Serin Dabb, Deputy Editor – Page 6

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Hot Articles: ECM mimics–Block Liposomes–Surfactochromicity

25 Jul 2011

Read these Hot Articles for free until 24 August>>>

Mimicking the natural ECM: Review article on self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) for cell culture. SAMs have emerged as promising tools for mimicking the extracellular matrix and can be precisely tailored for specific cell culture applications. Gregory A. Hudalla and William L. Murphy, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05596H.

Block liposomes for gene storage and delivery: A cryo-TEM study on the formation of block liposomes from membranes comprising mixtures of membrane curvature-stabilizing multivalent lipids. Cationic lipids such as these are important for nonviral delivery of nucleic acids. Alexandra Zidovska, Kai K. Ewert, Joel Quispe, Bridget Carragher, Clinton S. Potter and Cyrus R. Safinya, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05481C.

Surfactochromicity? Cationic water soluble polythiophene polyelectrolyte was complexed with the surfactant sodium dodecylsulfate. The surfactant could be used to control the photophysical properties of the complexes in water. Matti Knaapila, Rachel C. Evans, Andrea Gutacker, Vasil M. Garamus, Noémi K. Székely, Ullrich Scherf and Hugh D. Burrows, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05492A

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International Symposium on Stimuli-Responsive Materials

25 Jul 2011

Registration now open for the 7th International Symposium on Stimuli-Responsive Materials (October 24-26th, 2011 in Hattiesburg, MS, USA). Leading scientists from a variety of disciplines will discuss recent advances in adaptive materials at the interfaces of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering. This symposium will build on a successful six year history of assembling experts in the area of stimuli-responsive/smart materials to discuss issues related to fundamental science and real-world applicability. For more information, visit the website here.

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Small wires swim through serum for drug delivery

22 Jul 2011

Soft Matter paper highlighted in Chemistry World:

US researchers have made nanowires that can be propelled through liquids with an external magnetic field. The wires could be used to deliver drugs in the human body.

Eric Lauga and Joseph Wang from the University of California San Diego and colleagues made the nanoswimmers by attaching nickel heads to gold tails. They used a magnetic field to propel the wires through human serum, which means that they have potential for use in biomedical applications, such as targeted drug delivery, as no chemicals or fuel sources are required…. Read the rest of the article here.

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Hot Articles: Dynamics and Rheology of Fluid Interfaces

20 Jul 2011

The following articles are part of an upcoming Themed Issue on Dynamics and Rheology of Fluid Interfaces with Professor Gerald Fuller (Stanford University, USA) and Professor Jan Vermant (K.U. Leuven, Belgium) as the Guest Editors. Read them for free here until 20 August…

Arrested coalescence in Pickering emulsions: Foods, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics all contain emulsions, a dispersion of two immiscible fluids. When two emulsion drops begin to coalesce, their fusion into a single spherical drop can be arrested at an intermediate shape, which is directly observed here. Amar B. Pawar, Marco Caggioni, Roja Ergun, Richard W. Hartel and Patrick T. Spicer, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05457K

Stability of an interface with ultra-low tension in a Couette flow: The stability of stratified flows at low Reynolds number is a long-standing issue. This paper assesses the influence of surface tension on the stability of the flow. Marine Thiébaud and Thomas Bickel, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05205E

Cavitation rheology of the eye lens: Mechanical properties of the eye lens need to be studied for understanding eye diseases such as presbytopia. Cavitation rheology was used to determine elastic properties in the bovine lens. Jun Cui, Cheol Hee Lee, Aline Delbos, Jennifer J. McManus and Alfred J. Crosby, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05340J

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Bacteria grow their own electric wiring systems

18 Jul 2011

Bacteria can grow electrically conductive appendages, say scientists in Canada, who have been inspired to find new applications for these appendages, such as electron-transfer conduits for biofuel cells, and building blocks for bionanoelectronics and flexible nanoelectronics.

The appendages have electrical conductivity comparable to moderately doped inorganic semiconductors and elasticity similar to polymeric materials, claim the researchers.

Read the article for free here until August 12…. Kar Man Leung, Greg Wanger, Qiuquan Guo, Yuri Gorby, Gordon Southam, Woon Ming Lau and Jun Yang, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 6617-6621.

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Hot Articles on single stranded DNA for flexible polymer studies

13 Jul 2011

A new system for studying single polymer dynamics using single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) was developed in this new study. Previously, double-stranded DNA has been used but this semi-flexible biomolecule has markedly different properties compared to flexible synthetic polymers. A straightforward synthesis technique based on rolling circle replication was developed to generate long strands of fluorescently labelled ssDNA, where intramolecular base-pair formation was prevented. The labelled ssDNA molecules were directly imaged in a microfluidic device. Christopher Brockman, Sun Ju Kim and Charles M. Schroeder, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05297G.

