Publications related to Oligonucleotide Immobilization and Hybridization on Aldehyde-Functionalized Poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) Brushes

Soft Mechanochemistry of Disulfide-Crosslinked Polymer Networks

Mechanochemistry harnesses mechanical force to facilitate chemical reactions. Traditionally, the field of polymer mechanochemistry has used methods to activate chemical bonds, which use forces that are larger than those that are required to break a covalen ...

EPFL2024

The Structural Dispersity of Oligoethylene Glycol-Containing Polymer Brushes Determines Their Interfacial Properties

Harm-Anton Klok, Alberto Ongaro, Irene Filipucci

Ought to their bioinert properties and facile synthesis, poly[(oligoethylene glycol)methacrylate]s (POEGMAs) have been raised as attractive alternatives to poly(ethylene glycols) (PEGs) in an array of (bio)material applications, especially when they are ap ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Architecturally Diverse Polymer Brushes Prepared via Surface-Initiated Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization

Sabrina Sant

Polymer brushes, which are polymers anchored to a solid substrate by one chainend, have the ability to modify the properties of an underlying substrate, offering intriguing features such as enhanced lubrication, reduced friction, colloidal stability, and a ...

EPFL2023

Supramolecular Polymer Brushes Grown by Surface-Initiated Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization from Cucurbit[7]uril-based Non-Covalent Initiators

Harm-Anton Klok, Friederike Katharina Metze, Irene Filipucci

Polymer brushes are densely grafted, chain end-tethered assemblies of polymers that can be produced via surface-initiated polymerization. Typically, this is accomplished using initiators or chain transfer agents that are covalently attached to the substrat ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2023

Opportunities, Challenges, and Pitfalls in Making, Characterizing, and Understanding Polymer Brushes

Harm-Anton Klok

Polymer brushes have been theoretically described, their behavior under diverse conditions has been modeled, and their preparation via surface-initiated polymerizations (SIPs) has been progressively refined. However, despite three decades of research endea ...

American Chemical Society2023

Supramolecular Polymer Brushes

Friederike Katharina Metze

Thin polymer coatings present a method to modify the surface properties of underlying substrates. Polymer-coated surfaces have been used as anticorrosive materials, surfaces with special wetting properties, antifriction materials, and as materials for biom ...

EPFL2023

Bottlebrush Dielectric Elastomers with Improved Properties for Actuation

Yeerlan Adeli

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) are elastic capacitors composed of a pair of compliant electrodes and a soft dielectric elastomer film sandwiched in between. This kind of stretchable capacitors can be actuated when charged, can generate electricity fr ...

EPFL2023

Separable Brønsted acidic imidazolium salts for polysaccharide hydrolysis in water

Kedar Ashok Abhyankar

The current reliance on limited petrochemical resources and the resulting ecological outcomes have made the exploration of alternative chemical and energy feedstocks invaluable. As such, the development of sustainable processes with a less harmful total en ...

EPFL2023

Recycling of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Kits

Francesco Stellacci, Yong Zhu, Weina Liu

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) kits have been used as common diagnosing tools during the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, with daily worldwide usage in the millions. It is well known that at the beginn ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

Extraction and controlled functionalization of lignin for materials applications

Stefania Bertella

Lignin is a renewable aromatic polymer that due to its abundance and unique chemical structure is a promising candidate to replace aromatic materials that are currently sourced from fossil oil. The same structure of lignin poses however drawbacks for its v ...

EPFL2022

Engineering of chitosan-based derivatives for non-viral gene delivery

Laura Camille Louise Nicolle

Gene therapy offers the possibility to treat or even cure diseases originating from genetic defects by introducing a therapeutic gene in target cells or correcting the initial defective gene. Amongst different options, non-viral vectors rely on the deliver ...

EPFL2022

Mechanical Activation of Chemical Bonds at Polymer Interfaces

Julian Nicolas Bleich

Polymer brushes are a specific class of polymer thin films in which each chain is tethered to the underlying substrate via one chain end. In sufficiently densely grafted assemblies, the individual polymer chains are forced into an extended chain conformati ...

EPFL2021

Succinimidyl Carbonate-Based Amine-Reactive Polymer Brushes: Facile Fabrication of Functional Interfaces

Harm-Anton Klok

Polymeric coatings that can undergo effective functionalization with ligands and (bio)molecules necessary for intended applications are widely employed to engineer functional interfaces. Herein, amine-reactive polymer brushes are fabricated using a succini ...

2021

Light-Activated, Bioadhesive, Poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) Brush Coatings

Dominique Pioletti, Harm-Anton Klok, Nariye Cavusoglu Ataman, Peyman Karami, Jian Wang

Rapid adhesion between tissue and synthetic materials is relevant to accelerate wound healing and to facilitate the integration of implantable medical devices. Most frequently, tissue adhesives are applied as a gel or a liquid formulation. This manuscript ...

American Chemical Society2020

Reversibly Cross-Linking Polymer Brushes Using Interchain Disulfide Bonds

Harm-Anton Klok, Piotr Mocny

The introduction of interchain cross-links in surface-grafted polymer brushes increases the robustness and mechanical properties of these thin polymer films. In most cases, cross-linked polymer brushes contain permanent interchain cross-links. The use of r ...

American Chemical Society2020

Functional and Responsive Polymers via Controlled Radical Polymerization

Jian Wang

This Thesis is built around 4 topics, which share in common that they all take advantage of the assets of controlled radical polymerization to either (i) prepare well-defined model systems to address fundamental research questions with regard to the sensit ...

EPFL2020

Phase behaviour and structure of a model biomolecular condensate

Julian Charles Shillcock

Phase separation of immiscible fluids is a common phenomenon in polymer chemistry, and is recognized as an important mechanism by which cells compartmentalize their biochemical reactions. Biomolecular condensates are condensed fluid droplets in cells that ...

2020

Polymer Coatings to Minimize Protein Adsorption in Solid-State Nanopores

Michael Mayer, Aleksandra Radenovic, Sebastian James Davis, Sanjin Marion

Nanopore-based resistive-pulse recordings represent a promising approach for single-molecule biophysics with applications ranging from rapid DNA and RNA sequencing to "fingerprinting" proteins. Based on advances in fabrication methods, solid-state nanopore ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2020

Polymer brush interfaces for protein biosensing prepared by surface-initiated controlled radical polymerization

Harm-Anton Klok, Michael Badoux, Mark Billing

Thin polymer films that are able to bind proteins are of great relevance for a wide variety of biosensor and biochip applications. Some of these applications require films that have high protein binding capacities while others call for surfaces that allow ...

2019

Controlling topology, dynamics and function of polymer brushes via post-polymerization modification

Piotr Mocny

Polymer brushes are a class of thin coatings, where each of chains is tethered to the underlying substrate via one chain end. Densely grafted polymer brushes feature a stretched chain conformation, which in a unique way enhances their lubrication and non-b ...

EPFL2019