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Cite this:DOI: 10.1039/c7tb90077e

Journal of Materials Chemistry B profiles:Contributors to the Emerging Investigators2017 issue

Marcelo Calderon is an AssistantProfessor for Macromolecular and OrganicChemistry at the Department of Biology,Chemistry, and Pharmacy from the FreieUniversitat Berlin, Germany. He receivedhis PhD in Organic Chemistry in 2007from the National University of Cordoba,Argentina, under the supervision ofProfessor Miriam Strumia. In 2007 hejoined the Research Group of ProfessorRainer Haag at the Freie UniversitatBerlin for his postdoctoral work, wherehe pursued the development of polymer–drug conjugates for the passive targeteddelivery of drugs, genes and imagingprobes. Since 2011 he has been a memberof the Helmholtz Virtual Institute (HVI)Multifunctional Biomaterials for Medicinethat explores the complex processes involvedin protein adsorption on polymers for bio-medical applications.

Yi Cao received his Bachelor’s degreein 2001 and Master’s degree in 2004 fromNanjing University. He then obtainedhis PhD in 2009 from the University ofBritish Columbia. After a one-year postdocat the same place, he started his indepen-dent career at the Department of Physics,Nanjing University as a full Professor. Hewas the recipient of the 2014 IUPAP YoungScientist Prize in Biological Physics forhis contributions to the study of nano-mechanics and mechanical unfoldingdynamics of proteins using single moleculeatomic force microscopy. His currentresearch focuses on the application of thesingle molecule method and molecularengineering to designing biomaterials withtailored mechanical properties.

Monica Carril received her PhD inChemistry from the University of theBasque Country (UPV/EHU, 2006) in thefield of synthetic organic chemistry. Aftertwo postdoctoral stays in Germany withProfessor Bolm and Professor Kuhn(RWTH Aachen and TUM Munich,respectively) dealing with catalysis, shejoined CIC biomaGUNE in Spain. In2013, she was granted an Ikerbasquetenure-track research position and sincethen her research interests have been inthe field of nanoparticles as contrastagents for magnetic resonance imaging(MRI). Recently, she has focused herattention on the design of fluorinatedprobes for 19F-MRI.

DOI: 10.1039/c7tb90077e

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Cole A. DeForest is an Assistant Professorin the Department of Chemical Engineeringat the University of Washington. He receiveda BSE (Magna Cum Laude) in ChemicalEngineering/Material Science (2006) fromPrinceton University, and subsequentlyearned his PhD in Chemical/BiologicalEngineering (2011) from the Universityof Colorado before performing postdoctoralstudies at the California Institute ofTechnology. His research aims todevelop dynamically tunable biomaterialplatforms that aid in understanding 4Dbiological processes and to exploit thisascertained information in the engineeringof functional human tissue.

Xin Du received his BSc in 2007 fromNankai University and PhD degree inPhysical Chemistry in 2012 from TechnicalInstitute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC),Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). Hepursued his research as a postdoctoralresearcher at School of Chemical Engineering

in The University of Adelaide, Australia,from 2012 to 2014. Then, he joined theResearch Center for Bioengineering andSensing Technology, University of Science &Technology Beijing. Now he is an AssociateProfessor. He has published more than60 peer reviewed journal articles with over1500 citations. His research interests focuson the design and controllable synthesis ofnovel nano-structured silica materials andsilica-based composites as advanced drug/gene delivery nano-systems, nano-catalystswith high activity and stability and multi-functional antireflection nano-coatingswith superhydrophilic antifogging or super-hydrophobic self-cleaning properties.

Eva Hemmer received her PhD in 2008from Saarland University (Germany) underthe mentorship of Professor Sanjay Mathur.From 2009 to 2012, she worked onlanthanide-based nanoparticles for near-infrared bioimaging with Professor KoheiSoga at the Tokyo University of Science. In2013 she was awarded a Feodor LynenResearch Postdoctoral Fellowship to developlanthanide-based nanothermometers in thegroups of Professors Fiorenzo Vetrone andFrançois Legare at INRS-EMT (Universite duQuebec, Canada). In 2016, she joined theUniversity of Ottawa as Assistant Profes-sor at the Department of Chemistry andBiomolecular Sciences, where she is workingon lanthanide-based nanocarriers for bio-medical and energy conversion applications.

