1:00 p.m.           Welcome

 

Professor Rubem M. Savizky,   2020 Chair, ACS New York Section, The Cooper Union

1:05 p.m.           Opening of the Distinguished Symposium

Professor Rita K. Upmacis,   2020 Chair-Elect, ACS New York Section, Pace University

1:15 p.m.           Polymer-Enhanced Biology

Professor Alan J. Russell   Department of Chemical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

The growth of polymers from the surface of proteins has opened the door to tuning and supplementing protein function by rational design. Protein-polymer conjugates are synthesized from pure starting materials and the struggle to separate conjugates from polymer, native protein, and from isomers has vexed scientists for decades. We have discovered that covalent polymer attachment has a transformational effect on protein solubility in salt solutions. Charged polymers increase conjugate solubility in ammonium sulfate and completely prevent precipitation even at 100% saturation. This transformational impact on protein solubility can be used to simply purify mixtures of conjugates and native proteins into single species. Increasing protein solubility in salt solutions through polymer conjugation could lead to many new applications of protein-polymer conjugates.

 

2:00 p.m.           Responsive Materials from Dynamic Bonds

Professor Brent S. Sumerlin   Department of Chemistry, University of Florida

By relying on a variety of reversible covalent reactions that lead to readily cleaved bonds, we have prepared materials that combine the physical integrity of covalent materials and the structural dynamics of supramolecular complexes. Enaminone, boronic esters, boronate esters, and Diels-Alder linkages have all been employed to prepare these responsive and dynamic materials, with particular attention having been dedicated to the preparation of hydrogels, elastomers, and nanoparticles. We seek to exploit the reversible nature of these bonds to prepare responsive and self-healing materials.

 

2:45 p.m.           Dancing in the Dark with CHIPs: Polymers for Next Generation Photonics and Imaging

Professor Jeffrey Pyun   Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry,, University of Arizona

The ability to manipulate light with materials is critical for a wide range of optical applications for devices, imaging and sensing applications. We will discuss our recent efforts to make new functional polymers and materials that are designed to transmit, reflect, rotate or guide light across a wide optical spectrum to enable creation of new imaging and sensing platforms. We will discuss how these systems will improve human-machine interfaces and next generation sensors for transportation.

 

3:30 p.m.           Coffee Break

3:45 p.m.           Polymers, Cells and Spores: Macromolecular Engineering of Living Thin Films

Professor David A. Tirrell   Department of Chemistry, California Institute of Technology

This lecture will describe our ongoing effort to engineer the physical and biological properties of thin bacterial films by display of adhesive proteins on the cell surface, by release of matrix proteins into the extracellular space, and by the inclusion of stable bacterial spores. Studies of film fabrication, cell viability, film growth, film structure, indentation behavior, and regeneration following injury will be discussed.

 

4:45 p.m.           Macromolecular Engineering by Taming Free Radicals using Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization

Professor Krzysztof Matyjaszewski,   Center for Macromolecular Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

Nichols Medalist

Macromolecular Engineering (ME) is a process comprising rational design of (co)polymers with specific architecture and functionality, followed by precise and efficient polymer synthesis and processing in order to prepare advanced materials with target properties. We employed radical polymerization for ME due to its tolerance to many functionalities although radicals are difficult to be controlled, since they have very short life times (<1 s) and are involved in side reactions. Taming free radicals was accomplished via dynamic equilibria between minute amounts of radicals and large pool of dormant species using copper-based ATRP (atom transfer radical polymerization) catalytic systems. By applying new initiating/catalytic systems, Cu level in ATRP was reduced to a few ppm and ME provided polymers with precisely controlled molecular weights, low dispersities, designed shape, composition and functionality as well as block, graft, star, hyperbranched, gradient and periodic copolymers, molecular brushes and organic-inorganic hybrid materials and bioconjugates. These polymers can be used as components of various advanced materials such as health and beauty products, biomedical and electronic materials, coatings, surfactants, lubricants, additives, sealants as nanostructured multifunctional hybrid materials for application related to environment, energy and catalysis.

 

5:45 p.m.           Social Hour

6:45 p.m.           William H. Nichols Medal Award Dinner
                Professor David A. Tirrell of the California Institute of Technology will introduce the 2020 Medalist