A team from the Moore, Craig, and Kulik labs utilize a physical organic model to identify effective force constant and reaction energy as key molecular features that govern mechanochemical kinetics. These results demonstrate a general mechanistic framework for mechanochemical reactions under tensile force and provide a highly accessible tool for large-scale computational screening in the design of mechanophores. Article Link

The Royal Society of Chemistry has elected to award the 2024 Materials Chemistry Horizon Prize to a team of MONET researchers. The prize is awarded to the collaborative team behind the research demonstrating the potential and impact of embedded mechanochemical reactivity on the mechanical limits of cross-linked polymer networks. The prize consists of a professionally produced video showcasing the prize-winning work and its importance, and a trophy. Each collaborator also receives a certificate and individual recognition. RSC Award Page

A team from the Steinmetz and Craig labs developed a novel swell-and-click method that led to successful VLP scaffold formation regardless of the viral load used. VLP-functionalized hydrogels were fabricated with viral concentrations as low as 0.1–1 mg/mL (0.01–0.1 % wt%) without compromising the scaffold stability on the process. The work introduces a novel methodology for the design of VLP-based hydrogels, which could facilitate the scalability of the fabrication process and move a significant step forward towards clinical translation of long-term VLP vaccination in cancer disease. Article Link

Devosmita Sen (Olsen lab graduate student) and Ana Paula Kitos Vasconcelos (Nelson lab graduate student) have been elected as trainee representatives to the Year 4 leadership team. Devosmita will support Innovation, and Ana Paula will support Higher Education & Professional Development. Thanks to them both and to Steven Chapman who will rotate off after two years of service.

Our 2024 Summer Undergraduate Research Experience participants begin soon. Welcome Madelyn, Sean, Twila, and Xavier!

The 2023 in-person meeting before the ACS Spring Meeting in New Orleans. A day of talking science and exploring new directions in Broader Impacts!

A team from the Johnson lab and others at MIT collaborated with Université Paris-Saclay to propose a model where the relaxation of polymer gels in the dilute regime originates from elementary events in which the bonds connecting two neighboring cross-linkers all disconnect. The approach is simple enough to be extended to any cross-linker size and could thus be harnessed for the rational design of complex viscoelastic materials. Article Link

Klausen lab postdoc Kelsie Wentz was named a Future Faculty Scholar by the ACS Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE). Kelsie will provide a technical talk at the ACS Fall Meeting in Denver, and participate in a networking reception with other Future Faculty Scholars, keynote speakers, and selected invited guests from academia and other sectors.

A team from the Johnson and Kulik labs introduce the concept of leveraging “nested” supramolecular crosslinks to control bulk material functions. In these nested crosslinks two distinct supramolecular interactions exist in parallel and influence each other. In the future, this may leverage the vast existing body of known MOC host-guest binding properties to accelerate the creation of soft materials with exquisitely selective small-molecule-driven property changes for applications ranging from sensing to biomaterials. Article Link

A team from the Kalow and Kulik labs report the use of bifunctional aromatic thioesters as dynamic covalent cross-links in hydrogels, demonstrating that at physiologic pH in aqueous conditions, transthioesterification facilitates stress relaxation on the time scale of hundreds of seconds. This system exemplifies how dynamic cross-links that exchange through an associative mechanism enable tunable stress relaxation without altering stiffness. Article Link

A team from the Gong and Craig labs embedded cyclobutane-based mechanophore crosslinkers in the first network of double network hydrogels and achieved efficient activation with 100% selectivity.  These findings provide crucial design principles for achieving selective mechanophore activation and deepen our understanding of the damage mechanism within polymer networks when utilizing mechanophores as detectors. Article Link

A team from the Campos, Nelson, and Rubinstein labs report the use of carbazole-based thiuram disulfides (CTDs) that offer dual reactivity as photoactivated reshuffling linkages and iniferters under visible light irradiation. The fast response to visible light activation of the CTDs leads to temporal control of shape manipulation, healing, and chain extension in the polymer networks, despite the lack of optical transparency. Article Link