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Author Archive

Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigator – Matthias Hartlieb

28 Feb 2022

Matthias Hartlieb received his PhD in Chemistry in 2015 at the Friedrich Schiller-University in Jena. He proceeded to work as a DFG-funded postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Warwick followed by a research position at the Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht. He joined the University of Potsdam in 2019 as an Open-Topic Postdoc and, since 2021, he leads an Emmy Noether research group at Potsdam. His research interests are the design of functional polymeric (bio)materials, specifically in the areas of antimicrobial polymers and supramolecular polymers, using tools such as (photo)-RAFT polymerization or solid phase synthesis. More information can be found on his group website and on Twitter @PolyBioPotsdam.

Read Matthias’ article ‘The role of reversible deactivation in photo-iniferter RAFT polymerization: high livingness enables the straightforward synthesis of multiblock copolymers’.

How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

A significant share of my publications are in Polymer Chemistry and there are reasons for that. Of course, it is one of the leading journals in macromolecular chemistry, and in my opinion, it presents the broadest overview in this area. So, it’s a great journal for researchers to see and be seen. I am also in favor of the uncomplicated and open reviewing process. Waiting times are relatively short and usually feedback is extremely constructive. It might also be a result of my time in the UK, but for me Polymer Chemistry is the journal where I feel most “at home” with 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?

There are actually at least two aspects I am currently equally excited about. On the one hand there is photo-iniferter RAFT polymerization, which is also the topic of the publication in the special issue. This method has a tremendous potential, both for polymer synthesis as well as for material design. On the other hand, I am very keen on developing new antimicrobial polymers. At some point in the future antibiotics might fail us and then we need to have something to replace them to avoid a drastic decrease in health care quality and life expectancy.

We are looking at the impact of polymer architecture and on the membrane interaction of these polymers, among other things in order to get closer to an application. For the development of new antimicrobial polymers, we are currently implementing PI-RAFT as well.

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

When it comes to antimicrobial polymers, the most important question is how we can improve their properties to bring them closer to an actual clinical application. However, this contains a lot of other questions, as there are many parameters, influencing the bioactivity of these polymers. Overall, their selectivity (targeting bacterial cells over mammalian cells) requires improvement but its not entirely clear how to achieve optimal performance.

We are looking into the polymer architecture, a parameter that hasn’t received much attention. We are also probing different targeting strategies and want to understand the mechanism of membrane interaction of these polymers in more detail.

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

I am happy to forward something that has helped me staying on track: a fellow early career researcher did show me his folder with failed grant applications from the last few years, which had well over 30 items in it. However, he also had one successful one, and that was enough to kick start his career. The same thing happened to me. A lot of failed grant applications, not always with helpful feedback, sometimes without any feedback at all. It is easy to get frustrated at this stage but its important to continue trying. For me eventually, the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) thought my ideas regarding antimicrobial polymers were worth funding, which was the start of my independent research group. The lesson seems to be: don’t get discouraged by failure, because there will be a lot of that. Have a plan B but stay on track and try everything you can to follow your goal. Persistence is key (among other things like good mentoring, a supportive family, etc.).

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Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigator – Wen-Ming Wan

23 Feb 2022

Dr. Wen-Ming Wan is a Professor at Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received his B.E. degree in Polymer Material and Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology. He received a Ph.D. degree in Polymer Chemistry and Physics from University of Science and Technology of China, where he developed polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) method under the supervision of Prof. Cai-Yuan Pan. He completed postdocs at UT Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas) with Prof. Wen-Hong Li, The University of Southern Mississippi with Prof. Charles L. McCormick, and Rutgers University (Newark) with Prof. Frieder Jäkle. He started his independent research career as an Assistant Professor at Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology at China University of Petroleum (East China) in 2014, and then moved to Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2018. His current research interests focus on the development of novel polymerization methodologies, including but not limited to Barbier polymerization, living polymerization, polymerization-induced emission (PIE), single-atom polymerization (SAP) and PISA.

Read Wen-Ming’s article ‘Room-temperature Barbier single-atom polymerization induced emission as a versatile approach for the utilization of monofunctional carboxylic acid resources’.

How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer chemistry is of significance in polymer science. So, Polymer Chemistry journal is a significant platform to publish important research work in polymer science, including synthesis, functionality and applications of polymers.

