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Emerging Investigator Series

Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Mita Dasog, Dalhousie University, Canada!

Since the launch of Nanoscale Horizons, the journal has had a clear vision to publish exceptionally high-quality work whilst acting as a resource to researchers working at all career levels. We continue to be impressed by the quality of the research published and at the same time are looking for new ways of recognising and promoting the outstanding authors behind articles published in the journal.

We launched our Emerging Investigator Series to showcase the exceptional work published by early-career researchers in the journal and regularly select a recently published Communication article to feature in an interview-style Editorial article with the corresponding author. We hope that the series will also benefit the nanoscience community by highlighting the exciting work being done by its early-career members.

We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Dr Mita Dasog, Dalhousie University, Canada

 

A photo of Mita Dasog

Dr Mita Dasog (she/her), FRSC, is an Associate Professor and Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Research Chair in the Department of Chemistry at Dalhousie University. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Saskatchewan, and then moved to the University of Alberta to begin her PhD studies with Professor Jonathan Veinot, where she focused on the syntheses, properties, and applications of silicon quantum dots. After a short stay at the Technical University of Munich as a Green Talents visiting scholar, Dr Dasog went on to hold an NSERC postdoctoral position with Professor Nathan Lewis at the California Institute of Technology, where she studied light–material interactions. Currently, her research group focuses on the development of photocatalysts, electrocatalysts, and refractory plasmonic nanostructures for water treatment and clean hydrogen production. She co-leads the Green Hydrogen Research Cluster at Dalhousie University and is an elected member of the Global Young Academy and the Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. Mita and her team’s contributions have been recognized with many awards and honors, including selection as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Negative Emissions Scialog Fellow, and recognition as a top Canadian Water Shero by the Office of the Chief Scientist to the Prime Minister of Canada.

Read our interview with Mita here

Congratulations to Dr Mita Dasog for her excellent work! You can read her featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below, which is free to access.

a graphical abstract image for the article

Unlocking the secrets of porous silicon formation: insights into magnesiothermic reduction mechanism using in situ powder X-ray diffraction studies

Sarah A. Martell, Maximilian Yan, Robert H. Coridan, Kevin H. Stone,  Siddharth V. Patwardhan, and Mita Dasog. Nanoscale Horiz., 2024,9, 1833-1842. DOI: 10.1039/D4NH00244J

We hope you enjoy reading our interview and featured article and are looking forward to sharing our future Emerging Investigators with you!

Do you publish innovative nanoscience and nanotechnology research? Submit your latest work to Nanoscale Horizons now. If you are eligible for the Emerging Investigators series, you could be considered to feature in one of our future interviews! Find out more about the eligibility criteria and the process in this editorial introducing the series.

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Community Board Picks

Fluorescent reporters are invaluable tools for biomedical research like cell imaging, sensing or tracking analysis. In particular, the fluorescent labelling of nanomaterials remains a critical step in the development and evaluation of candidate nanomedicines. Being commercial fluorophores rather costly and fixed to a single emission, alternative strategies to produce labelled nanomaterials with tunable emission colour are highly coveted.

In a recent paper (DOI: 10.1039/d4nh00400k), Wang, Qi, et al. reported the versatile assembly of organic nanoparticles with adjustable emission wavelength by the enzymatic oxidation of the protected aminoacid N-(tert-butoxycarbonyl)-L-tyrosine. The biocatalytic oxidation of this aminoacid iduces its polymerisation into a variety of condensation products, which can co-assemble with unprotected aminoacids added post-polymerisation to generate nanoparticles ranging 5 to 10 nm in diameter. Interestingly, depending on the fed aminoacid post-polymerisation, the fluorescence spectra of the afforded nanoparticles could be shifted across the whole visible range. The fluorescent properties of these nanoparticles arise from the aggregation-induced emission of their constituent aminoacids, with different restrictions in bond rotation -and hence emission colour- for each nanoparticle formulation. Indeed, molecular dynamics simulations supported the aggregation mechanism and fixation of bond rotation, which together explain the assembly of these emissive nanoparticles.

The authors also demonstrated the excellent biocompatibility of these nanostructures in vitro and tracked their uptake by HeLa cells by confocal laser scanning microscopy. These results prove the great potential of this versatile technology to produce nanoparticles for biomedicine with tailored fluorescence from biomolecular precursors.

