Polymer Chemistry Blog

Prof. Jiannian Yao received his PhD degree with Prof. Akira Fujishima at Tokyo University in 1993. Then he joined the Institute of Photographic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and now he is a Professor of Chemistry in the Institute of Chemistry, CAS. He has been a member of CAS since 2005, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) since 2008. He is currently serving as the chairman of the Chinese Chemical Society (CCS), and is the vice president of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). His research interests include organic and inorganic opto-functional materials. He has published more than 350 papers, which have been cited nearly 6000 times.

(Research Group: http://jnyao.iccas.ac.cn/)

 What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

Chemistry is a very central discipline, which connects the profound principles in physics and the complex phenomena in materials/biological science. Through various chemical routes, we can build molecules, clusters, nanoparticles, mesoscopic structures, and macroscopic materials over a wide range of scales. This not only provides us an ideal test bed to prove our bold theoretical conjectures, but also gives rise to many practical applications that help in solving the energy demand and environment problem. I am really enjoying my research in chemistry, and I hope it will contribute to both scientific advance and people’s everyday life.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article?

As potential alternatives to the widely used electron-acceptor of PCBM, highly efficient non-fullerene small molecules with excellent solution-processability are the key bottleneck for the further advances of the solution-processed non-fullerene organic solar cells (OSCs). Our initial motivation is to develop new efficient solution-processed non-fullerene small molecules. Perylene diimide (PDI) derivatives are potential non-fullerene small molecules and have been researched for several tens of years, but their strong aggregation ability normally limits their potential applications in the field of OSCs. To resolve this problem, we have designed and synthesized a series of PDI dimers which combine both the twisted molecular conformations and the amphiphilic side chains. This design concept carries out the balance between the pi-pi stacking ordering of the PDI chromphores and the reduced aggregate size of the acceptor phase when blended with a donor. As part of our findings, this Polymer Chemistry article ( DOI: 10.1039/C3PY00457K) tells the steric pairing effects from the twisted conformations of the molecular backbone and the role of the solvophilic and twisted bridge. Both of them determine the molecular aggregation ability and further the photovoltaic properties of the non-fullerene OSCs, shedding light on the fine-tuning molecular aggregation ability by judicious molecular tailoring.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work? (DOI: 10.1039/C3PY00457K)

Polymer Chemistry is a leading journal in the field of polymer science with many high quality and impact papers in the photovoltaic field. Also, the reviewing and publishing process is very fast, ensuring a timely report of our latest results.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will attend the 29th Chinese Chemical Society (CCS) Congress held by Peking University in the year of 2014. This congress will invite chemists from China and many other countries (US, UK, Germany, Japan, etc.).

How do you spend your spare time?

I liked playing volleyball very much when I was younger. In these years, I often do some exercises on a treadmill machine, or just take a walk with my family. Chinese calligraphy is also one of my hobbies.

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

I would probably be engaged in the education career. I believe teaching the younger generation is essential to social progress. Actually, helping my students with their research is a very important part of my current job.

Cyrille Boyer is a guest web-writer for Polymer Chemistry. He is currently associate professor 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)).

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Prof. Lei Tao received his bachelor’s (chemistry) and master’s (polymer chemistry and physics) degrees from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1999 and 2002, respectively. He got a PhD in Chemistry from Warwick University with Prof. David Haddleton in 2006. Then he moved to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a Post-doc with Prof. Heather Maynard (2006-2008). From Sept. 2008 to Aug. 2010, he worked as a research assistant with Prof. Tom Davis in University of New South Wales (UNSW). He joined Tsinghua University as an associate professor in 2010. His current research interests include the new polymerization methodology, synthesis of well-defined polymers for their bio-applications.

http://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/publish/chem/2142/2011/20110401045614543624055/20110401045614543624055_.html

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

I became a chemist because I found chemistry is so interesting and I always hope to find some new things from flasks. I like the feeling of discovering some unexpected things.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article?

We published that paper to share our opinion about click chemistry. People actually found many fantastic reactions already, we found some multi-component reactions are clickable, thus we hope to utilize multi-component reactions (the Biginelli reaction, for example) in polymer chemistry, biological chemistry to prove people can look on some multi-component reactions as a new type of click reactions.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work? (DOI: 10.1039/C3PY00553D)

Polymer Chemistry is an outstanding journal with high impact and quality in polymer science, the publishing process is very fast and fair.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I have not made the schedule yet, but I am planning to join the coming IUPAC conference.

