Polymer Chemistry Blog

Sophie Monge obtained her Ph.D. in 2000 at the University of Montpellier 2 (France). She was then awarded a Marie Curie fellowship for a postdoctoral position (two years) in the group of Prof. Dave Haddleton at the University of Warwick (UK), working on atom-transfer radical polymerisation. In 2002, she became an associate professor at the “Engineering and Macromolecular Architectures” team (Prof. J.-J. Robin) of Institute Charles Gerhardt in Montpellier. Her research interests mainly focus on the synthesis of well-defined (co)polymers with stimuli-responsive properties, and with polymers bearing heteroatoms, in particular phosphorus.

Website of the lab: www.iam.icgm.fr

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

I was immediately interested in Chemistry when I started to learn it at school. What I really enjoyed was to achieve some little experiments. So I asked my parents to buy me a Chemistry lab playset but they never did. I think that they were frightened about what my brother and I could do with it…

 What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article ?

In our team, we have been interested since a long time on phosphorus-based polymers. I am notably currently working on a book named “Phosphorus-based polymers: from synthesis to applications” as a co-editor which will be published soon by the RSC. We also have a great expertise on controlled radical polymerisation. As a consequence, we thought that combining both phosphorus and RAFT was a good idea to achieve polymers with well-controlled architecture, thus leading to interesting properties of the produced materials. In our article (DOI: 10.1039/C3PY00426K), we notably describe for the first time the controlled polymerisation of a phosphonated containing methacrylate, namely the dimethyl(methacryloyloxy)methyl phosphonate (MAPC1), by the RAFT process. This work is of great interest as successful “living” radical homopolymerisation of MAPC1 and related monomers was never reported in the literature. Additionally, we recently reported the RAFT polymerisation of phosphonated-based acrylamide in another paper also published in Polymer Chemistry (Polymer Chemistry, 2013, 4, 795).

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

I consider Polymer Chemistry as a leading journal in the field of polymers, with a broad audience. Impact factor is excellent, reviewers’ comments are very constructive and publication is very fast.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will be attending the 34th Australasian Polymer Symposium at the beginning of July (7th – 10th July 2013) which will be held at Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia. I will notably speak about RAFT polymerisation of phosphonated-based monomers.

How do you spend your spare time?

I spend my spare time with my two daughters and my husband. We enjoy being all together, at the moment gardening, especially growing some tomatoes and strawberries in our vegetable garden.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I think I never thought to do something else, really. But I would have enjoyed being a pianist, even if I never learned to play… but it is not too late to do it!

Cyrille Boyer is a guest web-writer for Polymer Chemistry. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and an ARC-Future Fellow at the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine and Center for Advanced Macromolecular Design (School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales (Australia)).

Prof. Chang-Ming Dong was born in Henan province of P. R. China in 1972. He received his Ph.D. degree in Polymer Chemistry & Physics under the supervision of prof. Xin-De Feng and prof. Kun-Yuan Qiu from Peking University in 2001. After about two-year postdoctoral research with prof. Elliot L. Chaikof in school of medicine of Emory University (now working at Harvard University), he joined the faculty of Department of Polymer Science & Engineering in Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU, Shanghai, P. R. China) in January, 2004. He was promoted to full professor in January, 2009, and currently focuses on the design and synthesis of biodegradable and biomimetic polymeric biomaterials (such as PLA, PCL, PLGA, polypeptide, and glycopolymer) and their applications in drug delivery and nanomedicine. He published near 60 peer-reviewed papers with a total citation of over 800 and an H-index of 22. He received the support of “Project of New Century Talents” from the Education of Ministry of China and the SMC young faculty award from SJTU.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

The curiosity for exploring new natural phenomena, solving the basic problems that the human being faces, and also including the dream to become a scientist drive me to work hard for natural sciences including chemistry, especially polymer chemistry.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article? (DOI: 10.1039/C3PY21121E)

