Author Archive

DNA Nanotechnology Themed Collection

20 Jan 2026

Explore the articles in this themed collection

We are delighted to share this themed collection in Nanoscale Horizons on ‘DNA Nanotechnology’. This collection is guest edited by Professors Chunhai Fan (Shanghai Jiaotong University, China), Wenlong Cheng (University of Sydney, Australia), Chengde Mao (Purdue University, USA), Shelley Wickham (University of Sydney, Australia), Young Hoon Roh (Yonsei University, South Korea) and Laura Na Liu (University of Stuttgart, Germany) and aims to provide an impactful platform to showcase the state-of-the-art progress as well as address future challenges and opportunities in the field of DNA nanotechnology.

Read the collection

Read the editorial

We encourage you to explore the high-quality and exciting research presenting novel concepts in DNA nanotechnology.

All of the articles in the collection are free to access until 27 February 2026. Read some of the featured articles below.

	Rolling circle amplification/transcription-based nanotechnology for efficient delivery of nucleic acid drugs Xun You, Qingxuan Zeng, Tianshuang Xia, Xiaocui Guo, Chi Yao and Dayong Yang *Nanoscale Horiz*., 2025, DOI: 10.1039/D5NH00364D
	D NA-triggered activation of aptamer-neutralized enzyme for in situ formation of injectable hydrogel Connie Wen, Yixun Wang, Kyungsene Lee, Xuelin Wang and Yong Wang *Nanoscale Horiz., 2025, 10, 1703-1716*, DOI: 10.1039/D5NH00314H
	Non-saturated nucleic acid probes with a broad dynamic range Xinmiao Kang, Yu Liu, Dandan Tian, Zuhao Shen, Shihui Wang and Xin Su *Nanoscale Horiz., 2025, 10, 1684–1691*, DOI: 10.1039/D5NH00218D
	A nanoscale quality control framework for assessing FFPE DNA integrity in cancer research Zixuan Huang, Yunpei Si, Yi Zhang, Zicheng Huang, Xuehao Xiu, Yunshan Wang, YuDong Wang, Chunhai Fan and Ping Song *Nanoscale Horiz., 2025, 10, 1692–1702*, DOI: 10.1039/D5NH00176E

Nanoscale Horizons is always interested in considering exceptional articles on nanomaterials for DNA technology and we would be delighted if you would consider the journals for your future submissions. Submissions to the journals can be made via the Nanoscale Horizons online submission service. All submissions are subject to a full assessment by the editorial team according to the journals’ guidelines, and peer review and acceptance cannot be guaranteed.

We hope you enjoy reading this collection!

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Congratulations to the poster prize winners of the RSC Chemical Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Annual Symposium 2026

16 Jan 2026

The Nanoscale journal family were delighted to sponsor poster prizes at RSC Chemical Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Annual Symposium the which took place in London, U.K on 12-13^th January 2026.

Please join us in congratulating the winners on their awards!

First Prize: Tiago Linares (NOVA University, Portugal)

Poster title: Development of Injectable Chitosan Hydrogels Incorporating Cellulosic Nanoparticles and Derivatives for Biomedical Applications

Runner up: Alexandra Billina (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom )

Poster title: Probing Small-Molecule Interactions via Magnetic Relaxometry of Engineered Gd³⁺-Nanoparticle Platforms

Runner up: Dario Orlić (University of Trieste, Italy)

Poster title: Measuring physical and chemical properties of thermo-responsive nano-micelles for drug delivery using molecular dynamics

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Nanoscale Horizons: Looking back at 2025

07 Jan 2026

Looking back at 2025

An overview of the exciting events, activities and news for Nanoscale Horizons from 2025.

Now that 2025 has come to an end, we look back at some of the exciting events, activities and news from Nanoscale Horizons. We are continually thankful for the nano community’s engagement, which has enabled the journal to continue to support our growing community. We look forward to another great year for the journal in 2026.

10^th Anniversary of Nanoscale Horizons

This year marked the beginning of our celebrations for the 10^th Anniversary of Nanoscale Horizons and we are excited to continue the celebrations into 2026. We invited you all to you to take part, contribute and enjoy our activities. We published a special anniversary collection to celebrate and thank our community, along with reflections articles from our inaugural authors, regional and community spotlights, and commemorative cover artwork. Read our blog to catch up on all of our celebratory activities and check back regularly for updates!

Board updates

In 2025 we welcomed Jovana Milić (University of Turku, Finland) and Jun Fan (City University of Hong Kong, China) to the Editorial Borad of Nanoscale Horizons.

Jin-Hong Park (Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea), Katsuhiko Ariga (National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan) ended their terms on the Editorial Board and transferred to the Advisory Board, and Jinlan Wang (Southeast University, China) was also welcomed to the Advisory Board.

Emerging Investigators Series

This year saw the continuation of our Emerging Investigator series, which showcases the exceptional work published by early-career researchers in the journal. The series continues to regularly highlight the corresponding author of a recently published Communication article through an interview-style Editorial and this year we featured interviews with 9 early-career researchers.

