Christopher Barner-Kowollik FAA, FQA, FRSC, FRACI (born 1973) is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Laureate Fellow, [1] the Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Research) of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and Distinguished Professor within the School of Chemistry and Physics at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane. From 2017 to 2024 he was Editor-in-Chief of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) journal Polymer Chemistry, [2] and is currently an editor for the RSC’s flagship journal Chemical Science. [3] He is a principal investigator within the Soft Matter Materials Laboratory at QUT [4] and associate research group leader at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). [5]
After his undergraduate studies of chemistry at the Universities of Constance and Goettingen (Germany), Christopher Barner-Kowollik earned his PhD in physical chemistry (Dr. rer. nat.) from the University of Goettingen in 1999. Following postdoctoral research with Prof. Tom Davis at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, he held academic positions at the Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design (CAMD), and was appointed Full Professor of Polymer Chemistry in 2006 at the same institution. In 2008 he moved back to Germany, where he became the Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). There he was the founding director of the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 1176 'Molecular Structuring of Soft Matter' established by the German Research Council (DFG). [6] He is a founding PI and thrust speaker in the DFG Excellence Cluster 3D Matter Made to Order. [7] While he relocated in 2017 to the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), where he was awarded an Australian Laureate Fellowship and appointed Director of QUT's Soft Matter Materials Laboratory, Christopher Barner-Kowollik continues to be an associate group leader at the KIT's Institute of Nanotechnology and the Institute of Polymer Chemistry and Chemical Technology, after heading a full research group at the KIT until 2020. [8] In December 2019, Christopher Barner-Kowollik was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Vice-President of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) [9] and in September 2022 Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice-President (Research) at the same institution. [10]
Initially Prof. Barner-Kowollik’s research was in the field of polymer chemistry and polymer reaction kinetics. [11] [12] His research has expanded towards the fusion of polymer chemistry with organic and photochemistry. Current research areas include the development of wavelength-orthogonal, -synergistic, -cooperative and -antagonistic reactions, [13] [14] and their photophysical understanding, [15] [16] most notably opening the field of highly wavelength-resolved photochemical action plots for photochemical covalent bond formation and cleavage demonstrating that molecular absorptivity and photochemical reactivity are oftentimes disparate, [17] [18] translated to the photochemical synthesis of highly defined macromolecular architectures. [19] [20] The developed photochemical platforms – including out-of-equilibrium light stabilized dynamic materials (LSDMs) [21] - find application for the design of 2D [22] and 3D photolithographic processes [23] [24] [25] as well as in biosystems including single cell scaffolds. [26] Notable examples of precision photochemistry from his laboratory range from synergistically operating covalent bond forming systems and photoresins [27] requiring two colours of light to cure and examples of pathway independent wavelength orthogonal reaction systems [28] to using different colours of light to selectively adapt soft matter material properties. [29] Christopher Barner-Kowollik has published over 770 peer-reviewed research papers, which have been cited close to 47,000 times. [30]
Photochemistry is the branch of chemistry concerned with the chemical effects of light. Generally, this term is used to describe a chemical reaction caused by absorption of ultraviolet, visible (400–750 nm), or infrared radiation (750–2500 nm).
Hermann Staudinger was a German organic chemist who demonstrated the existence of macromolecules, which he characterized as polymers. For this work he received the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Azobenzene is a photoswitchable chemical compound composed of two phenyl rings linked by a N=N double bond. It is the simplest example of an aryl azo compound. The term 'azobenzene' or simply 'azo' is often used to refer to a wide class of similar compounds. These azo compounds are considered as derivatives of diazene (diimide), and are sometimes referred to as 'diazenes'. The diazenes absorb light strongly and are common dyes. Different classes of azo dyes exist, most notably the ones substituted with heteroaryl rings.
In supramolecular chemistry, host–guest chemistry describes complexes that are composed of two or more molecules or ions that are held together in unique structural relationships by forces other than those of full covalent bonds. Host–guest chemistry encompasses the idea of molecular recognition and interactions through non-covalent bonding. Non-covalent bonding is critical in maintaining the 3D structure of large molecules, such as proteins and is involved in many biological processes in which large molecules bind specifically but transiently to one another.
The Passerini reaction is a chemical reaction involving an isocyanide, an aldehyde, and a carboxylic acid to form a α-acyloxy amide. This addition reaction is one of the oldest isocyanide-based multicomponent reactions and was first described in 1921 by Mario Passerini in Florence, Italy. It is typically carried out in aprotic solvents but can also be performed in ionic liquids such as water or deep eutectic solvents. It is a third order reaction; first order in each of the reactants. The Passerini reaction is often used in combinatorial and medicinal chemistry with recent utility in green chemistry and polymer chemistry. As isocyanides exhibit high functional group tolerance, chemoselectivity, regioselectivity, and stereoselectivity, the Passerini reaction has a wide range of synthetic applications.
In chemical synthesis, click chemistry is a class of simple, atom-economy reactions commonly used for joining two molecular entities of choice. Click chemistry is not a single specific reaction, but describes a way of generating products that follow examples in nature, which also generates substances by joining small modular units. In many applications, click reactions join a biomolecule and a reporter molecule. Click chemistry is not limited to biological conditions: the concept of a "click" reaction has been used in chemoproteomic, pharmacological, biomimetic and molecular machinery applications. However, they have been made notably useful in the detection, localization and qualification of biomolecules.