Takashi Hoshiba received his PhDdegree in 2007 from Tokyo Institute ofTechnology. He worked at the NationalInstitute for Materials Sciences (NIMS) asa postdoctoral fellow (2007–2009) and asa Research Fellow of the Japan Society forPromotion of Science (2009–2011). He hasbeen at Yamagata University as a ResearchAssistant Professor (2011–2014) and as aResearch Associate Professor (2014–present).Also, he has been a Guest Researcher inNIMS (2013–present). His current researchinterests are the extracellular matrix asa biomaterial in tissue engineering/regenerative medicine and cancer.

Jae-Young Lee is an Associate Professorof the School of Materials Science andEngineering, Gwangju Institute of Scienceand Technology (GIST), Republic of Korea.He received BS and MS degrees in ChemicalTechnology from Seoul National Universityin 1997 and 1999, respectively. He workedas a research manager in LG Life Science

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Ltd from 1999 to 2005. He received his PhDfrom The University of Texas at Austin in2010. He conducted his postdoctoralresearch at University of California Berkeleywith an American Heart Association (AHA)postdoctoral fellowship. He joined GIST in2012. His current research focuses on thedevelopment of functional biomaterialsthat can improve biomaterial–cell inter-actions for various uses. His research inter-ests include designs of surface modificationof implantable bio-electrodes, tissue engineer-ing scaffolds and nano-biomaterials fortherapeutic applications.

Tung Chun Lee received his BSc inChemistry from University of Hong Kongin 2005 and his PhD in Chemistry fromUniversity of Cambridge in 2012. He wasa Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max PlanckInstitute for Intelligent Systems from2011 to 2014. In 2014, he joined Univer-sity College London as a Lecturer andstarted his independent academic career.His research interests include exoticnanoparticles, nanofabrication, nano-chemistry, active matter and supramole-cular chemistry. Currently, he has 30publications in reputable journals.

Fernando Lopez-Gallego was born andraised in Villaminaya, a small town in theregion of La Mancha (Spain), the land whereDon Quixote’s famous adventures tookplace. In 2007, he completed his doctoralstudies under the guidance of ProfessorGuisan and Professor Fernandez-Lafuenteat the Institute of Catalysis (ICP-CSIC) inMadrid, receiving his PhD from the Univer-sity Autonoma of Madrid. He then joinedProfessor Schmidt-Dannert’s laboratory atthe University of Minnesota (USA) as a post-doctoral researcher. Later on, he moved tothe REPSOL R&D Center in Madrid wherehe worked at the implementation of bio-catalysis in industrial processes. In 2013, hewas awarded an IKERBASQUE Fellowship(tenure-track grant) and started his indepen-dent career in the Basque Country. Heis currently leading the HeterogeneousBiocatalysis Lab at CIC biomaGUNE(Donostia, Spain), where he merges enzymeswith advanced materials to fabricate thenext generation of multi-functional hetero-geneous biocatalysts.

Paola Luciani has been an Associate Pro-fessor for Phospholipids in Drug Develop-ment at the Institute of Pharmacy, Universityof Jena, Germany, since September 2015.She obtained her MSc and PhD in ChemicalSciences in 2002 and 2006 respectively, andsubsequently worked as a Research Fellowon Colloidal Sciences at the University ofFlorence before moving to Switzerland. Shethen joined the group of Professor Leroux atthe ETH Zurich, where she spent six yearsworking as a postdoctoral scientist andgroup leader on drug formulation anddelivery. Her research focuses on thedesign and characterization of lipid-derived delivery systems for drug deliveryand diagnosis.

Jonathan Massera is an Associate Pro-fessor (Tenure Track) at Tampere Universityof Technology (BioMediTech institute andFaculty of Biomedical Sciences and Engi-neering). He is also an Academy ResearchFellow, appointed by the Academy of

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Finland (2014–2019). He obtained his MScand Engineering degree as part of a dualdegree between Polytech’Montpellier, Franceand Politecnico di Torino, Italy. He defendedhis PhD thesis in 2009, at Clemson Univer-sity, SC, USA. Today, his group is part of theBiomaterials and Tissue Engineering team.His research focuses on glasses with appli-cation in the medical field, primarily in bonereconstruction. Some the interests of hisresearch group are (i) phosphate andborosilicate bioactive glasses, fibers andscaffolds, (ii) glasses with thermal propertiesenabling hot forming, (iii) impact of con-trolled crystallization on the bioactivityand (iv) bioimaging of implants. Thebioactive glasses developed are used assuch or as part of a composite.

