News

We’ve developed materials with a time switch.

The design principle is simple and generic. The simplicity allowed us to build it into all kinds of materials. For instance, we’ve demonstrated it works for tiny colloids (no larger than 1/100th the diameter of a human hair) that abolish themselves after a predetermined lifetime. The colloids could be used as a vehicle that releases drugs over prolonged time and exactly when needed.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUMrtZT0uaQ[/embedyt]

We also showed the design principles could be applied to inks. The self-erasing inks could find application as a temporary top-secret message carrier. More down-to-earth would be an application as a reusable paper, that self-erases overnight, leaving you with a fresh sheet of scrap paper every morning.

The paper can be found here: http://rdcu.be/uiAj
A highlight of the work can be found here: https://lnkd.in/gV4_Qni

All the way from Takata’s group in Japan, Jun Sawada joins us for a research stay! Welcome!

Marta Tena Solsona awarded an MSCA IF fellowship to extend her stay at TUM!

The work led by the Eelkema Lab (TU Delft) on dynamic covalent gels has been selected as hot paper in the J. of Materials Chemistry B.

The work of Faifan and me at Northwestern University got published in Nature Materials! In this work, we have studied the energy landscapes of peptide amphiphile assemblies and how to navigate through such landscapes. Such knowledge is important because we found that the position in the landscape determines the material properties, including toxicity and ability to promote cell growth. In other words, one molecule in the exact same environment can either be toxic or not depending on its position in its energy landscape.

More here:
Tantakitti, T; Boekhoven, J; Wang, X; Kazantsev, R; Yu, T; Li, J; Zhuang, E; Zandi, F; Ortony, J; Newcomb, C; Palmer, L; Gajendra; S, de la Cruz, M; Schatz, G; Stupp, S;
“Energy landscapes of supramolecular systems determine their function”

Thanks Daan van der Zwaag and Bert Meijer for your perspective on the Active Materials.

And thanks to Kennislink for mentioning our work:
http://www.kennislink.nl/publicaties/brandstof-brengt-synthetisch-celskelet-tot-leven

The research that Wouter Hendriksen and I worked on at TU Delft got published in Science! In this work, we push supramolecular materials out of equilibrium by means of a chemical fuel. It turned out that the active materials we form that way are transient and have a tunable lifetime. Moreover, the materials are self-regenerating as long as sufficient fuel is present. And to our surprise, we found beautiful dynamic fibres that are both growing and collapsing at the same time. See move below:

Boekhoven, J;* Hendriksen,* Koper, B; W; Eelkema, R; van Esch, J;
“Transient assembly of active materials fueled by a chemical reaction”
2015, Science
With perspective by van der Zwaag and Meijer:
“Fueling connections between chemistry and biology”
2015, Science

As of January 1st 2016, I’ll start my own research group at the chemistry department of the TU Munich. Our research will focus on supramolecular materials with applications ranging from healthcare to robotics. I am looking for motivated graduate students and postdocs.

More information soon.

See more at: https://www.professoren.tum.de/en/boekhoven-job/