Topical Highlights, Celebratory Collections & Themed Collections

In 2025 we published a range of exciting collections that celebrates and showcases research and researchers across our nanoscience and nanotechnology community. Explore these amazing collections below!

Topical Highlights
Recent Review Articles	Nanoscale Horizons HOT Papers
Editor’s Choice collection: Inorganic-biomolecule nanomaterials	Editor’s Choice collection: Nanoarchitectonics: fine structure construction in nanoscale
Spotlight on Materials and Nano Research from Indian institutes	Nanoscale Horizons Most Popular 2025 Articles

Celebratory Collections
Lunar New Year	Chinese New Year
Celebrating International Women’s day 2025: Women in Nanoscience	*Celebrating 10 Years of Nanoscale Horizons: 10^th Anniversary Collection*
US National Nanotechnology Day	Celebrating the 120th anniversary of the National University of Singapore

Themed Collections
Graphene and 2D Materials in Healthcare	Light-nanoMatter Interactions
Soft wearable sensors	UPCON24 – Upconversion Nanomaterials

Find more Nanoscale Horizons publications in the RSC cross journal collections on our themed collections page or head to our blog for the latest news on all our collections!

Community Board

This year we featured research on Emerging horizons in polymer applications in a collection guest edited by Nanoscale Horizons Community Board member, Calum Ferguson, and Materials Horizons Community Board member, Kostas Parkatzidis. Look out for more collections in 2026!

Outstanding Paper Award

We were delighted to announce Jiang Zhou and co-authors, Ankur Solanki and co-authors, and Cristina Zavaleta and co-authors as the winners of our 2024 Outstanding Paper Awards.

Please join us in congratulating the winners of the 2024 Outstanding Paper Award and we hope that you enjoy reading their outstanding articles as much as we did!

Focus Articles

Discover our latest educational articles, addressing topic areas that are often misunderstood or require greater explanation, in the Focus Article Collection.

Editorial Office Updates

Finally, the Nanoscale Horizons has a new Development team in the Editorial Office. We’ll be attending conferences throughout 2026 and will be delighted to chat with you about publishing with the RSC. Look out for us at your next event!

Executive Editor	Deputy Editor	Development Editor
Jeremy Allen	Zifei Lu	Paul Scott

The Nanoscale Horizons team wish you a Happy New Year!

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Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Verónica Mora Sanz

28 Nov 2025

Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Verónica Mora Sanz (Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Spain)!

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 Verónica Mora Sanz (Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Spain)!

Read our interview with Verónica here

Dr Verónica Mora Sanz holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Zaragoza (2015) and a master’s degree in nanostructured materials for nanotechnological applications from the same university (2016). Between 2016 and 2017, she worked as a junior researcher at the Institute of Nanoscience of Aragon (INA). In 2017, she began her PhD in applied chemistry and polymeric materials at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), under the supervision of Dr Valery Pavlov (CIC biomaGUNE) and Dr Nerea Briz (Tecnalia), obtaining the highest distinction, “summa cum laude”. Her doctoral research focused on the preparation of antibody atomic cluster conjugates and their application in bioanalytical assays. From this work, she obtained a patent, titled “Nanoclusters-antibodies conjugates and uses thereof”, as well as two first-author scientific publications. In 2020, she joined the Biomaterials Area of the Health Division at Tecnalia (San Sebastián), where she focused her research on the development of bioanalytical assays, including enzymatic reactions and immunoassays, and on the design of novel nanomaterials to enhance assay sensitivity. She also contributed to the development of lab-on-a-chip devices for in vitro diagnostics. In September 2025, she joined CIRCE (Research Centre for Energy Resources and Consumption) in Zaragoza, a technology centre dedicated to energy, sustainability, and digitalization, to begin a new stage in her professional career within the Funding and Technology Transfer Unit, supporting the development of European project proposals.

Congratulations to Verónica for her excellent work! You can read her featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below.

Dot-blot immunoassay based on antibody-nanocluster biohybrids as tags for naked-eye detection

Verónica Mora-Sanz, Laura Saa, Valeri Pavlov, Aitziber L. Cortajarena, Bergoi Ibarlucea and Nerea Briz

Nanoscale Horiz., 2025, 10, 1674-1683

DOI: D5NH00045A

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 Fangfang Cao

28 Nov 2025

Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Fangfang Cao (Beihang University, China)!

We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Dr Fangfang Cao (Beihang University, China)!

Read our interview with Fangfang here

Dr Fangfang Cao is a professor at the School of Engineering Medicine, Beihang University. She received her PhD in inorganic chemistry from Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2019 under the supervision of Prof. Jinsong Ren and Prof. Xiaogang Qu, and later conducted postdoctoral research at the National University of Singapore under the mentorship of Prof. Xiaoyuan Chen. Dr Cao’s research centres on cell and microbial therapies for translational medicine, as well as nanocatalytic medicine based on artificial enzymes, bioorthogonal and plasma catalysis, and piezoelectric materials. Her pioneering work on constructing “nanozyme-probiotic hybrids” to improve intestinal disease therapy led to her selection for the 2024 MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 China (TR35). She currently serves as a Community Board Member of Nanoscale Horizons.