How do you spend your spare time?

I normally spend my spare time with my family, watching football games, cooking at home, and doing some exercise.

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

If I were not a chemist, maybe I would choose historian as my career.

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Sylvain Caillol was born in 1974. He first graduated from the engineering school of Chemistry of Montpellier in 1998. Then he received his PhD degree in Polymer Science in 2001 from the University of Bordeaux. Subsequently he joined the Rhodia Group and headed the Polymer Department in the Research Center of Rhodia. In 2007 he joined CNRS in the University of Montpellier where he started a new research topic dedicated to the synthesis of biobased building blocks and polymers. He is the co-founder and Director of ChemSuD Chair. Co-author of several articles and patents, he won the Innovative Techniques for Environment award. 

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?
Chemistry is a central science, connected to all other sciences. Moreover chemistry is everywhere in the world around us – in what we eat, what we use, all the materials. Chemistry is the language of nature. I had the curiosity to try to understand this language.

What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article? (DOI:10.1039/C3PY00343D)
In our team we a started few years ago a new topic dedicated to the synthesis of new biobased and less harmful building blocks for polymers. In this context we focused on the synthesis and reactivity of cyclic carbonates.
Indeed cyclic carbonate groups are currently gaining increasing attention both from academic and industrial communities since they are an interesting route to synthesize Non Isocyanate Polyurethanes (NIPUs). But they are also interestingly used as crosslinking agents. We published several papers in Polymer Chemistry concerning our works on cyclic carbonates and NIPUs and finally we proposed this review article.

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 attend the 10th International Conference on Advanced Polymers via Macromolecular Engineering in Durham, UK this summer (August 18 – 22) and also the 11th Euro Fed Lipid Congress in Turkey (Oct 27-30).

How do you spend your spare time?
I spend my spare time doing sports such as weight training or walking. I like traveling and scuba diving.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?
Maybe oceanographer…?

Dr. MacKay received his S.B. in chemical engineering and biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999. A Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellow, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of California at San Francisco and Berkeley in the joint graduate group in Bioengineering in 2005. As a Kirschstein National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Mackay studied at Duke University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. In 2008 Dr. MacKay joined the faculty at the University of Southern California in the Departments of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Biomedical Engineering. His group explores biomolecular engineering and nanomedicine.

Dr. MacKay’s lab is engineering a new generation of drug carriers that change physical properties in response to diseased microenvironments. Cancer is his primary focus, with special consideration given to diseases of the central nervous system. The delivery of drugs, both in the brain and throughout the body, is hindered by access to the tumor site. To address unmet needs in brain delivery, there is significant clinical interest in direct infusion into the brain and trans-endothelial transport. His group explores both of these avenues for circumventing the blood-brain barrier, employing bioresponsive peptides and liposomes to expand treatment options. Their approach is to repackage drugs into bioresponsive nanocarriers (10-200 nm in diameter), composed from lipids and/or peptides, which activate tumor-specific drug release and reduce toxicity. Successful carrier strategies are being formulated and evaluated for translation to the clinic.

Research interests: Liposome, Micelle, Dendrimer, Polymer, Biomolecular Engineering, Elastin-like polypeptide, Chemotherapy, Doxorubicin, Nanoparticle, Nanomedicine, Nonviral Gene Therapy, pH-responsive, Temperature-sensitive, Hyperthermia, Tumor targeting, Ocular, Drug delivery, Cancer, Eye, Glioma, Brain tumor, Theranostic.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?
I am not a traditional chemist, but have been an engineer since I was in elementary school. I studied Chemical Engineering and Biology as an undergraduate and became fascinated by the possibility of redesigning biological systems and therapeutics that operate in biological systems. When I first started to learn about molecular biology, I became obsessed with the idea of making entirely synthetic genes and seeing what cells would do with them. During my training, this developed into my current research focus on the use of protein polymers to modulate specialized biological molecules.