Overall, this paper lays down the basis for a new nanoparticle assembly platform with customisable fluorescence properties and excellent biocompatibility. The simplicity and modularity of this approach can make a strong impact on fluorescent nanotecnology, specially in the areas of drug delivery and cell taffick analysis, with broad application in the wider field of biomedicine.

A figure taken from the original article depicting a nanoparticle preparation scheme

Fig. 1 (a) Nanoparticle preparation scheme: sequential enzymatic oxidation of Boc-Try-OH into a reactive product that generates polymers, which can be doped with free aminoacids to form fluorescent nanoparticles. (b) Cryo-TEM and (c) AFM images of the afforded nanoparticles. (d) Visible emission of different nanoparticle formulations irradiated at 365 nm. Adapted from https://doi.org/10.1039/d4nh00400k with permission from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

To find out more, please read:

Full-color peptide-based fluorescent nanomaterials assembled under the control of amino acid doping

Yuhe Shen, Yulin Sun, Yaoyu Liang, Xiaojian Xu, Rongxin Su,  Yuefei Wang and Wei Qi
Nanoscale Horiz., 2024, Advance Article


About the blogger


A photo of the community board member, Ignacio InsuaIgnacio Insua is a Ramón y Cajal fellow and ERC Starting Grant awardee at the University of Santiago de Compostela, member of the Nanoscale Horizons Community Board since 2020. His group focusses on peptide self-assembly for nanomaterial fabrication and biomedical applications in the context of antimicrobial technologies and biomimicry (www.insualab.com).

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Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Mohammad H. Malakooti

Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Mohammad H. Malakooti  (University of Washington , Seattle)!

Since the launch of Nanoscale Horizons, the journal has had a clear vision to publish exceptionally high-quality work whilst acting as a resource to researchers working at all career levels. We continue to be impressed by the quality of the research published and at the same time are looking for new ways of recognising and promoting the outstanding authors behind articles published in the journal.

We launched our Emerging Investigator Series to showcase the exceptional work published by early-career researchers in the journal and regularly select a recently published Communication article to feature in an interview-style Editorial article with the corresponding author. We hope that the series will also benefit the nanoscience community by highlighting the exciting work being done by its early-career members.

We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Mohammad H. Malakooti  (University of Washington , Seattle) !


Dr. Mohammad H. Malakooti is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington – Seattle. He leads the iMatter Lab, a research group dedicated to creating materials that match the extraordinary adaptability, rich multi-functionality, and embodied intelligence of natural material systems. He received his PhD at the University of Florida in 2015, had a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan (2015-2017), and was a Research Scientist at Carnegie Mellon University (2017-2019). 

Read our interview with Mohammad here

Congratulations to Dr. Mohammad H. Malakooti for his excellent work! You can read his featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below, which is free to access until the end of May 2024.

Graphical abstract image for Contact engineering for 2D Janus MoSSe/metal junctions.

Green synthesis of iron-doped graphene quantum dots: an efficient nanozyme for glucose sensing

Xinqi LiGuanyou LinLijun Zhou Octavia Prosser  Mohammad H. Malakooti, and Miqin Zhang
Nanoscale Horiz., 2024, DOI: 10.1039/D4NH00024B

 

We hope you enjoy reading our interview and featured article and are looking forward to sharing our future Emerging Investigators with you!

Do you publish innovative nanoscience and nanotechnology research? Submit your latest work to Nanoscale Horizons now. If you are eligible for the Emerging Investigators series, you could be considered to feature in one of our future interviews! Find out more about the eligibility criteria and the process in this editorial introducing the series.

 

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Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Valentina Castagnola!

Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Valentina Castagnola, Italian Institute of Technology, Italy !

Since the launch of Nanoscale Horizons, the journal has had a clear vision to publish exceptionally high-quality work whilst acting as a resource to researchers working at all career levels. We continue to be impressed by the quality of the research published and at the same time are looking for new ways of recognising and promoting the outstanding authors behind articles published in the journal.

We launched our Emerging Investigator Series to showcase the exceptional work published by early-career researchers in the journal and regularly select a recently published Communication article to feature in an interview-style Editorial article with the corresponding author. We hope that the series will also benefit the nanoscience community by highlighting the exciting work being done by its early-career members.

