| Based in the School of Chemistry, we are organic chemists performing creative and imaginative research in the field of polymer chemistry. Our interests lie in applying organic and polymer syntheses with supramolecular principles towards the development of responsive and adaptable nanoparticles and materials with potential applications in molecular recognition and sensing, catalysis, medicine and materials science. Here you can find out more about what’s going on in our laboratory, including our current and research. The DAF group are based in the School of Chemistry's Chemical Nanoscience Laboratory, and have received generous funding from EPSRC, EU-FP7, The Royal Society, the regional development agency OneNorthEast and the Nuffield Foundation. |
News and Research Highlights
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When One Stimuli is Not Enough
Nanoparticles which can respond to the application of a stimulus or a change in their environment are required to help address problems in fields such as nanomedicine or consumer products. For instance, nanoparticles which could release their cargo of drug molecules only when they sense they have entered desired tissues would be advantagous in medicine, ensuring drugs are delivered only where and when required. A limitation of many stimuli-responsive nanoparticles is their reliance upon a single stimulus to trigger a response. By requiring the simultaneous application of two stimuli, more control is gained over where and when a particular response is triggered. The DAF group have recently reported in Macromolecules a polymeric nanoparticle which requires the simultaneous application of two different stimuli to trigger its disassembly into its component polymer chains, releasing its cargo of small molecules in the process. Read more about this work by clicking here. You can read more about this work in Macromolecules.
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April 2012 Clare Mahon delivered a lecture at the RSC Organic Division North East section annual meeting at York in March. Clare outlined her recent progress in polymer-scaffolded dynamic combinatorial libraries, showing how they can respond to macromolecular templates and also how properties of the polymer scaffold can influence the levels of response. This is Clare’s second invited lecture of her PhD studies, haven spoken at the European Science Foundation’s High Level Research Conference on Systems Chemistry in Crete (October 2011).
March 2012 DAF presented the groups recent work on stimuli-responsive polymeric nanoparticles at the RSC Nanoscience subject group meeting which was held in Newcastle on March 16th, sharing the billing with five other chemists with interests in nanoscience including a certain Sir Fraser Stoddart! Congratulations to Niza who won a prize for best poster at this meeting describing her work on polystryene-silicon quantum dot composite nanoparticles.
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December 2011 Alex Jackson spoke about his work on introducing stimuli-responsiveness into polymeric nanoparticles at the RSC Postgraduate symposium in Nanotechnology in Birmingham (December 2011), winning the proze for best presentation! |