Congratulations to Fangfang for her excellent work! You can read her featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below.

MOF-derived nanozymes loaded with botanicals as multifunctional nanoantibiotics for synergistic treatment of intracellular antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection

Yaling Liu, Shuwen Sun, Chunyao Shang, Rongji Liu, Chenhao Zhang, Jing Yu, Kai Dong, Chen Xu and Fangfang Cao

Nanoscale Horiz., 2025, 10, 1377-1389

DOI: D5NH00137D

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

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Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Siwen Zhang

28 Nov 2025

Nanoscale Horizons Emerging Investigator Series

Congratulations to our latest Emerging Investigator Dr Siwen Zhang (Liaoning University, China)!

We are excited to share our latest Emerging Investigator, Dr Siwen Zhang (Liaoning University, China)!

Read our interview with Siwen here

Dr Siwen Zhang has been engaged in research on electrochemical energy storage, including supercapacitors and aqueous batteries. To date, he has published over 60 SCI-indexed papers in the field of electrochemical energy storage. Among these, he has authored more than 30 SCI papers as first author or corresponding author in internationally renowned journals such as Advanced Materials, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Energy & Environmental Science, Advanced Functional Materials, Energy Storage Materials, Nano Energy, Nano-Micro Letters, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, and the Chemical Engineering Journal. His papers have been cited over 3000 times, with an H-index of 29. Additionally, four of his publications have been recognized as ESI Highly Cited Papers (top 1% worldwide), and one paper has been identified as an ESI Hot Paper (top 0.1% worldwide). He holds 5 authorized invention patents and has over 10 patent applications under review. In 2024, he was awarded the Second Prize of the Natural Science Academic Achievement Award of Shenyang City, among other honors. He has served as principal investigator or participant in more than 10 national and provincial-level projects. Additionally, he is a young editorial board member for six journals, including Battery Energy and Carbon Neutralization. He also acts as an independent reviewer for over 20 journals such as Nature Communications, Advanced Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, and InfoMat.

Congratulations to Siwen for his excellent work! You can read his featured Emerging Investigator article from Nanoscale Horizons below.

PVP pre-intercalation engineering combined with the V4+/V5+ dual-valence modulation strategy for energy storage in aqueous zinc-ion batteries

Wenhui Mi, Bosi Yin, Haixi Gu, Hanyu Wen, Zhibiao Wang, Hui Li, Ziqian Yuan, Siwen Zhang and Tianyi Ma

Nanoscale Horiz., 2025, 10, 1365-1376

DOI: D5NH00236B

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

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Our new Editorial Board member, Jovana Milić

10 Nov 2025

Join us in welcoming our new Editorial Board member, Jovana Milić!

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

Jovana Milić, University of Turku, Finland

Jovana V. Milić has been an Associate Professor in Materials Chemistry at the University of Turku in Finland since September 2024, leading the Smart Energy Materials group as part of the Sustainable Materials & Manufacturing (SUSMAT) programme. She was an Assistant Professor and Swiss National Science Foundation PRIMA Fellow at the Adolphe Merkle Institute of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland since 2021.

She obtained her Dr.Sc. Degree in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences of ETH Zurich in 2017, and she was a postdoctoral scientist in the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces at EPFL in Switzerland, before establishing an independent academic career in 2020. She is an International Science Council Fellow and a member of the Young Academy of Europe as well as the Swiss and Global Young Academies. Her research focuses on the development of bioinspired supramolecular materials that can respond to external stimuli and adapt to their operating conditions in smart and sustainable (nano)technologies, with a special interest in photovoltaics and neuromorphic systems.

Jovana shared her thoughts on joining the Editorial Board and her interests:

What are you most excited about joining the Editorial Board for Nanoscale Horizons?

I am excited about joining the Editorial Board of Nanoscale Horizons as I look forward to serving the community in highlighting the breakthroughs through conceptual advancements in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

Why should researchers choose to publish their research with the journal?

Nanoscale Horizons provides a unique platform for new concepts or new ways of thinking in nanoscience and nanotechnologies, beyond just technological improvements, and researchers should consider it for highlighting such exceptional high-quality innovations and conceptual breakthroughs.

What aspect of your research interests you the most?

I am especially interested in bioinspired smart materials that are adaptive to the external stimuli in the environment and their application in emerging technologies, such as for renewable energy conversion in new-generation photovoltaics and neuromorphic computing.

When you are not doing research, what do you like to do in your free time?

When not doing research, I am invested in advancing science for policy and diplomacy, and I enjoy spending time with my family, in nature, as well as music and sports.

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Nanoscale Horizons blog

Author Archive

DNA Nanotechnology Themed Collection

Explore the articles in this themed collection

Congratulations to the poster prize winners of the RSC Chemical Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Annual Symposium 2026

Nanoscale Horizons: Looking back at 2025

Looking back at 2025