We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Dr Valentina Castagnola, Italian Institute of Technology, Italy

A photo of Dr Valentina Castagnola, the EMI winner
Dr Valentina Castagnola graduated with a Masters in Photochemistry and Molecular Materials, obtaining “cum laude” from the University of Bologna. In 2014, she earned a PhD in Micro and Nano Systems working at one of the laboratories of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Toulouse, France. Her thesis focused on the development of soft implantable devices for recording neuronal signals and was awarded the best thesis prize by the GEETS (Génie Electrique, Electronique, Télécommunications et Santé) doctoral school. Then, she moved to Dublin to work at the “Center for Bionano Interactions” a Center of Excellence led by Prof. Kenneth Dawson and located at University College Dublin, Ireland. Here, she specialized in the study of interactions between different nanoscale materials and the human biological environment, to foster the development of new therapeutic solutions based on nanomedicine. She is currently a researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and at the IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino in Genoa, Italy, where she pursues her research based on the study of the blood–brain barrier and the development of biomimetic systems as an innovative therapeutic platform for neurodegenerative diseases. In 2020 she was awarded the prestigious “Roche for Research” award.

Read our interview with Valentina here

Congratulations to Dr Valentina Castagnola for her excellent work! You can read his featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below, which is free to access.

Sources of biases in the in vitro testing of nanomaterials: the role of the biomolecular corona

Valentina Castagnola,  Valeria Tomati,  Luca Boselli,  Clarissa Braccia,e Sergio Decherchi,  Pier Paolo Pompa, Nicoletta Pedemonte,  Fabio Benfenati  and Andrea Armirotti.
Nanoscale Horiz., 2024,9, 799-816; doi.org/10.1039/D3NH00510K

We hope you enjoy reading our interview and featured article and are looking forward to sharing our future Emerging Investigators with you!

Do you publish innovative nanoscience and nanotechnology research? Submit your latest work to Nanoscale Horizons now. If you are eligible for the Emerging Investigators series, you could be considered to feature in one of our future interviews! Find out more about the eligibility criteria and the process in this editorial introducing the series.

 

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Congratulations to our Emerging Investigator, Pengzhan Sun

Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Pengzhan Sun, University of Macau, China!

Since the launch of Nanoscale Horizons, the journal has had a clear vision to publish exceptionally high-quality work whilst acting as a resource to researchers working at all career levels. We continue to be impressed by the quality of the research published and at the same time are looking for new ways of recognising and promoting the outstanding authors behind articles published in the journal.

We launched our Emerging Investigator Series to showcase the exceptional work published by early-career researchers in the journal and regularly select a recently published Communication article to feature in an interview-style Editorial article with the corresponding author. We hope that the series will also benefit the nanoscience community by highlighting the exciting work being done by its early-career members.

We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Pengzhan Sun, University of Macau, China !


Dr Pengzhan Sun is an assistant professor at the Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering, University of Macau. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and automation (2012) and PhD in materials science and engineering (2016), from Tsinghua University. From 2016 to 2022, he was a research associate working at the Department of Physics and Astronomy and National Graphene Institute (NGI) at the University of Manchester. His research interests include the fundamental understanding of molecular transport under confinement, the synthesis and processing of 2D crystals building blocks and their rationally designed assemblies for emerging technologies in the environment, energy, informatics, etc. He has published many papers as first/corresponding author in journals including NaturePNASNature CommunicationsScience AdvancesNanoscale Horizonsetc. Also, he has been awarded important prizes including the MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35 (China), Materials Research Society (MRS, USA) Graduate Student Award (Silver), NSFC Excellent Young Scientist Fund, etc. 

Read our interview with Pengzhan here

Congratulations to Dr. Pengzhan Sun for his excellent work! You can read his featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below, which is free to access.


Catalytic selectivity of nanorippled graphene
Yu Liu,  Wenqi Xiong,  Achintya Bera,  Yu Ji,a Miao Yu,a Shi Chen,  Li Lin,  Shengjun Yuan  and Pengzhan Sun
Nanoscale Horiz., 2024, DOI: 10.1039/D3NH00462G

We hope you enjoy reading our interview and featured article and are looking forward to sharing our future Emerging Investigators with you!

Do you publish innovative nanoscience and nanotechnology research? Submit your latest work to Nanoscale Horizons now. If you are eligible for the Emerging Investigators series, you could be considered to feature in one of our future interviews! Find out more about the eligibility criteria and the process in this editorial introducing the series.

 

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Our new Editorial Board member, Mark MacLachlan

Join us in welcoming our new Editorial Board member, Mark MacLachlan

 

We are delighted to welcome Mark MacLachlan as a new Scientific Editor to Nanoscale Horizons ! Mark’s expertise will support us to better inform editorial decisions on Nanoscale Horizons.