Since 2004, I focused on the design and synthesis of biodegradable and biomimetic polymeric biomaterials and their applications in stimuli-sensitive drug delivery and nanomedicine. Especially, we recently paid more attention to the near infrared (NIR) light-responsive biodegradable polymers and the related nanomedicines, which hold great potentials in on-demand (in a continuous or pulsatile mode) and spatiotemporal (when and where) drug delivery and clinical medicine. These results drive me to write a review paper in Polymer Chemistry.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

RSC is one of the leading societies for chemistry in the world. Polymer Chemistry is an emerging high-quality journal in Polymer Science and has a wide readership in the world. In addition, it has a quick submission and review system. So I am pleasant to report our future fundamental works in this journal.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I like to participate in some major and specialized meetings, e.g., the polymer science meeting of China or some meetings on the controlled drug release.

How do you spend your spare times?

Besides teaching and doing research in SJTU, I am willing to spend more time with my family (especially my little lovely daughter). Watching International or National News from TV and running every week are also my hobbies.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I would become a teacher in middle school or a farmer in my hometown if I were not a polymer chemist. 

Carlos Guerrero Sanchez studied chemical engineering in Mexico (BSc 1999 at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and MSc in 2001 at Celaya Institute of Technology (ITC)). Thereafter, he worked for two years at the combinatorial chemistry laboratory of the research and development centre of DESC (a major Mexican corporation (KUO)). In 2007, he obtained a PhD degree in combinatorial materials research and polymer science under the supervision of Prof. Ulrich S. Schubert at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) (Netherlands). His PhD thesis was awarded by the Dutch Polymer Institute in 2008. From 2007 to 2009, as a postdoctoral fellow at the TU/e, he founded Ioniqa Technologies, a start-up company in the Netherlands focused on the development of ionic liquids based smart materials. He currently works for CSIRO (Australia) involved in high-throughput experimentation and RAFT Technology. He has co-authored around 40 scientific publications including patent applications.

Link to our research group at CSIRO: http://www.csiro.au/Organisation-Structure/Divisions/CMSE/RAFT-technologies.aspx

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

Mainly my family, some of them are chemists and I like the way chemists or chemical engineers face life.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article?

The need to have a practical, rapid and inexpensive method for the preparation of systematic block copolymer libraries for developing applications for these wonderful materials in a more efficient way.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work? DOI: 10.1039/C3PY21135E

Because I found out that it became an excellent forum for polymers chemists with very quick publishing times and a very good first impact factor. All in all, the Polymer Chemistry Journal has become very popular within the polymeric community and in a very short period of time.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will probably be at the Chemiedozententagung 2013 / Festsymposium 125 Jahre Angewandte Chemie congress in Berlin (Germany) in March 2013 and/or at the 34th Australasian Polymer Symposium in Darwin (Australia) in July 2013.

How do you spend your spare times?

I like very much hiking in the beautiful Australian outdoors.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I would have been probably an oil engineer.

Prof. Chao Gao received a B.S. in 1995 and a M.S. in organic chemical engineering in 1998 from Hunan University, and a Ph.D. in polymer chemistry and physics under the supervision of Prof. Deyue Yan in 2001 from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). Then he became a faculty member in SJTU and was promoted as an associate professor in 2002. Since Nov. 2003, he worked with Prof. Sir Harry Kroto as a visiting scholar and post-doc research fellow in the University of Sussex, UK. Afterwards he moved to Prof. Axel H. E. Müller’s group at Bayreuth University, Germany in July 2005 as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow. In 2008, he joined the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University and was promoted as a full professor. His research interests include hyperbranched and other dendritic polymers, chemistry of graphene and carbon nanotubes, controlled/living polymerization and click chemistry. He co-edited (with Prof. Deyue Yan and Prof. Holger Frey) a book, Hyperbranched Polymers: Synthesis, Properties, and Applications (published by John, Wiley & Sons), and published more than 90 papers with citation of more than 3500 times. His research result of graphene fiber knot has been selected by Nature as “Images of the Year” in 2011. He is the advisory editorial member of Colloid and Polymer Science.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

To become a scientist is my childhood dreams, with the encouraging stories of those big masters such as Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and Alfred Nobel. When I went to high school, chemistry is my most favorite and best subject, under the special guidance and inspiration of the chemistry teacher, Mr. Changliang Zheng. Therefore I chose chemistry as my major in the university. My potential in scientific research was found when I became a Ph.D. student of Prof. Deyue Yan and I got the Award of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation of China. After graduation, I was happy to become a faculty member in the College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article?

