Montenegro group has recently reported in Nanoscale Horizons their findings in pH-triggered self-assembly of peptidic nanotubes in confined spaces. Read more about it in the Nanoscale Horizons Blog entry that I had the pleasure to write!
NanoScale Horizons Community Board
I am happy to extend my participation as a member of the RSC Nanoscale Horizons Community Board. Really great professionals involved in the managing of this journal!
Visit of Porf. Maeda (前田先生)
We were glad to have Prof. Maeda as invited Speaker within the frame of Focus Area NanoScale. His outstanding talk entitled “Function of Chirality-Responsive Dynamic Helical Polymers” thrilled us showing all the possible applications of chiral dynamic polymers!
ありがとうございました 前田先生！！
Our new study on capturing circulating tumor cells in exvivo samples got accepted in Polymers
The manuscript entitled “Optimizing the circulating tumor cells capture efficiency of magnetic nanogels by transferrin decoration” is now accepted in Polymers. In this follow up from our previous publication, we optimize capturing efficiency by modifying the linker between the magnetic nanogel and the targeting protein. Moreover, we perform some preliminary capturing experiments in blood samples from cancer patients.
The Royal Society is funding a new collaboration with the University of Birmingham
A new collaboration with the Fernandez-Trillo group at the University of Birmingham got funded by The Royal Society. We are looking forward to the results of this promising collaboration!!
We got granted by Focus Area NanoScale
Our project “Smart Cell Penetrating Helical Thermoresponsive-Plasmonic Nanohybrids” was recently granted by the Focus Arena: NanoScale from the Freie Universität Berlin in the call for research projects 2018.
Our work “Unexpected Chiro-Thermoresponsive Behavior of Helical Poly(phenylacetylene)s Bearing Elastin-Based Side Changes” is now published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition
In our search, we found an interesting new class of helical thermoresponsive polymers. This work is now published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition and is now online. Check it out here!
Abstract: The thermoresponsive behavior of an elastin-based polymer can be altered by the polymeric macromolecular conformation. Thus, when the elastin basic amino acid sequence VPGVG is used as a pendant group of a poly(phenylacetylene) (PPA) its thermoresponsive behavior in water can be remotely detected through conformational changes on the formed helix. Circular dichroism at different temperatures shows an inversion of the first Cotton effect (450 nm) at 25.8 °C that matches with the cloud point temperature. The elastin-based side-chain poly(phenylacetylene) shows an upper critical solution temperature with low pH and concentration dependency, not expected in elastin-based polymers. It was found that the polymer self-assembles in water into spherical nanoparticles with hydrodynamic diameters of 140 nm at the hydrophobic state.
Chirality 2017 ISCD-29
Great feeling to share our research with the top researchers in the field in Tokyo and get such a nice feedback from them!