Mark MacLachlan, The University of British Columbia, Canada

a photo of the new scientific editor, Mark MacLachlan

“I look forward to seeing the exciting science underway by colleagues around the globe in the field of nanomaterials.”

Mark MacLachlan is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Supramolecular Materials and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.  He obtained his BSc degree in chemistry from UBC in 1995 and his PhD degree in inorganic materials chemistry from the University of Toronto in 1999.  Following a 2-year postdoc at MIT, he returned to UBC to begin as an assistant professor in 2001. In 2009-2010, he spent a sabbatical year as a Humboldt Fellow at the RWTH in Aachen and he was a JSPS Invited Fellow at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Tsukuba, Japan in 2013. Since 2016, he has served as an international PI at the Nano Life Science Institute in Kanazawa. Mark’s research interests span different areas of supramolecular and materials chemistry, especially coordination chemistry, macrocycles, graphene oxide photonic materials and cellulose nanocrystal-based materials.

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Welcoming our new Editorial Board member, Xiaohui Qiu.

Join us in welcoming our new Editorial Board member, Xiaohui Qiu! 

We are delighted to welcome Xiaohui Qiu as a new Scientific Editor to Nanoscale Horizons ! Xiaohui’s expertise will support us to better inform editorial decisions on Nanoscale Horizons.

Xiaohui Qiu, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST), China

A photo of the new NH Editorial Board Member, Xiaohui Qiu

 

 

“I’m excited to contribute to the dissemination of cutting-edge research through this esteemed journal. I look forward to collaborating with authors to enhance the quality and impact of their work, promoting innovative findings that will push the boundaries of knowledge”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Xiaohui Qiu is a professor at the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST), China. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2000. He conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Irvine, and became a visiting scientist at IBM Research Center in Yorktown Heights and Ohio State University before joining NCNST in 2006. His research interests include advancing scanning probe microscopy and optical spectroscopy techniques to study various properties of low-dimensional materials, down to single molecules and atoms. He has published more than 190 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

 

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Congratulations to the winners of the RSC poster prize winners at the 2nd Sino-German Workshop on Optical Spectroscopy of van der Waals Semiconductors

The 2nd Sino-German Workshop on Optical Spectroscopy of van der Waals Semiconductors took place in Ettal Abbey, Germany, from 2–5 October 2024. Nanoscale HorizonsNanoscaleNanoscale Advances and Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (PCCP) were delighted to support poster prizes at the event and we would like to congratulate our winners! You can find out more about the event in the overview on the Lupton group website. 

Photos of the poster prizes being awarded at the Sino-German Workshop to Andreas Beer (right) and Yao Lu (left)

Photos of the poster prizes being awarded by conference organisers Kai-Qiang Lin and John Lupton to Andreas Beer (left) and Yao Lu (right).

 

Learn more about our poster prize awardees below:

A photo of Andreas Beer, the poster prize winnerAndreas Beer (University of Regensburg, Germany)

Poster title: “Proximity-induced exchange interaction in MoSe2/CrSBr van-der-Waals heterostructure with orthogonal spin textures”

Andreas Beer completed his BSc studying ultrathin superconductors and his MSc on topological insulators under the guidance of Prof. Ruppert Huber at the University of Regensburg. He is now finishing his PhD at the same university under the supervision of Prof. Christian Schüller. His PhD research focuses on ultrafast temporal dynamics in semiconducting van-der-Waals heterostructures, with a particular emphasis on spin dynamics to explore the fundamental interactions in these advanced materials. Currently, he is investigating the interaction between MoSe₂, which shows out-of-plane spin-valley locking, and CrSBr, an in-plane antiferromagnet, both exhibit large exciton binding energies. When combined they create a unique system with orthogonal spin textures.

 

A photo of the poster prize runner up, Yao LuYao Lu (Xiamen University, China)

Poster title: “Bilayer MoS2 interlayer intersubband transition”

Yao Lu received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Zhejiang Normal University. She is currently in the second year of her Ph.D. studies under the supervision of Prof. Kai-Qiang Lin in the College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Xiamen University. Her current research focuses on exploring novel electronic excitations and excitonic transitions in van der Waals semiconductors, with the aim of developing innovative optoelectronic devices. Her presentation shows a previously unreported interlayer intersubband transition in bilayer MoS2. This discovery has significant implications, as it provides insight into the spin-orbit splitting energy in MoS2 and shows promise for potential application in infrared detection.

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