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

Carbonyl chemistry is fundamental and plays cornerstone roles in synthetic chemistry. Meanwhile, carbonyl compounds are widely and readily available from fossil fuels and biomass, which are important resources on Earth. However, corresponding carbonyl polymerization is rarely investigated. My most excited work at the moment is Barbier polymerization, which successfully realizes the utilization of a varieties of carbonyls as polymerizable groups for the molecular design of nonconjugated luminescent polymers through polymerization-induced emission (PIE) strategy. Currently, the most challenging about my research is to demonstrate the advantages and importance of carbonyl polymerization in both scientific and industrial aspects, which will ultimately allow us to exploit Earth’s carbonyl resources more efficiently and functionally.

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

Since Staudinger proposed the concept of polymerization in 1920, generations of polymer chemists have spent considerable efforts to develop different kinds of polymerization methods, resulting in prosperous polymer science with abundant synthetic polymer materials in the forms of plastics, fibers, rubbers, etc. In comparison with previous polymerization methods, whether can Barbier polymerization survive throughout the history of polymer chemistry? How far can Barbier polymerization go? Whether can the prepared polymers via Barbier polymerization be recyclable? Whether is the concept of PIE applicable to other polymerization methods?

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Chalcogen-rich polymers: open for submissions

31 Jan 2022

Guest Editors Justin Chalker (Flinders University, Australia), Rongrong Hu (South China University of Technology, China) and Jeffrey Pyun (University of Arizona, USA) would like to extend an invitation to all researchers working on chalcogen-containing polymers, to contribute an article of their work to an exciting upcoming themed collection of Polymer Chemistry, dedicated to Chalcogen-rich polymers.

Submissions are open from now until 25 May 2022

Chalcogen-based polymers have seen a resurgence in interest over the last several years. Due to the versatile and intriguing chemistry of sulfur, selenium, and tellurium, polymers containing these elements have found diverse applications in polymer and material science. This themed collection will include synthesis and applications of chalcogen-rich polymers, as well as fundamental theoretical and mechanistic studies. Our aim is to celebrate progress in this area of polymer science and inspire new research.

If you wish to submit to the collection, please contact polymers-rsc@rsc.org to receive a personal submission link.

Please note all manuscripts must be within scope for the journal and will be subject to the journal’s standard rigorous peer review procedures, managed by the journal editors.

Accepted manuscripts will be added to the online collection as soon as they are online and they will be published in a regular issue of Polymer Chemistry.

If you have any questions, please contact us at polymers-rsc@rsc.org

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Introducing the Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigators Series

08 Nov 2021

For many years Polymer Chemistry has showcased special collections dedicated to work carried out by researchers in the earlier stages of their research careers in our Emerging Investigator collections, most recently in our 2020 Emerging Investigators collection.

We hope that the polymer chemistry community has found these issues to be valuable, both in the high quality of the articles and in drawing attention to newer voices in the community. The journal editors and Editorial Board consider these to have been highly successful.

In light of disruption to research programmes worldwide, we have taken the opportunity to reassess the format of this initiative, and we are now excited to announce the launch of the Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigators Series.

What is changing?

In place of a dedicated journal issue, Emerging Investigators papers will be published throughout the year. We anticipate the following benefits to this change:

No fixed submission deadlines allowing more flexibility for authors
Continual exposure of exciting work from early-career members of the community
Greater emphasis and focus on individual authors and research groups

We hope for this to offer a better service to our authors and readers well into the future.

What is not changing?

While we will no longer dedicate a specific journal issue to our Emerging Investigators, all other aspects of this initiative will remain the same. This includes:

Eligibility criteria (see below)
A dedicated web page for published articles alongside our other collections
Rigour and speed in peer review
An overall objective to showcase the full diversity of cutting-edge research carried out from polymer chemists in the early stages of their independent careers worldwide

What happens now?

The Polymer Chemistry Editorial Office will contact nominated Emerging Investigators throughout the year.

Regarding eligibility, contributors must:

Publish research within the journal scope
Currently be an independent research leader
Have not been featured as an Emerging Investigator in a previous Polymer Chemistry Emerging Investigators article
Have either no more than 12 years of post-PhD research experience in the year of submission when taking into account any career breaks

Do you fit the criteria above, and wish to be featured as an Emerging Investigator in the journal? Get in touch with us at polymers-rsc@rsc.org

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Call for papers: Tailoring Dispersity and Shape of Molecular Weight Distributions

20 Oct 2021

We are delighted to announce a call for papers for our latest themed collection on “Tailoring dispersity and shape of molecular weight distributions” Guest Edited by Athina Anastasaki (ETH Zurich) and Brett Fors (Cornell University).

This special issue will cover new synthetic or engineering methods to tailor polymer dispersity or the shape of molecular weight distributions. This includes discrete or nearly monodispersed materials and the properties thereof. Submissions where the effect of varying either the dispersity or the shape of molecular weight distributions are also encouraged and can be illustrated in any type of property of applications.

