Dynamic and degradable covalent chemistries to develop advanced polymeric materials

我所在的团队属于聚合物化学和材料领域，该研究使大分子纳米材料(称为聚合物基纳米材料)的设计和加工能够解决生物学和材料科学十字路口的重要问题。这里提出的新的研究计划旨在可降解和动态共价化学的基础和应用研究，以在纳米和微米尺度上定制先进功能材料的重要性质。这种智能化学包括将可切割或动态(或可逆)键结合到多功能共聚物及其材料的设计中。当需要时，它们会对外界刺激进行可降解的分解或可逆的解离/结合。人们将开发各种策略来合成具有不同结构和功能的新型共聚物，这些共聚物将被设计为构建传递纳米组件、聚合物-纳米添加剂杂化材料和自愈网络薄膜的有效构件。我们的新研究计划包括两个研究方向和几个项目。在流1中，我们的重点是降解化学，我们将探索纳米材料的合成和拆解，这些材料在生物系统中的内源环境中可降解。我们将研究双定位可降解药物释放机制和新的胞浆介导的基因释放机制。在STREAM 2中，我们强调动态化学，我们将开发新的策略来研究受阻尿素化学的自愈机制，以及开发新型能量收集材料和自愈的多相纳米结构网络的设计原则。我们的跨学科研究将提供化学、生物和工程方面的HQP培训。

The research in my group, which falls in the field of polymer chemistry and materials, enables the design and processing of macromolecular nanoscale materials (named polymer-based nanomaterials) to address important problems in the crossroads of biology and materials science. The new research program proposed here aims for fundamental and applied studies of degradable and dynamic covalent chemistries to tailor important properties of advanced functional materials at nano- and microscales. Such smart chemistries involve the incorporation of either cleavable or dynamic (or reversible) linkages into the design of multifunctional copolymers and their materials. When needed, they undergo degradable disassembly or reversible dissociation/association in response to external stimuli. Various strategies will be developed to synthesize novel copolymers with various architectures and functionalities, which will be designed as effective building blocks in the construction of delivery nanoassemblies, polymer-nanoadditive hybrids, and self-healable network films. Our new research program is outlined with two research streams with several projects. In Stream 1, with our focus on degradation chemistries, we will explore the synthesis and disassembly of nanomaterials, degradable in the endogenous environment found in biological systems. We will study dual location degradable drug delivery mechanism and new cytosol-mediated gene release mechanism. In stream 2, with our emphasis on dynamic chemistries, we will develop new strategies to study self-healing mechanisms of hindered urea chemistry as well as design principles to develop novel energy harvesting materials and self-healable heterogeneous nanostructured networks. Our interdisciplinary research will provide HQP training in chemistry, biology, and engineering.