Yukiko T. Matsunaga is an AssistantProfessor in the Institute of IndustrialScience (IIS) at the University of Tokyo.She obtained her PhD in Material Scienceand Engineering from Tsukuba Universityin 2007. She carried out her postdoctoralresearch at Tokyo Women’s Medical Uni-versity and The University of Tokyo. Herresearch interests include smart polymersfor biomedical applications, bottom-uptissue engineering and microdevices.

Javier Montenegro received his PhD(2009) from the University of Santiago deCompostela (USC, Professor Susana Lopez).He was a visiting scientist in the groups ofProfessor Steven Ley (Cambridge University)and Professor Reza M. Ghadiri (Scripps). In2009 he moved to the University of Genevafor three years of postdoctoral studies withProfessor Stefan Matile. In 2012 he obtaineda Juan de la Cierva fellowship (ProfessorJuan R. Granja) and in 2014 a Ramon yCajal contract at the Organic ChemistryDepartment and the CIQUS at USC. In2015 he was awarded with a Starting Grantfrom the European Research Council (ERC).His research interests lie at the interphasebetween organic synthetic and supra-molecular chemistry applied to biologicalsystems and the discovery of new materials.His current projects are focused in thetopological control of supramolecularassemblies for broad applications such asdifferential sensing, controlled delivery andtubular-templated composites.

Jonathan Pokorski began his scientificcareer by earning his BS in Biochemistryfrom UCLA in 2002. He received his PhDdegree in chemistry from NorthwesternUniversity in 2007, studying peptidomi-metics under the guidance of Dan Appella.He later moved to The Scripps ResearchInstitute, for postdoctoral studies workingwith M. G. Finn, investigating viruses asnanomaterials. During postdoctoral train-ing, he first earned an NIH fellowship andlater secured an NIH Pathway to Indepen-dence Award. His lab at Case WesternReserve University works to bridge syn-thetic chemistry, molecular biology, andmaterials science to make new materialsfor biomedical applications.

Kanyi Pu received his PhD from theNational University of Singapore in 2011followed by a postdoctoral study at StanfordUniversity. He joined the School of Chemicaland Biomedical Engineering (SCBE)at Nanyang Technological (NTU) as an

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Associate Professor in 2015. Till now, he haspublished more than 70 peer-reviewed pub-lications and has a h-index of 36. Hisresearch lies at the intersection of polymerchemistry, nanotechnology, photonics andbiology, aiming at the development of smartmolecular probes and advanced imagingtechnologies to understand, detect and treatlife-threatening diseases. One of his recentresearch interests is to develop ultra-sensitive molecular probes for photo-acoustic imaging.

Takamasa Sakai received his PhD degree(2007) from the University of Tokyo underthe supervision of Professor Ryo Yoshida.He was an Assistant Professor (2007–2015)and was promoted to an Associate Professorin 2015 at the University of Tokyo. Heinvestigates polymer gels with controllednetwork structure named Tetra-PEG gel.He focuses on the fundamentals of polymergels, including the mechanical propertiesand diffusion of substances in polymer gels,and applications of hydrogels to thebiomedical field.

Sarah Stabenfeldt received her BS inBiomedical Engineering from Saint LouisUniversity and her PhD in Bioengineeringfrom Georgia Institute of Technology. Shewas awarded an NIH NRSA pre-doctoralfellowship for her doctoral thesis researchon developing neural tissue engineeringtherapies for traumatic brain injury. As aNIH post-doctoral fellow at Emory UniversitySchool of Medicine and Georgia Tech, sheinvestigated fibrin-derived peptide–proteinbinding interactions, designing fibrin-basedwound healing therapeutics. She joinedArizona State University’s School of Bio-logical and Health Systems Engineeringas an Assistant Professor in 2011 and leadsher research team in developing regenerativemedicine strategies for acute neuralinjury. Since joining ASU, Sarah has beenawarded the Arizona Biomedical ResearchConsortium Early Stage Investigator Award,the NIH Director’s New Innovator Awardand the NSF CAREER Award.