Hyperbranched polymers are a very interesting topic to be addressed due to their three-dimensional topology and unique properties. Their multifunctional groups can be used as a versatile platform to make promising materials. However, the functional groups of conventional hyperbranched polymers (CHPs) are too compact to be modified completely (generally 60-70% conversion of functional groups) due to the closely branched units. So we designed and synthesized segmented hyperbranched polymers (SHPs) with sparsely branched units. We found that the functional groups of SHPs can be modified completely (~100% conversion) despite the density of functional groups is extremely high (1-3 groups per unit). Moreover, the heterofunctional groups can be readily and orthogonally functionalized with different blocks, paving an avenue toward multifunctional smart materials.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work? (DOI:10.1039/C2PY20951A)

I like polymer chemistry, especially the synthesis of new polymers with novel architecture even though they seem useless in industry at this moment. I think Polym. Chem. is an ideal platform for showing such structures and unique properties.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will attend the 10^th IUPAC International Conference on Advanced Polymers via Macromolecular Engineering, August 18^th – 22^nd 2013, Durham University and the China Polymer Conference in October 12-16^th, Shanghai.

How do you spend your spare times?

I like to spend my spare time with my family. Besides, I enjoy sports, especially playing tennis and watching tennis grand slam.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

Maybe I would be a journalist or TV presenter.

Prof. Junpo He graduated with a B.Sc. degree in Chemistry from Henan University in 1990, received his M.S. degree in 1993, and Ph. D. in 1999, both on Polymer Chemistry and Physics in Fudan University. Since 1993, he was an assistant teacher (1993-1997), lecturer (1997-2003), associate professor (2003-2007) and full professor (since 2007) in Fudan University. He worked as an exchanging scholar in University Konstanz (1996-1997), PostDoc in BASF, Ludwigshafen (2002-2003), DAAD visiting scientist in University Konstanz (2005), Germany, and JSPS Fellow in TITech, Japan (2012). His research interests are on living polymerization and polymer synthesis. He is editorial member of European Polymer Journal.

Research website: http://www.polymer.fudan.edu.cn/polymer/research/hjp/index.asp

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

I was actually not keen on chemistry when I was a middle school student, because I had to remember various kinds of reactions for exam. In the university and graduate school, however, I became fascinated by chemistry for its great diversity and variety in molecular structure and property, which satisfied my curiosity all the time.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article?

For a long time I have been thinking about method to speed-up the synthesis of dendrimers. I believe anionic polymerization, a true living polymerization technique, can accomplish this purpose. We have developed two methods to simplify the synthesis of dendrimers. One is a living branching polymerization by which dendrimers are prepared in a continuous process, and the other is the current work, the “end-grafting” method, in which dendrimers are synthesized using only one diblock copolymer as the building block.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work? (DOI:10.1039/C2PY20742G)

These years the polymer community of the world has witnessed the high-profile emerging of Polymer Chemistry as a new and one of the central journals in polymer science. I appreciate very much the high impact of the journal on polymer research all over the world.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will attend “The 10th IUPAC International Conference on Advanced Polymers via Macromolecular Engineering (APME 2013)”, Durham University in the UK (August 18-22, 2013); and “The 21st International Symposium on Ionic Polymerization (IP2013)”, Awaji Island, Hyogo, Japan (September 23-28, 2013).

How do you spend your spare times?

