gene and drug delivery:

A biodegradable adamantane polymer with ketal linkages in its backbone for gene therapy, Santanu Maity, Priya Choudhary, Manu Manjunath, Aditya Kulkarni and Niren Murthy, Chem. Commun., 2015, 51, 15956–15959.

Professor Murthy’s hydrocyanine ROS probes are now commercially available under the name ROSstar.

David Awschalom is Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago’s Institute for Molecular Engineering, USA, and a Molecular Systems Design & Engineering Editorial Board Member. He is a leading authority in the field of spintronics – understanding and using electron spin behaviour in solid state systems for device applications in areas such as quantum information and sensing. He also studies optical and magnetic phenomena in semiconductors and nanoscale structures. Among numerous awards, he was the recipient of the American Physical Society’s 2015 Julius Edgar Lilienfield Prize for his research into the physics of spin-coherent materials and systems, ‘as well as his superb lecturing on these topics to diverse audiences‘. A great example of this is his recent talk at Physics@FOM on ‘Abandoning Perfection for Quantum Technolgies‘. Professor Awschalom is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Associate for the Advancement of Science.

Claire Adjiman is Professor of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London, UK, and a Molecular Systems Design & Engineering Editorial Board Member. Her research focuses on how molecular-level considerations can be brought into process design through modelling and optimisation – for example, some of her recent work uses a combination of quantum mechanical calculations and computer aided molecular design to determine an optimal solvent that increases the rate of a chemical reaction. She is a co-director of the Institute for Molecular Science and Engineering, which targets solving problems related to the world’s grand challenges through molecular innovation. Take a look at her inaugural lecture from 2013: ‘Molecules on Best Behaviour: The Engineering of Molecular Systems‘. Professor Adjiman is the recipient of an EPSRC Leadership Fellowship until 2017 as a future global research leader.

Marcus Müller is Professor at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Göttingen, Germany, and a Molecular Systems Design & Engineering Editorial Board Member. He studies the physics of soft matter, including polymer solutions, molecular self-assembly, wetting phenomena and biological problems, using computational simulation and numerical methods. His recent Soft Matter paper looks at the process of dynamin-mediated membrane fission at molecular resolution using a coarse-grained model:

Coarse-grained simulation of dynamin-mediated fission, Marc Fuhrmans and Marcus Müller, Soft Matter, 2015, 11, 1464–1480.

Professor Müller was a previous winner of the John H. Dillon Medal of the American Physical Society for outstanding accomplishment and unusual promise in research in polymer physics.

Paul Raithby is Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Bath, UK, and a Molecular Systems Design & Engineering Editorial Board Member. His research interests lie in materials design – connecting the molecular structure of materials and their properties – across areas including crystallography, organometallic oligomers & polymers and transition metal clusters & catalysts. Read his work on the behaviour of molecular switches with potential as piezochromic sensors in CrystEngComm:

High-pressure crystallographic and spectroscopic studies on two molecular dithienylethene switches, Christopher H. Woodall, Simon K. Brayshaw, Stefanie Schiffers, David R. Allan, Simon Parsons, Rafael Valiente and Paul R. Raithby, CrystEngComm, 2014, 16, 2119–2128.

Professor Raithby is Principle Investigator for the EPSRC Directed Assembly Network grant, with over 1000 academic and industry members developing control over the production of materials and substances with targeted properties.

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