You can access the online collection here to look at the first few contributions to this collection.

Manuscripts should be submitted via the Royal Society of Chemistry’s online submission service available at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/py. 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 reserves the right to check suitability of submissions in relation to the scope of the collection.

All manuscripts will be subject to the journal’s usual peer review process. Accepted manuscripts will be added to the online collection as soon as they are online and they will be published in a regular issue of Polymer Chemistry.

If you have any questions about the journal or the collection, then please do contact the Editorial Office at polymers-rsc@rsc.org.

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We are very pleased to announce that Professor Athina Anastasaki has joined Polymer Chemistry as an Associate Editor

11 Oct 2021

Athina Anastasaki completed her PhD studies at the University of Warwick under the supervision of Professor Dave Haddleton and received the Jon Weaver Award for the best PhD thesis in Polymer Chemistry in the United Kingdom. She then commenced a Monash-Warwick post-doctoral appointment between Monash University (with Professor Tom Davis) and the University of Warwick (with Professor Haddleton). In 2016, she was awarded an Elings fellowship and a Global Marie Curie Fellowship to conduct research at the University of California in Santa Barbara working alongside Professor Craig Hawker. She is now an Assistant Professor at the Materials Department of ETH Zurich and has published 100 peer-reviewed articles and she recently received the 2020 Hanwha-Total IUPAC Young Scientist Award and an ERC Starting Grant. Her research focuses on controlled radical polymerization, self-assembly of polymeric materials, polymerization mechanisms and complex materials of different dispersities and architectures. You can follow her on Twitter @AthinaAnastasa1.

Check out our themed collections on ‘Sustainable polymers’ and ‘Plastics in a circular economy’ to read some of the exciting work we have published in this area.

Athina’s favourite Polymer Chemistry articles

Here are four publications that Athina has chosen as her favourite recent articles in Polymer Chemistry.

Sustainable thermoplastic elastomers produced via cationic RAFT polymerization
Scott Spring, Red Smith-Sweetser, Stephanie Rosenbloom, Renee Sifri and Brett Fors
Polymer Chemistry, 2021, 12, 1097-1104

Thermoresponsive dynamic BAB block copolymer networks synthesized by aqueous PISA in one-pot
Pauline Biais, Marie Engel, Olivier Colombani, Taco Nicolai, François Stoffelbach and Jutta Rieger
Polymer Chemistry, 2021, 12, 1040-1049

Diselenide–yne polymerization for multifunctional selenium-containing hyperbranched polymers
Xiaofang Lin, Sisi Chen, Weihong Lu, Ming Liu, Zhengbiao Zhang, Jian Zhu and Xiangqiang Pan
Polymer Chemistry, 2021, 12, 3383-3390

The block copolymer shuffle in size exclusion chromatography: the intrinsic problem with using elugrams to determine chain extension success
Kai Philipps, Tanja Junkers and Jasper Michels
Polymer Chemistry, 2021, 12, 2522-2531

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

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2022 Polymer Chemistry Lectureship – Open for nominations

27 Sep 2021

Do you know an early-career researcher who deserves recognition for their contribution to the polymer chemistry field?

Polymer Chemistry is pleased to announce that nominations are now being accepted for its 2022 Lectureship award and will close on 28 February 2022. This annual award was established in 2015 to honour an early-stage career scientist who has made a significant contribution to the polymer field.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the lectureship, candidates should meet the following criteria:

Be an independent researcher, PhD students postdoctoral research associates are not eligible
Be actively pursuing research within the polymer chemistry field, and have made a significant contribution to the field
Be at an early stage of their independent career (this should typically be within 12 years of attaining their doctorate or equivalent degree, but appropriate consideration will be given to those who have taken a career break, work in systems where their time period to independence may vary or who followed an alternative study path)

How to nominate

Nominations must be made via email to polymers-rsc@rsc.org, and include the following:

The name, affiliation and contact details of the nominee, nominator and referee
An up-to-date CV of the nominee (1 – 3 A4 page maximum length)
A letter of recommendation from the nominator (500 words maximum length)
A supporting letter of recommendation from a referee (500 words maximum length). This could be from the nominee’s postdoc, PhD supervisor or academic mentor for instance
The nominator must confirm that to the best of their knowledge, their nominee’s professional standing is as such that there is no confirmed or potential impediment to them receiving the Lectureship

Please note:

Self-nomination is not permitted
The nominee must be aware that he/she has been nominated for this lectureship
Previous winners and current Polymer Chemistry Editorial Board members are not eligible
As part of the Royal Society of Chemistry, we have a responsibility to promote inclusivity and accessibility in order to improve diversity. Where possible, we encourage each nominator to consider nominating candidates of all genders, races, and backgrounds. Please see the RSC’s approach to Inclusion and Diversity.

