Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, held a Symposium on 23-25 November 2015 to celebrate Peter Sadler’s achievements in biological and medicinal inorganic chemistry.

A Jones Group, Bon Group, Warwick Physics and Imperial College London collaboration published in JPCC shows that local chemical termination variations in copper iodide produces polymorphism in metal-free phthalocyanine thin films.

The Jones group, in collaboration with the McCulloch group (Imperial College London), publish a study of epitaxial growth of an organic semiconductor on a metal surface in RSC Advances

Collaborative work involving Lewandowski group was published in PNAS. The study led P. van der Wel (U. Pittsburgh) provides insights on structure and formation mechanism for huntingtin exon 1 fibrils implicated in Hungtington disease. Read more here.

The GibsonGroup's latest research into the use of biomaterials to increase the availability of donor cells has been published in Angewandte Chemie. Donor cells (e.g blood, bone marrow) are crucial to modern healthcare but due to their short shelf life they must be frozen using organic solvents as 'antifreezes'. The Gibson group has pionnered the use of synthetic polymers which inhibit ice crystal growth and their application to cryopreservation. In this work, a collaboraiton with Prof. Steve Armes at Sheffield, the team used biomimetic block copolymer micelles to provide a hydrated 'matrix' around the cells, which in combination with ice inhibiting polymers enable succesful cryopreservation of red blood cells. This is the first example of a cryopreservation system using entirely synthetic polymer materials, providing control and additional functionality into the system. Post-thawing, the micelles warm up, and become 'worm-like' which enabled the direct formation of a hydrogel, which is of interest for tissue engineering.

Read the paper here

Combining Biomimetic Block Copolymer Worms with an Ice-Inhibiting Polymer for the Solvent-Free Cryopreservation of Red Blood Cells

Dr. Luke Rochford and Dr. Alex Ramadan from Prof. Tim Jones' group, in collaboration with Warwick Physics, publish in Advanced Functional Materials demonstrating the use of atomically thin graphene electrodes to control the structure of organic semiconductor thin films while improving their charge transport performance.

"Growth of large crystalline grains of vanadyl-phthalocyanine without epitaxy on graphene" Link

The manuscript entitled Control of vesicle membrane permeability with catalytic particles by the BonLab has been selected for the jan-feb 2016 cover of Materials Horizons, a premier scientific journal published by the Royal Society of Chemistry which features first reports of exceptional significance across the breadth of materials research at the cutting-edge interface with chemistry, physics, biology and engineering.

Prof.dr.ir. Stefan Bon, head of the BonLab, says: "We are absolutely delighted that our research has made the cover of Materials Horizons. Rong Chen and especially Ross Jaggers worked very hard in the BonLab to fabricate giant polymer vesicles which have membrane-embedded catalytically active manganese oxide particles, hereby using droplet-based microfluidics. We demonstrate that these colloidal particles can regulate the membrane permeability of the polymersomes upon their exposure to, and catalytic reaction with, small amounts of dissolved hydrogen peroxide. Not only can we trigger complete release whereby the vesicle gets destroyed through membrane rupture by the formed oxygen bubbles as illustrated on the cover, exposure to small amounts of dissolved hydrogen peroxide leads to temporary enhanced release until all hydrogen peroxide is consumed by the catalytic particles after which the membrane permeability restores itself to its passive characteristic value."

More on this can be read on the blog of the BonLab site.

The paper (open access) can be read here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C5MH00093A

As well as being reported in the Sun, Express, Metro and Daily Mail, the breakthrough ibuprofen patch will feature in a new ITV science show.

Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3352980/Could-finally-end-agony-pain-Ibuprofen-patches-deliver-TEN-TIMES-painkiller-skin.html

Recent work by the Gibson Group (Chemistry) and Fullam Group (SLS) has been highlighted in Chemistry World rsc.li/1m3uhx2 http://tinyurl.com/jlj2trg

Professor Rachel O'Reilly has received (8th December) the 2014 McBain Medal. This was awarded for her pioneering research in novel polymeric nanoparticles, responsive materials and controlled self-assembly. Read more about her groups work here

Researchers at the University of Warwick have worked with Coventry-based Medherant, a Warwick spinout company, to produce and patent the World’s first ever ibuprofen patch delivering the drug directly through skin to exactly where it is needed at a consistent dose rate.

Part of the work was carried out by Matt Donald in a 2015 URSS project funded by the Materials GRP and also started as a URSS project in 2014 carried out by Matt Beech, both currently Yr 4 undergraduates.

They have invented a transparent adhesive patch that can consistently deliver a prolonged high dose of the painkiller ibuprofen directly through the skin. The University of Warwick researchers and Medherant have found a way to incorporate significant amounts of the drug (up to 30% weight) into the polymer matrix that sticks the patch to the patient’s skin with the drug then being delivered at a steady rate over up to 12 hours. This opens the way for the development of a range of novel long-acting over-the-counter pain relief products which can be used to treat common painful conditions like chronic back pain, neuralgia and arthritis without the need to take potentially damaging doses of the drug orally. Although there are a number of popular ibuprofen gels available these make it difficult to control dosage and are inconvenient to apply.

The Jones group, in collaboration with Imperial College London, publish a study investigating the effects of polar ferroelectric surfaces on the growth of organic semiconductor thin films in The Journal of Materials Chemistry C.