Advanced Characterisation and Molecular Architectures

Marion Gaborieau is a physical chemist and an analytical chemist. Her PhD work, at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPIP, Mainz, Germany) under the supervision of Hans Spiess, was devoted to the characterization of structure and dynamics in polyacrylics for paints and adhesives by solid-state NMR. She then carried out 5 years of research at the Key Center for Polymer and Colloids (University of Sydney), the Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences (University of Queensland) and the MPIP. She broadened her expertise to other polymers – polysaccharides such as starch for nutrition and bioplastics, their composites with synthetic polymers for paper coating, functional polymeric microspheres for chromatography and diagnostics – and to other characterization techniques – chromatography and capillary electrophoresis. She has been a research lecturer, now senior research lecturer in the Medical Sciences Research Group, and School of Science and Health at WSU since 2010. Her research is devoted to the characterization of complex (bio)polymers with advanced (solid-state) NMR methods.

Marion served as the Chair of the NSW Polymer Group of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI, 2010-2013). She is serving as treasurer of the Polymer Divsion of the RACI, and as treasurer of the NSW Polymer Group of the RACI (since 2013).

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Greg Qiao is Professor of Macromolecular Chemistry and Engineering and Assistant Dean (Research) in the Melbourne School of Engineering. He is also a Deputy Head of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

His current Research Activities include:

Environmental Engineering – Greenhouse Gas Recovery
Nano and Biomolecular Engineering – Nanostructured Materials, Tissue Engineering
Materials and Minerals Engineering – Polymer Science

The research interests of Greg Qiao are in the area of synthetic polymer science and engineering. His research applies various polymerization techniques, including controlled free radical polymerizations, to synthesize novel polymeric architectures, biodegradable and functional polymers. His industrial research is in the synthesis of the nanogels for automotive coatings and the novel hydrogels for biological separations. The research in biopolymers is focused on applications in tissue engineering.
Greg leads an internationally recognized Polymer Science Group in the Department and is currently the president of the Victorian Polymer Group under Royal Australia Chemical Institute. He is also a project leader of the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) and CRC for Polymers.

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Professor Rowan is an experienced physical materials chemist with a track record in fundamental and applied research in novel molecules and materials for applications in field as wide as catalysis, nanoelectronics, biomimetic machines and more recently synthetic extracellular matrices. In my group we strive to understand the relationship between molecular architecture and macroscopic functions, designing and synthesizing new materials as well as building new analytical tools to study them. This relationship has led to a fundamental understanding of how to control material properties, which we have applied to a wide range of societal problems such as wound healing, cell growth and organic solar cells.

After completing his first postdoctoral appointment in New Zealand in 1993 Professor Rowan returned to Europe as a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Nijmegen. He was based in Europe since then, securing a string of successful Research and Teaching Positions in the Institute for Molecules and Materials (IMM) at the University of Nijmegen. In 2005 he became a Full professor at the University of Nijmegen, where he established a new research department of Molecular Materials, within the Institute of Molecules and Materials. As head of this research cluster Professor Rowan led a team of assistant professors, support staff and more than 50 PhDs and Post Docs and masters’ students.

In 2016 Professor Rowan became the Director of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology and an ARC Laureate Fellow in the area of mechanotransduction, which allowed me to establish a new research group at UQ in the area of mechano-biochemistry. In addition to his appointment in the AIBN at UQ, he is an honorary Professor at both the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa) and the Radboud University Nijmegen (Netherlands), and has a Special Frontiers Materials Professorship at the Chinese Academy of Chemical Sciences 2015-2016.

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AndréGröschel is the Junior Professor for the Department of Chemistry at the University of Duisberg-Essen. He opened the Gröschel Lab where they are mostly interested in the synthesis of functional block copolymers and other polymer architectures. These form basic structural elements for most of our self-assembly projects. We aim to develop synthetic protocols for ABC triblock terpolymers suited for self-assembly in aqueous solutions. We utilize controlled radical polymerization techniques such as ATRP and RAFT to control block length and polymer composition for the predictive self-assembly of shapes inner morphology of superstructures. Together these techniques allow the polymerization of almost any monomer functionality.

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Dr Kazuo Sakurai completed a PhD in Polymer Science, Department of Science, Osaka University. Since 2001, Dr Sakurai worked at The University of Kitakyushu as a Professor in the Department of Life and Environment Engineering. His current research focuses on the characterization of Polysaccharide/DNA complexes and its application to gene delivery, synthesis and characterization of novel cationic liposome for plasmid DNA delivery and synchrotron small-angle X-ray　scattering from DNA complexes.

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Brett Fors is the Assistant Professor for the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University. He completed a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science, Montana State UniversityFors’ research currently focuses on the development of new synthetic methods and catalyst systems to control polymer architecture, composition, and function. Under this general theme, three different areas of research will be pursued. First, new systems will be developed that will enable precise regulation over catalyst reactivity in situ with light. Second, new strategies for the synthesis of conjugated polymers from the parent C–H based monomers will be investigated. Lastly, new catalyst systems will be explored for photomediated radical polymerizations.

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Dr Vignolini is currently working in the chemistry department at the University of Cambridge. Dr Vignolini was recently awarded an ERC Starting Grant to study how we can use natural materials to fabricate novel photonic structures. By studying their assembly and optical response. Inspired by nature, we develop tools to fabricate artificial photonic structures using natural materials. The outcome of our research activity will pave the way to the production of low cost, biodegradable novel materials, which could replace traditional, potentially hazardous colorants used industrially for different applications, such as cosmetics, textiles and security labelling.

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