Polymer Chemistry Blog

Richard Hoogenboom was born in 1978 in Rotterdam (Netherlands) and studied chemical engineering at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e; Netherlands). In 2005, he obtained his PhD under the supervision of Ulrich S. Schubert (TU/e) and continued working as project leader for the Dutch Polymer Institute. The final two years of this appointment were combined with a part-time position as senior product developer at Dophys Medical BV. After postdoctoral training with Martin Möller at the RWTH Aachen (Humboldt fellowship; 2008-2009) and Roeland J. M. Nolte at the Radboud University Nijmegen (NWO veni-grant; 2009-2010), he was appointed as associate professor at Ghent University mid 2010 where he currently heads a research group on Supramolecular Chemistry. His research interests include stimuli-responsive polymers, supramolecular polymers, and poly(2-oxazoline)s.

Please follow the link for further information on Richard’s research group and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

My decision to study chemical engineering was a trade off between my love for maths, physics and chemistry at high school. In the end I choose a study that combined all these topics. During my studies I was greatly attracted by organic chemistry inspired by the courses given by Bert Meijer and, despite being at a technical university, I ended up graduating in organic and polymer chemistry.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper?

The Polymer Chemistry paper reports cloud point tuning of biocompatible poly(2-oxazoline)s by attaching glucose substituents to the side chains via thiol-ene addition. This work was motivated by my interest in developing novel methods for the synthesis of functional poly(2-oxazoline)s as well as my interest in adaptive materials. In addition, the resulting glycopolymers are attractive biomaterials for interaction with sugar-binding proteins, namely lectins. The beauty of this work lies in the unexpected lowering of the water-solubility of the copolymers upon incorporation of hydrophilic sugar moieties. This once more shows how little we actually understand about adaptive materials that are not only governed by hydrophilicity, but also by non-covalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonding in this work.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

Despite being a very young journal, in my opinion Polymer Chemistry has already evolved into a well-established polymer journal that is well-recognized by the community. Therefore, publishing our work in Polymer Chemistry ensures wide exposure of our work. In addition, publication in Polymer Chemistry is accompanied by a fast and smooth evaluation and publication process.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

In September I will attend the APME 2011 (IUPAC 9th International Conference on Advanced Polymers via Macromolecular Engineering) in Cappadocia, Turkey.

At the 2012 ACS Spring Meeting in San Diego, CA, I will organize a symposium on ‘Poly(2-oxazoline)s and related pseudo-polypeptide structures’ together with Helmut Schlaad and Scott Grayson, where our just published work on glyco-poly(2-oxazoline)s also will be presented.

How do you spend your spare times?

My spare time is mostly spent with my family. It is great to play with my kids of 1 and 3 years and to see how they discover the world around them. To stay a bit in shape after too much time spend behind a computer in the office, you will find me at least one time a week on the tennis court.

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

This is a very difficult one. I guess I would still be a scientist, but in a different discipline.

Yasuyuki Tezuka is Professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology.  He is a graduate of The University of Tokyo, and received his doctorate degree from Ghent University (Belgium) in 1982.  He then joined Nagaoka University of Technology (Japan) as an assistant professor.  In 1994, he moved to the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and has been a professor since 2003 in the Department of Organic and Polymeric Materials.  He received Tokyo Tech Award of Best Teacher, 2004, and The Award of the Society of Polymer Science, Japan (2010).  He has served as an Asian Editor of Reactive and Functional Polymers since 2006.  His current research is focused on topological polymer chemistry, in particular on the design of topologically unique macromolecular architectures, and of novel polymer materials by their topology effects.

Please follow the link to get more information of Yasuyuki’s research group and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What attracted you to follow a life-course to become a chemist?