 What was the motivation to write your Polymer Chemistry article (DOI:10.1039/C3PY00537B <http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C3PY00537B>)?
Polymer Chemistry has an excellent reputation, and I want to let the world of synthetic chemists know more about what we can do with biologically synthesized protein polymers. The polymers we make are large polypeptides produced from synthetic genes. Our paper discusses how we can engineer their assembly into nanoparticles of different size and any given temperature and concentration. The field of protein polymers is rapidly expanding, and utilizes many of the same characterization tools used for synthetic polymers. As biomaterials, protein polymers are especially interesting due to their natural proteolytic mechanism for biodegradation and also their ability to be seamlessly fused to therapeutic peptides. What is truly interesting to me is that using genetic engineering, we can make macromolecules and nanoparticles of unparalleled complexity with reasonably good reproducibility. This has always been a key challenge for synthetic polymers. Now we are using this approach to generate novel therapeutics for cancer and ocular disease.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?
I will speak at the American Chemical Society Meeting on September 10th, 2013, Indianapolis. I will speak at the Tear Film and Ocular Society meeting on Sept 18th-19th, 2013, Taormina, Italy. I will be co-Chairing NanoDDS 2013 in San Diego, Oct 25th-27th. Students from my lab will be presenting posters at the Controlled Release Society Meeting Summer 2013, and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists meeting Fall 2013.

How do you spend your spare time?
I am the proud parent of two amazing children, a 3 year old girl and a 4 month old boy.

Which profession would you choose if you were not a scientist?
I would be a musician. I play the double bass and miss my days of playing with the symphony during high school and college.

Cyrille Boyer is a guest web-writer for Polymer Chemistry. He is currently associate professor 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)).

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Prof. Chaoyang Wang received his bachelor’s degree in Applied Chemistry in 1995 at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (Wuhan, China) and his MS degree in Polymer Chemistry and Physics in 1998 at the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Changchun, China). He obtained his Ph.D. in Materials Science in 2001 at the South China University of Technology (SCUT, Guangzhou, China). He then joined the Research Institute of Materials Science at this university. From July 2003 to December 2003, he was a Research Associate in Prof. Yi Li’s group at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has been a professor in Polymer Science at SCUT since 2009. He was the winner of the New Century Excellent Talents Supporting Plan from the Ministry of Education of China in 2007. His current research interests include Pickering emulsions; molecular and colloidal self-assembly; soft nanotechnology; nanoscience and nanochemistry; medical controlled release; biomineralization and bioinspired materials; polymer and materials chemistry; physical chemistry and surface chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

I am gonna say that great interest in chemistry is the origin of my inspiration. I’ve been a chemistry addict since my middle school. And from then on, I immersed myself in the wonderful chemical world and I was so satisfied with every single achievement in scientific research. Finally, I want to thank my Ph.D. supervisor, Prof. Zhen Tong at SCUT, who taught me a lot about polymers.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper (DOI: 10.1039/C3PY00620D) ?

Multicompartmentalization of micro-/nanomaterials has generated significant research interest due to the possibility of simultaneous delivery of multiple components in a single carrier but separated spatially. Compared with simple solid or hollow counterparts, they can meet the key requirement better for some crucial applications in multilevel catalysis, multidrug delivery, multi stimuli-responsive sensors, hierarchical microreactors, energy conversion and storage, and complex cellular mimics. In this article, we have developed a facile approach to successfully produce a novel capsule cluster with a capsule-in-capsule structure by polymerization based on capsule-in-water-in-oil Pickering emulsions. Such capsule clusters can not only encapsulate multiple reactive materials in a single capsule simultaneously, but also protect them from each other and from the environment. The sizes of the inner capsules and clusters, the amount of inner capsules and the ratio of the different inner ingredients can be tuned precisely and independently. The co-encapsulated different inner capsules can act as separate compartments for a synergistic delivery of incompatible actives or chemicals, or as microreactor vessels for biochemical or chemical reactions. The approach presented here provides a new method for the fabrication and application of tunable multi-compartment capsules.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

Polymer Chemistry is one of the most famous journals in the field of polymer science and my research works are well fitted for this great journal. Impact factor is excellent, reviewers’ comments are very helpful and publication is very fast.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will attend the ninth bilateral Polymer Materials Conference of China and Korea (14-18 July 2013) in Changsha, China. I will speak about the fabrication of capsule clusters, part of which was reported in this article. I will attend the 2013 Chinese Polymer Symposium (12-16 October 2013) in Shanghai, China. I will speak about the fabrication and application of porous polymer materials.

How do you spend your spare time?

In my spare time, I will stay at home or travel to places with my lovely wife and son. Sometimes, I will take my students to go out and do some sports.

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

It’s hard to say. Maybe I would be a cook. I like cooking. I like delicious foods.

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