Dr. Luke Rochford and Prof. Tim Jones, in collaboration with Dr. Christian Nielsen (QMUL), demonstrate crystal structure control in C60 thin films in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters Link

A part of an ongoing Warwick and Monash effort on studying photoactivatable metal-based anticancer prodrugs using vibrational spectroscopic techniques has recently been published in Inorganic Chemistry.

Warwick-Monash joint-PhD student, Robbin Vernooij, presents some of the main findings of their recent work, in a format called LiveSlides by ACS, in order to engage readers in a new way:

LiveSlide Presentation

Research carried out on solvothermal crystallisation of metal-organic frameworks is published as a science highlight at Diamond Light Source.

The work was carried out by Richard Walton in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and from National Institute for Materials Science in Japan. Using high energy X-rays at Diamond Light Source, the UK synchrotron radiation facility, it has proved possible to penetrate solvothermal reaction vessels and measure high resolution powder diffraction data during the formation of extended solid structures, such as metal organic frameworks. This has provided unprecedented information about the formation mechanism of these topical materials, including direct observation of phase transformation and exchange of solvent within porous structures during chemical reaction.

The work has been published in two papers in the journal Angewandte Chemie in the past few months:

In situ observation of successive crystallizations and metastable intermediates in the formation of metal-organic frameworks. Angew Chem Int Ed. 2016. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201508763.

Exchange of Coordinated Solvent During Crystallisation of a Metal–Organic Framework Observed by In Situ High Energy X-ray Diffraction. Angew Chem Int Ed. (2016) DOI: 10.1002/anie.201600896.

The science highlight article is linked here:

http://www.diamond.ac.uk/Science/Research/Highlights/2016/I12-MOF-formation.html

An antibody that senses one enantiomer of plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) is characterised and published by Marsh and Napier groups in Chemistry and Life Sciences in PLOS ONE.

Collaborative work from the groups of Chaplin, Unwin, Rourke, and Wedge (Warwick physics) exploring the organometallic chemistry of paramagnetic complexes of palladium(I) and platinum(I) has been published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 

Collaborative research with Warwick Medical School and UHCW NHS Trust reveals new clues to widely prescribed therapeutics' actions in body. Simvastatin sodium salt and fluvastatin interact with human gap junction gamma-3 protein in PLOS ONE Press coverage in Health Spectator.

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