Horizons symposium: Polymers at the human interface

Guoping Chen is a Group Leader at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and a Professor at the University of Tsukuba. He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 1997 majoring in polymer biomaterials and did postdoctoral research until 2000. He joined the Tissue Engineering Research Center, National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology as a Researcher in 2000 and a Senior Researcher in 2003. He moved to the Biomaterials Center, NIMS as a Senior Researcher in 2004 and was promoted to Group Leader in 2007. He served as a Principal Investigator and Unit Director of the International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), NIMS from 2011 to 2017. He concurrently joined the Joint Doctoral Program in Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tsukuba as an Associate Professor in 2004 and a Professor in 2013. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC, 2015), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE, 2017) and the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering (FBSE, 2020). His research focuses on biomaterials, scaffolds, biomimetic matrices, micro-patterning, surface modification, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and nanomedicine.

Guosong Chen is a professor in the Department of Macromolecular Science, Fudan University, Shanghai. She studied chemistry at Nankai University and received her Ph.D. from the same university in supramolecular chemistry. After her postdoctoral studies in carbohydrate chemistry at Iowa State University, she moved to Fudan University in Dec 2008, where she joined the department as a lecturer, working on the interface of macromolecular self-assembly and supramolecular chemistry. Then she was promoted to associate professor in 2011 and professor in 2014. Recently, her research focus has been reoriented to carbohydrate-based macromolecular self-assembly and its biological functions. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Chemical Society (FRSC), serves as an associate editor of ACS Macro Letters, and is an international board members for several journals. She received NSFC Outstanding Youth Foundation and other awards including ACS PMSE Young Investigator Award.  

Wenlong Cheng is a professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering at The University of Sydney, Australia. He is currently an NHMRC Investigator Leadership Fellow and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and was an Ambassador Tech Fellow at Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication. He earned his PhD from Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2005 and his BS from Jilin University, China, in 1999. He was Alexander von Humboldt's fellow in the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics and a research associate in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. He founded the Monash NanoBionics lab at Monash University in 2010. His research interest lies at the nano-bio interface, particularly the design and self-assembly of 2D plasmonic nanomaterials and noble nanocrystals, DNA nanotechnology, soft wearable electronic skin sensors and soft and stretchable energy devices, targeted cancer theranostics, and soft plasmonic metamaterials.

Professor Baoquan Ding got his BS from Jilin University in 2000; he received his Ph.D. in 2006 from the Department of Chemistry, New York University, under the supervision of Professor Nadrian Seeman. He then joined Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab as a post-doctoral research fellow. He worked as a research assistant professor at Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University from Oct. 2009. He became a full professor at NCNST in Nov. 2010. Prof. Ding has published high-impact research works as the corresponding author in top journals such as Nature Mater., Nature Biotechnol., Nature Commun., J. Am. Chem. Soc., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., and Adv. Mats. etc. His research interests include DNA nanotechnology, self-assembled biomolecules, and drug delivery.

Simone Fabiano is an Associate Professor and docent in Applied Physics at Linköping University, Sweden. He obtained his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Palermo in 2012. During his doctoral studies, he was a visiting scholar at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. In 2020, he founded n-Ink AB, a spinout company that focuses on developing n-type organic conductive inks, where he serves as the Chief Scientific Officer. His group at Linköping University primarily focuses on developing organic dopant-free conductors and mixed ionic-electronic conductors for printed electronics and neuromorphic hardware applications. He has received several awards, including the Swedish Research Council Starting Grant in 2017 and Consolidator Grant in 2023. He is also a Wallenberg Academy Fellow.

Katharina Landfester received her doctoral degree in 1995. After a postdoctoral stay at the Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA), she worked at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam (Germany) leading the miniemulsion group. From 2003 to 2008, she was full professor at the University of Ulm. She joined the Max Planck Society in 2008 as one of the directors of the MPIP. She was awarded the Reimund Stadler prize of the German Chemical Society and the prize of the Dr. Hermann Schnell Foundation, followed by the Bruno Werdelmann Lecturer in 2012 and the Bayer Lecturer in 2014. Her research focusses on creating functional colloids for new material and biomaterial applications.

Prof. Yunqi Liu graduated from Nanjing University in 1975 and received a doctorate from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, in 1991. Currently, he is a professor at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS) and Fudan University. He is an academician of CAS, and a member of The World Academy of Sciences. His research interests include molecular materials and devices, the synthesis and applications of carbon nanomaterials, and organic electronics.

Martina Stenzel studied chemistry at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, before completing her PhD in 1999 at the Institute of Applied Macromolecular Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Germany. She then started working as a postdoctoral Fellow at the UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science and Technology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia, before being appointed as lecture in 2002 at the same University. In 2012 she was promoted to full Professor and is now UNSW Scientia Professor and ARC (Australian Research Council) Laureate Fellow. In 2018 she was elected as Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. Her research interest is focused on the synthesis of functional polymers nanoparticles and their use as drug delivery carriers.

Prof. Hao Wang received his Bachelor's degree (2000) and obtained his PhD degree in chemistry from Nankai University of China in 2005. He worked as an Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Fellow in Universät Würzburg of Germany (2005-2007). Later, He worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, of University of California, Los Angeles (2007-2011). From 2011 onwards, he is working as a principal investigator in National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of China. His research interests are to i) develop "in vivo self-assembly" polymeric materials and technology in physiological/pathological conditions; ii) study their bio-effect and further regulate biological behavior; iii) explore self-assembled biomaterials for bioimaging, drug delivery, immunotherapy etc. We envision that the combination of modular molecular assembly strategy and modern in vivo diagnostics/therapeutics represents an important paradigm shift for biomaterial development, drug discovery and clinical patient management applications. 

Shutao Wang is a full professor at Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He obtained his PhD degree in 2007 at Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS). He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology and California NanoSystem Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles (2007–2010). Subsequently, he was appointed as a full Professor of Chemistry from 2010–2014 at ICCAS. His scientific interests focus on the design and synthesis of bio-inspired interfacial materials with special adhesion and their applications at the nano-biointerface.

Prof. Zijian Zheng is currently Chair Professor of Soft Materials and Devices at the Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, Associate Director of Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems, Lead Investigator of Research Institute for Smart Energy at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). His research interests include surface and polymer science, nanofabrication, flexible and wearable electronics, energy conversion and storage. He is Founding Member of The Young Academy of Sciences of Hong Kong (2018), Chang Jiang Chair Professor by the Ministry of Education of China (2020), Senior Research Fellow of the University Grant Commission of Hong Kong (2021), Fellow of International Association of Advanced Materials (FIAAM, 2021), Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC, 2022), and Young Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Science (YFHKEng, 2024). He is awardee of the inaugural Hong Kong Engineering Science and Technology Award.