Almost 30 years ago in 1979, I left Tokyo to join in a lab in a Belgian university as a doctorate student.  That time was still good-old-days for university research in Europe.  I was fascinated by and decided to pursue academic course.  Therefore, I was not smart enough to anticipate a rapid change of university researches into a hungry-business.  I feel now, however, that I was lucky to go with chemistry, in particular synthetic polymer chemistry, offering excitement to create something so small and invisible but convincingly proved and eventually testable in macroscopically.  I am also thankful for my respectful mentors to encourage me to follow chemistry as a life-long amusing business.  Thus, I gratefully acknowledge Professors, Teiji Tsuruta, Shohei Inoue and Eric Goethals.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/C1PY00088H)

A class of macromolecular constructions having single-cyclic (ring) or multi-cyclic polymer units has been a synthetic challenge, though they are regarded geometrically primitive due to their small junction and terminus numbers.  For more than a decade we have been fascinated and involved in a project to make them smartly despite their immediate applications unforeseeable.  In our review in Polymer Chemistry, we have shown recent synthetic breakthroughs and I am happy to include our own, namely an electrostatic self-assembly and covalent conversion (ESA-CF) process among such developments.  Topological Polymer Chemistry has now provided innovative opportunities, not only to bring new insights in the frontier of basic polymer chemistry and physics, but also to disclose unusual properties and functions based on their cyclic topologies, i.e., topology effects, unattainable either by linear or branched counterparts.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

I am thankful to Prof. Barner-Kowollik, an editorial board member of the journal to offer us a valuable opportunity to summarize recent achievements in Topological Polymer Chemistry.  Also, I am impressed by a variety of competitive measures continuously introduced by the journal, through which this relatively young journal has promoted quickly into the leading position.

In which upcoming opportunities may our readers meet you or catch up your work ?

We are still experiencing prolonging aftermath of rare disasters caused not only by natural but also by human origins.  We are now rebuilding ourselves quickly back to normal university life, to welcome overseas colleagues for scientific visits to us in Tokyo.  Meanwhile, I am now working to edit a book, which hopefully becomes a follow-up of a seminal work of the late Dr. Semlyen (Cyclic Polymers, 2nd Ed).  The title of the Book will be; Topological Polymer Chemistry / The progress in cyclic polymers: Synthesis, Properties and Functions.

How do you spend your spare times?

Taking care of, and hoping to better communicate with B – -, a selfish cat at home, with only occasional success.

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

A teenager, at the student-riot period of 1960-70s in Japan, was likely a follower of such now-passed stars like, Shuji Terayama (an avant-garde artist, as well as a haiku- and tanka-poet writer), Yasujiro Odzu (movie director) in addition to Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, – –

Milan Maric studied Chemistry (B.Sc.) and Chemical Engineering and Management (B.Eng.&Mgmt.) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He then pursued graduate studies working with Chris Macosko at the University of Minnesota-Twin-Cities in the area of compatibilization of thermoplastic/silicone blends, earning his Ph.D. in 1999. He then worked in the Scale-up Engineering Group at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada (XRCC) from 1999-2003 and subsequently joined McGill University in 2003 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. In 2009, he was promoted to Associate Professor. Maric’s research group principally focuses on the application of nitroxide mediated polymerization to develop functional materials for a wide range of applications such as block copolymer surfactants, membrane/barrier materials, conductive copolymers and stimuli-responsive polymers.

Please follow the link for further information on Milan Maric’s research group and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

I thank my high school teachers and the professors at my undergraduate university for providing me with the stimulus. I liked the ability to creatively transform materials and to do it in a methodical and disciplined manner.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/C1PY00190F)

The main thrust of my research group is to use nitroxide mediated polymerization (NMP) for functional materials. Specifically, we have been trying to show that NMP can be used for a wider range of monomers than has been traditionally associated with NMP, such as methacrylates. In this particular case, we have been trying to make epoxy functional block copolymers with glycidyl methacrylate and our paper describes how we can do that with the BlocBuilder family of nitroxides.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

Polymer Chemistry, since its inception, has provided an excellent forum to disseminate the latest developments in polymer synthesis techniques. We thought the results of our work were aligned well with the aims of the journal and we felt it would be an interesting venue to communicate our work with our peers.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will be at the ACS fall meeting in Denver at the end of August and after that, I will attend the CSChE meeting in London, Ontario in October.

How do you spend your spare time?

I try to keep active with athletics and I am trying to stay in shape by weight training and swimming.

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

Growing up in Canada, I dreamed of being an ice hockey player, naturally, although soccer was the only sport I was allowed to put school in a subordinate position. More realistically, I think I would still be involved in teaching in some kind of capacity.