I like to travel to different places and know different cultures and try different foods. If possible, I’d like to travel with my wife and son.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I may choose cook or farmer as my second profession. Cooking, either in kitchen or in lab, make my happy. I also find a sense of great harmony in my mind when I stand in a field full of plants under a blue sky.

Cyrille Boyer is a guest web-writer for Polymer Chemistry. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and an ARC-Future Fellow at the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine (School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales (Australia)).

Gianfranco Pasut is Assistant Professor of “Delivery and Formulation of Biotech Drug” at the Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, University of Padova (Italy), since 2006. He received a M.S. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology in 1999 and his PhD degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Padova in 2003 with Prof. Francesco Veronese. In the 2001, he joined for one year the lab of Prof. Irwin Chaiken at the University of Pennsylvania (USA) and in 2007 he was “Visiting Scientist” at the School of Pharmacy, University of Reading (UK). His current research interests are focused on using polymers for the delivery of protein and small drugs. Studies have taken into consideration either synthetic or natural polymers such as poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), poly (2-Ethyl 2-Oxazoline), hyaluronic acid, polyglutamic acid and polysialyc acid. Pasut has developed several protein conjugates and he has also studied new approaches of protein-polymer conjugation by exploiting the enzyme transglutaminase. In the field of drug delivery of small drugs, he investigated new targeted conjugates and conjugates for combination therapy. He has published 45 articles, 11 book chapters and is the inventor of 9 patents.

Website: http://pasutlab.altervista.org/Home.html Contact: gianfranco.pasut@unipd.it

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

Chemistry was not my first choice, I simple didn’t know enough about it. When I was at the high School, I was interested in mechanics but a great teacher perfectly introduced me into the fascinating world of chemistry. Those days changed my life because later I decided to study pharmaceutical chemistry at the University, seeking for a possibility to join the potentials of chemistry with the prospect to help people. Later on, during my PhD, Prof. F.M. Veronese guided me into the field of drug delivery where I started my studies with polymers.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article?

The motivation that fuelled the research study reported in the paper arrived after a discussion with a colleague, who is also a friend (Prof F. Greco, University of Reading, co-authoring the paper). We were discussing about polymer conjugates in drug delivery and the advantages and pitfalls of several approaches. We ended the talk with two considerations, first, polysialic acid has not been studied as drug carrier of an actual small drug and, second, there were not studies comparing systematically the role of the polymer in drug-polymer conjugates. We decided to undertake both investigations at once!

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work? (DOI:10.1039/C2PY20876H)

Although Polymer Chemistry is a new journal it is already recognized as one of the leading journal in its field and we thought that our paper would fit within the scope of the journal and it would be read by a large audience. Another important point is that we appreciated a lot the papers published in this journal and their quality.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I’ll present at Biotech Conference & Expo 2013, May 12-16, Washington (DC) (http://www.techconnectworld.com/Biotech2013/bio.html) and I am planning to attend the Controlled Release Society Annual Meeting in July.

How do you spend your spare times?

I like to spend my spare time with my wife and our two sons, 2.5 years and 1 month! So you can imagine that now I do not have much free time. We have fun also with our dog, a dachshund called PEG (a proper name for a kind of “long chain” dog!)

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

As mentioned above my first passion was mechanics and still like a lot this matter and especially almost everything that has an engine, so likely I would have been working in this field.

Cyrille Boyer is a guest web-writer for Polymer Chemistry. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and an ARC-Future Fellow at the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine (School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales (Australia)).

Markus Klapper studied chemistry at the University of Mainz and received his PhD in 1990 (Prof. R. C. Schulz) for work on the synthesis and topochemical polymerization of aminodiacetylenes. Soon after, he joined the MPI for Polymer Research and became project leader in the Dept. of Polymer Synthesis (Prof. Klaus Müllen). His research interests are very broad and include new polycondensation and polymerization methods, as well as polymer analogous reactions towards the synthesis of functional polymers and block copolymers. These materials are especially designed for fuel cell applications or for the hydropho­bisation of inorganic nanoparticles. Additionally, he has focused in the recent years on the polymerization of olefins in heterogeneous phase for which he has developed new organic supports and studied their polymerization behavior. Another central topic is the development of non-aqueous emulsions suitable for the polymerization of water-sensitive monomers. In this area he developed new emulsifiers based on for example perfluorinated structures. He published more than 130 papers and filed about 20 patents. He is managing editor of Polymer Bulletin.