Robert Howard GrubbsForMemRS was an American chemist and the Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. He was a co-recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on olefin metathesis.
Craig Jon Hawker is an Australian-born chemist. His research has focused on the interface between organic and polymer chemistry, with emphasis on the design, synthesis, and application of well-defined macromolecular structures in biotechnology, microelectronics, and surface science. Hawker holds more than 45 U.S. patents, and he has co-authored over 300 papers in the areas of nanotechnology, materials science, and chemistry. He was listed as one of the top 100 most cited chemists worldwide over the decade 1992–2002, and again in 2000–2010.
Takuzo Aida is a polymer chemist known for his work in the fields of supramolecular chemistry, materials chemistry and polymer chemistry. Aida, who is the Deputy Director for the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) and a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Tokyo, has made pioneering contributions to the initiation, fundamental progress, and conceptual expansion of supramolecular polymerization. Aida has also been a leader and advocate for addressing critical environmental issues caused by plastic waste and microplastics in the oceans, soil, and food supply, through the development of dynamic, responsive, healable, reorganizable, and adaptive supramolecular polymers and related soft materials.
Stefan Hecht is a German chemist.
Macromolecular Reaction Engineering is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published monthly by Wiley-VCH. The journal covers academic and industrial research in the field of polymer reaction engineering, which includes polymer science. It emerged from a section that was part of Macromolecular Materials and Engineering. The journal publishes reviews, feature articles, communications, and full papers in the entire field of polymer reaction engineering, including polymer reaction modeling, reactor optimization, and control. Its 2020 impact factor is 1.931.
Martina Heide Stenzel is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is also a Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) University Ambassador. She became editor for the Australian Journal of Chemistry in 2008 and has served as Scientific Editor and as of 2021, as Editorial Board Chair of RSC Materials Horizons.
Automated synthesis or automatic synthesis is a set of techniques that use robotic equipment to perform chemical synthesis in an automated way. Automating processes allows for higher efficiency and product quality although automation technology can be cost-prohibitive and there are concerns regarding overdependence and job displacement. Chemical processes were automated throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, with major developments happening in the previous thirty years, as technology advanced. Tasks that are performed may include: synthesis in variety of different conditions, sample preparation, purification, and extractions. Applications of automated synthesis are found on research and industrial scales in a wide variety of fields including polymers, personal care, and radiosynthesis.
Luis M. Campos is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University. Campos leads a research team focused on nanostructured materials, macromolecular systems, and single-molecule electronics.
Jayaraman Sivaguru (Siva) is the Antonia and Marshall Wilson Professor of Chemistry and the Associate Director, Center for Photochemical Sciences at the Department of Chemistry, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. He is a recipient of 2008 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2010 Grammaticakis-Neumann Prize from the Swiss Chemical Society, 2011 young-investigator award from the Inter-American Photochemical Society (I-APS), and 2012-young investigator award from Sigma Xi. His honors also include Excellence in Research award, 2011 Excellence in Teaching award, and the 2012 PeltierAward for Innovation in Teaching. Prof. Siaguru was a visiting young professor at the Global Centre for Excellence at Osaka University, Japan and was a visiting fellow for the Chinese Academy of Sciences President's International Fellowship Initiative in 2018. He is an editor for the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A: Chemistry and from 2020 serves as the co-Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology published by Elsevier. He is an international board member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) photochemistry symposium.
Regina Palkovits is a German chemist who is a Professor of Chemistry at the RWTH Aachen University. Her research considers heterogenous catalysis. She was elected a Fellow of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts in 2020.
Virgil Percec is a Romanian-American chemist and P. Roy Vagelos Chair and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Expert in organic, macromolecular and supramolecular chemistry including self-assembly, biological membrane mimics, complex chiral systems, and catalysis. Pioneered the fields of liquid crystals with complex architecture, supramolecular dendrimers, Janus dendrimers and glycodendrimers, organic Frank-Kasper phases and quasicrystals, supramolecular polymers, helical chirality, Ni-catalyzed cross-coupling and multiple living and self-interrupted polymerizations. Most of these concepts were inspired by Nature and biological principles.
Christoph Weder is the former director of the Adolphe Merkle Institute (AMI) at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and a professor of polymer chemistry and materials. He is best known for his work on stimuli-responsive polymers, polymeric materials that change one or more of their properties when exposed to external cues. His research is focused on the development, investigation, and application of functional materials, in particular stimuli-responsive and bio-inspired polymers.
Vitaliy Khutoryanskiy FRSC is a British and Kazakhstani scientist, a Professor of Formulation Science and a Royal Society Industry Fellow at the University of Reading. His research focuses on polymers, biomaterials, nanomaterials, drug delivery, and pharmaceutical sciences. Khutoryanskiy has published over 200 original research articles, book chapters, and reviews. His publications have attracted > 11000 citations and his current h-index is 52. He received several prestigious awards in recognition for his research in polymers, colloids and drug delivery as well as for contributions to research peer-review and mentoring of early career researchers. He holds several honorary professorship titles from different universities.
Photochemical action plots are a scientific tool used to understand the effects of different wavelengths of light on photochemical reactions. The methodology involves exposing a reaction solution to the same number of photons at varying monochromatic wavelengths, monitoring the conversion or reaction yield of starting materials and/or reaction products. Such global high-resolution analysis of wavelength-dependent chemical reactivity has revealed that maxima in absorbance and reactivity often do not align. Photochemical action plots are historically connected to (biological) action spectra.
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