Selection

All eligible nominated candidates will be assessed by a judging panel made up of the Polymer Chemistry Editorial Board, any Editorial Board members with a conflict of interest will be ineligible for the judging panel.
The judging panel will consider the following core criteria:
- Excellence in research, as evidenced in reference to originality and impact
- Quality of publications, patents or software
- Innovation
- Professional standing
- Independence
- Collaborations and teamwork
- Evidence of promising potential
- Other indicators of esteem indicated by the nominator
In any instance where multiple nominees are judged to be equally meritorious in relation to these core criteria, the judging panel will use information provided on the nominee’s broader contribution to the chemistry community as an additional criterion. Examples of this could include: involvement with RSC community activities, teaching or demonstrating, effective mentorship, service on boards, committees or panels, leadership in the scientific community, peer reviewing, promotion of diversity and inclusion, advocacy for chemistry, public engagement and outreach.

Previous winners

2021 – Brett Fors, Cornell University, USA

2020 – Rachel O’Reilly, University of Birmingham, UK

2019 – Frederik Wurm, University of Twente, The Netherlands

2018 – Cyrille Boyer, University of New South Wales, Australia

2017 – Julien Nicolas, Université Paris Sud, France

2016 – Feihe Huang, Zhejiang University, China

2015 – Richard Hoogenboom, Ghent University, Belgium

Nominations deadline: 28 February 2022

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2021 Polymer Chemistry Lectureship awarded to Brett Fors

07 Jun 2021

It is with great pleasure that we announce Brett Fors (Cornell University) as the recipient of the 2021 Polymer Chemistry lectureship.

This award, now in its seventh year, honours an early-career researcher who has made significant contribution to the polymers field. The recipient is selected by the Polymer Chemistry Science Editorial Board from a list of candidates nominated by the community.

Brett P. Fors was born in Montana and carried out his undergraduate studies in chemistry at Montana State University (2006). He went on to do his Ph.D. (2011) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Professor Stephen L. Buchwald. After his doctoral studies he became an Elings Fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara working with Professor Craig J. Hawker. In of 2014 he joined the faculty at Cornell University and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. His group’s research focuses on the development and application of new synthetic methods for polymer science. He and his group can be found on Twitter @brett_fors and @forsgroup.

Polymer Chemistry Editor-in-Chief, Christopher Barner-Kowollik, says that Prof. Fors is a leader in the development of advanced (photochemical) synthetic methods, fusing elegant new concepts of organic chemistry with advanced polymer materials design. His research is seminal and inspiring to our community. I am delighted that the 2021 Polymer Chemistry Lectureship is awarded to Brett, a true ambassador of polymer science excellence.

Read Brett’s latest article in Polymer Chemistry “Achieving molecular weight distribution shape control and broad dispersities using RAFT polymerizations” and all of his other publications in Polymer Chemistry for FREE until 1 August. These and articles from our previous lectureship winners can be found in our lectureship winners collection.

How has your research evolved from your first article to the most recent article?

Our research program has evolved to a point that I would not have imagined when our group was getting started–this is a result of having very talented co-workers and collaborators that have taken our research in directions that I could not have predicted.

What excites you most about your area of research and what has been the most exciting moment of your career so far?

Results that change our understanding of a system are especially exciting to me. The most exciting moments of my career have been seeing my students develop and succeed as scientists.

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

In my opinion the most important questions being asked in a field are not obvious. I strongly believe that continuing to encourage high quality basic research in the area of polymer chemistry is what is important. However, if I was to pick one area that I believe will have an impact on society it would be developing sustainable polymer systems.

How do you feel about Polymer Chemistry as a place to publish research on this topic?

Polymer Chemistry is an excellent platform to publish high quality studies and is one of my favorite journals to read and keep up with the current field of polymer science.

Which of your Polymer Chemistry publications are you most proud of and why?

I cannot choose – I am very proud of all of the work and creativity that my co-workers put into all of our Polymer Chemistry publications.

In which upcoming conference or events (online or in person) may our readers meet you?

With Covid I am currently unsure as conferences are continually being moved but I will definitely be at Pacifichem.

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

My one piece of advice is to work in an area that you are passionate about and don’t forget to enjoy the process of research.

How do you spend your spare time?

I spend my free time with my wife and two kids!