Personal Webpage: http://www.mpip-mainz.mpg.de/70027/Dr_Markus_Klapper

Institutes webpage: http://www.mpip-mainz.mpg.de

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

In fact, I had this dream already in school due to an excellent experienced teacher in chemistry! In the seventh grade we did the first experiments and I found this rather fascinating. From that time on there was no doubt for me that chemistry should become my profession.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article?

This article is a joint work between the group of Ken B. Wagener in Gainesville, Florida and of the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. This work is an excellent example of an international collaboration using synergistic effects from two groups. We combined herein the experience of synthesizing “precise polymers” from Gainesville with our experience in fuel cell membranes and in the polymerization of phosphonated monomers. A highly defined polymer with excellent proton conductivity was the outcome.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work? (DOI:10.1039/C2PY20886E)

Polymer Chemistry is an excellent journal, being extremely fast, for example, our article became accepted within a very few days.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

The next conference will be in Asilomar in California at a workshop about fuel cells (February, 23-27) and the EPF conference in Pisa in summer (June, 16-21).

How do you spend your spare times?

Mainly with my family, playing with my two children, reading (preferably history books or biographies of political or historical persons) or travelling.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I am really happy with my present job. Even when I studied economy for some time in parallel, I found chemistry always fascinating. Perhaps in younger years to become a pilot would have been a real option.

Cyrille Boyer is a guest web-writer for Polymer Chemistry. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and an ARC-Future Fellow at the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine (School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales (Australia)).

Dr. Kai Xiao received his BSc degree in Chemistry from the East China Institute of Technology, MS degree in Material Sciences from the Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2001 and PhD degree in Physical Chemistry from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS) in 2004 for his work on organic and molecular electronics under the supervision of Prof. Yunqi Liu and Prof. Daoben Zhu. He worked as a postdoctoral research associate from 2005-2008 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Then he was employed as a research staff scientist at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Since 2011, he became a joint faculty of Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at University of Tennessee at Knoxville. His current research focuses on conjugated polymers, molecular materials, and nanomaterials in optoelectronic device applications.

Details of his research activities can be found at: http://cnms.ornl.gov/contact_us/XIAO_Kai.pdf and http://www.eecs.utk.edu/people/faculty/kxiao.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

Actually I have to say I was not very much interested in chemistry in high school. When I was assigned to department of chemical engineering in college, I started to realize the chemistry is a fascinating field and I was attracted by those interesting chemical experiments to synthesize new materials. However, I was not really steeped in the chemistry research until I started my Phd in the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. During that period, the excellent research environment in multi-chemistry fields allows me playing and applying small molecular semiconductors and conducting polymers in low-cost, flexible organic electronics.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article?

Most conducting polymers used in organic electronics utilize organic solvents such as chloroform and chlorobenzene. The toxicity of these solvents to people and the environment complicates and increases the cost of organic electronic device processing, undermining the goal of low-cost approaches towards renewable energy harvesting and storage. Therefore, we synthesized a non-ionic, water-soluble poly(thiophene) (PT) derivative for organic field-effect transistors. We believe that the combination of environment-friendly solvents and solution-based processing for the conducting polymers will open up the new opportunities for true low-cost, flexible, and green organic electronic devices that include OFETs, OPVs and biosensors.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work? (DOI:10.1039/C2PY21020G)

Polymer Chemistry is a very exciting new journal, which is publishing high quality polymer science with a broad audience. It also has a very quick review and publication process.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

2013 MRS spring conference

How do you spend your spare times?