Mei Chee Tan is an Assistant Professorat the Singapore University of Technologyand Design. She graduated with herBachelor degree in Chemical Engineering,and earned her Master and Doctoratedegrees with the Singapore-MIT Allianceat the National University of Singapore.Her research focuses on the study andengineering of tailored interfaces usingsolution methods to fabricate multifunc-tional composites for infrared imagingapplications to facilitate rapid diagnosisand early detection. She has extensiveexperience in the design and synthesisof infrared photonic nanomaterials andfunctional composite systems, which hasbeen published in top-tiered peer reviewedjournals and book chapters.

Bozhi Tian received his PhD degree inphysical chemistry from Harvard Universityin 2010. His PhD research with ProfessorCharles Lieber included new nanowirematerials synthesis, the fundamental study

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of high performance nanowire photovoltaicsand the application of novel nanowiredevices in cells and tissue. He worked withProfessors Daniel Kohane and RobertLanger as a postdoctoral scholar in tissueengineering. He is now an Assistant Pro-fessor at the University of Chicago, workingon semiconductor-based cellular biophysics.Accolades from his independent careerinclude the Presidential Early Career Awardsfor Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), 2016NIH new innovator award, 2016 ONR younginvestigator award, 2016 Sloan fellowship,2015 AFOSR young investigator award, 2013NSF CAREER award, 2013 Searle Scholaraward and 2012 TR35 honoree.

Hua Wei is a Professor in the Collegeof Chemistry and Chemical Engineeringat Lanzhou University, China. Hereceived his PhD degree in PolymerScience in 2009 from Wuhan University,China, and then joined the University ofSydney as a postdoctoral fellow in 2010.He then worked with Professor Suzie H.Pun in the Department of Bioengineeringat the University of Washington for threeyears before joining Lanzhou University.His research interests include the con-trolled synthesis and self-assembly ofsmart polymers and their applicationsfor drug and gene delivery.

Zhigang Xie is a full Professor inChangchun Institute of Applied Chem-istry (CIAC), Chinese Academy of Science(CAS). He obtained his BS degree inchemistry from Henan University in2002 and his PhD degree in polymerchemistry from CIAC in 2007. Beforejoining CIAC in 2012, he worked as apostdoctoral fellow at Polytechnic Univer-sity at Brooklyn and the University ofNorth Carolina at Chapel Hill. Hisresearch focuses on polymeric nano-medicines and fluorescent nanoparticles.He has published more 70 papers in inter-national scientific journals.

Chenjie Xu is an Assistant Professor ofbioengineering at Nanyang TechnologicalUniversity Singapore. His primary researchinterest is to solve the unmet needs inbiomedical research with micro/nano-technologies. Currently, he is focusingon transdermal drug delivery/biosensing

with technologies like microneedles andnanoparticles for regenerative medicine.He holds a PhD degree from BrownUniversity and a Bachelor’s degree fromNanjing University.

Li-Tang Yan obtained his PhD in polymerphysics and chemistry at Tsinghua Univer-sity in 2007. Then he went to BayreuthUniversity in Germany as a HumboldtResearch Fellowship. In 2010, he joinedProfessor Anna Balazs’ group at Universityof Pittsburgh in USA as a PostdoctoralResearch Fellow. He returned to TsinghuaUniversity as a faculty member in theDepartment of Chemical Engineering fromMay 2011. In 2014, he obtained the NSFCAward for Excellent Young Scholar. Hisresearch interests focus on computa-tional and theoretical aspects of softmatter systems, including nanoparticlecellular interactions and nano-engineeredmaterials that are self-assembling and self-regulating.

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Yan Yu received her PhD in materialsscience and engineering at the Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign andcompleted postdoctoral studies at Uni-versity of California Berkeley before join-ing the faculty at Indiana University as anAssistant Professor in 2012. Her group isworking on using Janus particle-enabledtools to quantitatively measure and con-trol biological processes.

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