We would like to thank everybody who nominated a candidate for the 2021 Polymer Chemistry Lectureship. The Editorial Board had a very difficult task in choosing a winner from the many excellent and worthy candidates.

Please join us in congratulating Brett on winning this award!

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Discrete synthetic macromolecules: synthesis and applications – free webinar series

29 Mar 2021

Polymer Chemistry is very pleased to be sponsoring a new FREE webinar series on the topic of ‘Discrete synthetic macromolecules: synthesis and applications’ hosted by our very own Associate Editor, Filip Du Prez.

This webinar series, including Q&A opportunity, comprises three half day sessions featuring some absolutely top class speakers. The dates for your calendar are 3, 10 and 17 May!

Check out the full program and learn how to join here

3 May	10 May	17 May
· Mike Meier	· Laura Hartmann	· Jean-François Lutz
· Resat Aksakal	· Mathieu Surin	· Hans Börner
· Alain Jones	· Anja Palmans	· Bruno De Geest
· Ivan Huc	· Elizabeth Elacqua	· Christopher Alabi
· Jeremiah Johnson	· Ron Zuckermann	· Craig Hawker

In addition, Polymer Chemistry will be making all papers in our related ongoing collection on ‘Molecularly defined polymers’ FREE to access for the month of May!

Check out our collection on Molecularly defined polymers here

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Open for Nominations: 2021 Polymer Chemistry Lectureship

13 Oct 2020

Do you know an early-career researcher who deserves recognition for their contribution to the polymer chemistry field?

Now is your chance to put them forward for the accolade they deserve!

Polymer Chemistry is pleased to announce that nominations are now being accepted for its 2021 Lectureship award. This annual award was established in 2015 to honour an early-stage career scientist who has made a significant contribution to the polymer field.

The recipient of the award will be asked to present a lecture at an international conference in 2021, where they will also be presented with the award. The Polymer Chemistry Editorial Office will provide £1000 financial support to the recipient for travel and accommodation costs.

The recipient will also be asked to contribute a research article to the journal and will have their work showcased free of charge on the front cover of the issue in which their article is published. The article would be subject to the normal peer review standards of the journal.

Previous winners

2020 – Rachel O’Reilly, University of Birmingham, UK

2019 – Frederik Wurm, University of Twente, The Netherlands

2018 – Cyrille Boyer, University of New South Wales, Australia

2017 – Julien Nicolas, Université Paris Sud, France

2016 – Feihe Huang, Zhejiang University, China

2015 – Richard Hoogenboom, Ghent University, Belgium

Eligibility

To be eligible for the lectureship, candidates should meet the following criteria:

Be an independent researcher, having completed PhD and postdoctoral studies
Be actively pursuing research within the polymer chemistry field, and have made a significant contribution to the field
Be at an early stage of their independent career (this should typically be within 12 years of attaining their doctorate or equivalent degree, but appropriate consideration will be given to those who work in systems where their time period to independence may vary, or who have taken a career break, for example for childcare leave or who followed an alternative study path)

Although the Polymer Chemistry Lectureship doesn’t explicitly reward support of or contributions to the journal, candidates with a history of publishing or reviewing for the journal would be more likely to be considered favourably.

Selection

All eligible nominated candidates will be assessed by a shortlisting panel, made up of members of the Polymer Chemistry Advisory Board and a previous lectureship winner.
The shortlisting panel will consider the nomination form and letter of recommendation, as well as the three recent research articles highlighted in the nomination form for consideration.
Shortlisted candidates will be further assessed by the Polymer Chemistry Editorial Board, and a winner will be selected based on an anonymous poll.
Selection is not based simply on quantitative measures. Consideration will be given to all information provided in the letter of recommendation and nomination form, including research achievements and originality, contributions to the polymer community, innovation, collaborations and teamwork, publication history, and engagement with Polymer Chemistry.

Nominations

Nominations must be made via email to polymers-rsc@rsc.org, and include the following:

A brief letter of recommendation (1 page maximum length)
A complete nomination form (includes list of the candidate’s relevant publications or recent work, 3 research articles to be considered during the shortlisting process, candidate’s scientific CV, and full contact details)

Please note:

Nominations from students and self-nomination is not permitted.
The nominee must be aware that he/she has been nominated for this lectureship.
As part of the Royal Society of Chemistry, we have a responsibility to promote inclusivity and accessibility in order to improve diversity. Where possible, we encourage each nominator to consider nominating candidates of all genders, races, and backgrounds. Please see the RSC’s approach to Inclusion and Diversity.
Candidates outside of the stated eligibility criteria may still be considered.

Nominations deadline: 10th January 2021

Download nomination form here

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