With my family (wife, 7 year old daughter and 5 year old son), playing basketball, Pingpong, and swimming.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

Probably be a doctor.

Cyrille Boyer is a guest web-writer for Polymer Chemistry. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and an ARC-Future Fellow at the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine (School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales (Australia)).

Prof. Xiangyang Shi graduated with a B.Sc. in chemistry from Henan Normal University, a M.E. in applied chemistry from Beijing Institute of Technology, and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Institute of Photographic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1992, 1995, and 1998, respectively. He worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Tsinghua University (1998-2000) in Beijing and Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces (2000-2001) in Potsdam, Germany. He then moved to California State University, Los Angeles (2001-2002) as a visiting scholar. From 2002-2008, he worked as a Research Fellow, Research Associate II, Research Investigator, and Research Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He then became a professor of special appointment both in Donghua University and in Shanghai Institutions of High Learning (Eastern Scholar) in 2008. Since 2010, Prof. Shi has also been appointed as an Invited Chair in Nanotechnology at the University of Madeira, Funchal, Portugal. Prof. Shi has authored or coauthored more than 145 referred journal articles and 118 technical conference abstracts or proceeding papers, along with 6 invited book chapters and 9 approved patents. His current research interests include dendrimer chemistry and related nanomedicinal applications, in particular cancer diagnosis and therapy. He is also developing nanofiber-based technology with an emphasis on the synthesis and fabrication of bioscaffolding materials in tissue engineering and pharmaceutical applications and the immobilization of reactive nanoparticles within nanofibrous mats for environmental applications.

Research website: http://www3.dhu.edu.cn/rschu/professor/shixiangyang.htm

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

I started to love chemistry when I was a high-school student, because chemistry course learning was always able to fullfil my curiosity. With the years, I have been enjoying very much doing research in different disciplines of chemistry, in particular in polymer chemistry, from which I am able to lead a group of students to creat new polymer-based functional materials for various biomedical and environmental applications.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article? (DOI: 10.1039/C2PY20993D)

With the continuation of my research work in the area of dendrimer-based nanomedicine at the Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and Biological Sciences (headed by Prof. James R. Baker, Jr.), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, our group has been fully involved in the creation of various dendrimer-based nanoparticles for biomedical imaging applications since 2008. In most of our earlier research, generation 5 (G5) poly(amidoamine) dendrimers were used as either templates or stabilizers to create dendrimer-entrapped gold nanoparticles or dendrimer-stabilized gold nanoparticles. The high cost of high generation dendrimers (generation > 4) really limits the practical applications of the formed dendrimer-based organic/inorganic hybrid nanoparticles.

Our group has worked on seeking a new way to create stable dendrimer/gold nanocomposite particles using low generation dendrimers. Fortunately, via a facile hydrothermal approach we are able to generate G2 dendrimer-stablized gold nanoparticles that can be further acetylated to neutralize the positive surface potential of the particles for in vivo computed tomography imaging applications.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

Polymer Chemistry has been recognized as one of the leading journals in the area of polymer science with a high initial impact factor. We therefore thought that it would be an ideal forum for publication of our research.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

At the 245th ACS National Meeting & Exposition, New Orleans, LA, April 7-11, 2013 (http://acs.org/meetings), at the 7th International Coference on Materials for Advanced Technilogies in Singapore, 30 June-5 July, 2013 (http://www.mrs.org.sg/icmat2013/public.asp?page=home.asp), and also at The 2013 International Conference on Advances in Nano Research, COEX, Seoul, South Korea, August 25-28, 2013 (http://anbre.cti3.com/anbre13.htm).

How do you spend your spare times?

In my spare times, my favorite activity is to travel with my family (wife, and two lovely sons, one 10 years old, and the other 8 years old).

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?

I would be an accountant.

Cyrille Boyer is a guest web-writer for Polymer Chemistry. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and an ARC-Future Fellow at the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine (School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales (Australia)).