MONET Postdoc and foundational member Scott Danielsen has accepted an Assistant Professor positon at Georgia Institute of Technology. He will join the GT School of Materials Science & Engineering in January 2024 where his group will work on the structure and rheology of soft materials, polymers, and biological fluids. Congratulations Scott!

MONET Senior Investigator Nancy Sottos was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences as part of the 2022 elected cohort. Congratulations Nancy!

MONET was a proud major sponsor of the inaugural Polymer Women Empowerment & Research (PoWER) Conference, hosted July 11 & 12 at Northwestern University. Julia Kalow was a co-organizer, Monica Olvera de la Cruz was an invited speaker, EAB Member Emily Pentzer was a workshop leader, trainees Yixin Hu, Jolly Patro, Emmanuel Garcia Villatoro, Christina Hemmingsen, and Alexis Martell Monterroza attended for MONET.

The Schindler and Kulik labs report that matching of the frontier molecular orbital energies of alkenes with those of acyclic oximes enables visible light–mediated aza Paternò–Büchi reactions through triplet energy transfer catalysis. The reaction used to create azetidines is driven by a photocatalyst that excites the molecules from their ground energy state. Using computational models developed by the Kulik lab, we were able to predict compounds that can react with each other to form azetidines using this kind of catalysis. Article Link

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.