…And by the same authors: a highlight article on ‘Model systems for single molecule polymer dynamics’, which discusses model polymer systems in the context of “ideal” and “real” chain behaviour. Folarin Latinwo and Charles M. Schroeder, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05298E.

Read both hot articles for free until 12 August.

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Symposium on Stimuli-Responsive Materials

28 Jun 2011

Announcing the 7th International Symposium on Stimuli-Responsive Materials (October 24-26th, 2011 in Hattiesburg, MS, USA). Leading scientists from a variety of disciplines will discuss recent advances in adaptive materials at the interfaces of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering. This symposium will build on a successful six year history of assembling experts in the area of stimuli-responsive/smart materials to discuss issues related to fundamental science and real-world applicability. For more information, visit the website here.

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Hot Articles: Fat digestion—Liquid Marbles—Collagen mimic peptides

28 Jun 2011

Follow the links below to read for free until July 26>>>

Controlling lipid digestion: Fats in many processed foods are present as emulsions, and it is known that the emulsion structure and stability can affect the absorption and digestion of the lipid. Researchers in this paper have studied the behaviour of oil-in-water emulsions within an in vitro digestion model. It was found that olive oil emulsions stabilized by Pluronic are more resistant to lipolysis than those stabilized by lecithin. Amelia Torcello-Gómez, Julia Maldonado-Valderrama, Antonio Martín-Rodríguez and David Julian McClements, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05322A.

Liquid marbles: Millimetre-sized liquid marbles with strong mechanical strength and good deformability have been self-assembled from fluoroalkylsilane functionalized titanate nanobelt powder. The marbles exhibited excellent qualitative and quantitative gas sensing capability over the full pH range. Yuekun Lai, Yuxin Tang, Jianying Huang, Hui Wang, Huaqiong Li, Dangguo Gong, Xianbai Ji, Jiaojiao Gong, Changjian Lin, Lan Sun and Zhong Chen, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05412K.

Collagen mimic peptides (CMPs): This review explores recent investigations into the use of CMPs to recreate the higher order assembly and biological function of natural collagens for biomedical applications. The collagen triple helix has become a promising structural motif for tissue engineering. S. Michael Yu, Yang Li and Daniel Kim, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05329A.

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Themed Issue on Bridging the gap between hard and soft colloids

21 Jun 2011

Soft Matter is planning to produce a themed issue on Bridging the gap between hard and soft colloids in 2012. Please e-mail the editorial office, softmatter-rsc@rsc.org, if you would like to contribute an article.

The Guest Editors of the issue are Professors Dimitris Vlassopoulos (University of Crete, Greece) and Michel Cloitre (ESPCI, France).

With the emergence of soft matter as an important interdisciplinary field of science, combining distinct hallmarks of different systems has become an outstanding challenge. Colloidal hard spheres and polymeric coils represent the two limiting cases of soft matter behaviour with unique, different features: characteristic size, order, origin of stress, confinement. Modern macromolecular chemistry has opened the route for designing and synthesizing soft colloids which encompass properties of both, and hence bridge the gap between hard spheres and polymers. A non-exhaustive list of examples includes end-grafted nanoparticles, block copolymer micelles, multiarm star polymers, microgels, vesicles. Understanding the structure and dynamics of such soft colloids, which are thus very diverse, represents a fascinating challenge for statistical and condensed-matter physics, materials science, biophysics as well as for the industrial applications. Some key questions of fundamental interest concern the nature of the glass and jamming transitions in soft colloids, the rheological behaviour of the glassy suspensions, the effect of solvent, slow dynamics and aging, the role of particle shape and the design of new tailored architectures.

The deadline for the receipt of manuscripts for this themed issue is
3rd October 2011

Manuscripts can be submitted using the RSC’s on-line submissions service. Please clearly mark that the manuscript is submitted for the themed issue on Bridging the gap between hard and soft colloids.

Please would you inform the editorial office by e-mail at softmatter-rsc@rsc.org as soon as possible if you plan to submit to the issue and whether your contribution will be original research or a review-type article. We would like to have a list of authors who intend to contribute as soon as possible.

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Soft Matter Blog

Author Archive

Hot Articles: ECM mimics–Block Liposomes–Surfactochromicity

International Symposium on Stimuli-Responsive Materials

Small wires swim through serum for drug delivery

Hot Articles: Dynamics and Rheology of Fluid Interfaces

Bacteria grow their own electric wiring systems

Hot Articles on single stranded DNA for flexible polymer studies

Top Ten most-read articles in May 2011

Symposium on Stimuli-Responsive Materials

Hot Articles: Fat digestion—Liquid Marbles—Collagen mimic peptides

Themed Issue on Bridging the gap between hard and soft colloids

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