Eric Drockenmuller was born in 1973 in Thionville (France), and received his PhD degree in 2002 from the University of Strasbourg (France) after working on nitroxide-mediated radical polymerization. He undertook a two years postdoctoral position with Prof. C. J. Hawker (IBM Almaden Research Center, California, USA) and Prof. T. P. Russell (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA) working on the synthesis and functionalization of nanostructured materials. He was appointed Assistant Professor in 2004 and full Professor in 2011 at the University of Lyon 1 (France). Since October 2010 he has been a junior member of the “Institut Universitaire de France” (IUF).

Please follow the links for further information on Eric’s laboratory and his recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

Among science topics chemistry has always been my favourite as it is very visual and requires a good memory to assimilate all different reactions and mechanisms. I converged to polymer and materials chemistry after attending an invited seminar which made me realize how important they are in our daily life. I always liked building up things starting from scratch or basic building blocks, like a fancy lego game for grown-ups. I appreciate very much the creativity and interactions involved in the daily life of a researcher in polymer chemistry.

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper? (DOI: 10.1039/c0py00251h)

As a polymer chemist I thought that if matching functionalities were found at polymer chain-ends and at a substrate’s surface, things would easily result in surface functionalization. After initiating a fruitful collaboration with Profs. Liliane Léger and Yves Grohens I realized that physics needed to be considered more carefully. Therefore together we pushed beyond our knowledge of the grafting of poly(ethylene glycol) brushes to silicon substrates using click chemistry.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

We were invited to contribute to a special issue guest edited by Rachel O’Reilly and Andrew Dove in this new promising journal.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will attend the Aquitaine conference in Bordeaux (France) next October, the EUPOC conference in Doha (Qatar) in January 2012. I also have the honour to co-organize a symposium at the IUPAC 2012 conference together with Profs. Craig Hawker and Axel Muller in June 2012.

How do you spend your spare time?

Besides movies, gigs or travels, I have practiced skateboard since I was 16 and go to the Lyon indoor skatepark with my son every Friday night (when I’m not injured as I’m getting old).

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

I always dreamt of being a professional skateboarder.

Martina Stenzel studied chemistry at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, before completing her PhD in 1999 at the Institute of Applied Macromolecular Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Germany. With a DAAD scholarship (German Academic Exchange Service) in her pocket, she started working as a postdoctoral Fellow at the UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science and Technology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. In 2002, she took on a position as a lecturer at the University of New South Wales and worked within the Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD) on complex polymer architectures via RAFT polymerization and honeycomb structured porous films. In 2007, she got promoted to Associate Professor and in the following year obtained a prestigious ARC Future Fellowship. Her research interest is focused on the synthesis of functional polymers with complex architectures such as glycopolymers and other polymers for biomedical applications, especially polymers with in-built metal complexes for the delivery of metal-based anti-cancer drugs. She is currently the past-chair of the Polymer division of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and editor of the Australian Journal of Chemistry.

Please follow the link for further information on Martina’s research group and her recent paper in Polymer Chemistry.

What was your inspiration in becoming a chemist?

I really enjoyed chemistry at school and having a great chemistry teacher helped. I took chemistry as a main subject and I choose as my subject assignment a topic on antibiotics. Reading about discoveries and advancement in this area absolutely fascinated me and I decided that this is my destiny. Unfortunately, I never worked with antibiotics. Maybe I should combine antibiotics with polymers, here is an idea….!

What was the motivation behind the research in your recent Polymer Chemistry paper?

We are on a quest to figure out what is the best possible polymer structure to achieve highest binding while we only need very small amount of sugar. Synthesis of certain carbohydrates can be very tedious and we don’t want to “waste” any active molecules. We therefore thought that the design of a flexible spacer allows the sugar to move around like an octopus to find the lectin receptor.

Why did you choose Polymer Chemistry to publish your work?

The reviewing process is highly efficient, you know the outcome of your submission in less than three weeks. In addition, Polymer Chemistry has a lot of exposure, I think it is already on the “to read” list of a lot of polymer scientists.

In which upcoming conferences may our readers meet you?

I will be at the European Polymer Federation in Granada, at the Asian Cyclodextrin Conference in Australia and the Polymer Pacific Federation in Korea. Unfortunately, Australia is a long way away and travelling is not so easy.

How do you spend your spare time?

I have two little children, my “spare” time involves swings, the zoo and listening to “baa baa black sheep” at least twenty times in a row. If I have time though, I enjoy reading a good novel and books on medieval history. I also enjoy bush walking and sight seeing.

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

I love astronomy! I could imagine myself gazing into the stars for a living.