Soft Matter

Convener:

Carol Stanier, Soft Matter

Programme:

Wednesday 5 August (afternoon)

Thursday 6 August (morning and afternoon)

Friday 7 August (morning)

Keynote Speakers

Soft material approaches to drug delivery morphologies and stem cell differentiation
Dennis E. Discher, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Soft glassy rheology of colloidal star polymers
Dimitris Vlassopoulos, IESL-FORTH and University of Crete, Greece

Hyperbranched fluoropolymers: From antifouling marine coatings to cancer imaging and therapeutic agents
Karen L. Wooley, Texas A&M University, USA

Enzyme-instructed formation of nanofibers and hydrogels for biomedicine
Bing Xu, Brandeis University, USA

Speakers

Controlled release of model dyes from supramolecular hydrogels formed from Fmoc-amino acids
Dave J. Adams, University of Liverpool, UK

Synthesis and self-assembly of well-defined block copolypeptides
Neil R. Cameron, Durham University, UK

Enzyme-driven dynamic peptide library
Apurba K. Das, University of Strathclyde, UK

Spontaneous formation of nanostructured polymer-surfactant films
Karen J. Edler, University of Bath, UK

Amyloid peptide copolymers: Self-assembled nanostructures of bioactive materials
Ian W. Hamley, University of Reading, UK

Aggregates with bicontinuous internal structures from amphiphilic comb diblock copolymers
Simon J. Holder, University of Kent, UK

Facile preparation method for core-shell microspheres with controlled surface roughness
Hirotaka Ihara, Kumamoto University, Japan

Ultra-fast bursting of sensitive polymersomes induced by curling
Min-Hui Li, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, France

Synthesis and characterization of glycopolymer brushes by surface-initiated ATRP
Anca Mateescu, University of Crete, Greece

Designing protein self-assembly for tissue engineering applications
Aline F. Miller, University of Manchester, UK

Nanostructures engineering via living radical polymerization
Sébastien Perrier, University of Sydney, Australia

Nanoengineered materials for biomedical applications
Georgina K. Such, University of Melbourne, Australia

Enclosure of chirally-oriented achiral dye induced by self-assembled lipid aggregates into polymer matrix 
Makoto Takafuji, Kumamoto University, Japan

Preparation of cylindical co-micelles by crystallisation-driven polymerisation
George R. Whittell, University of Bristol, UK

Aligned structures by directional freezing
Haifei Zhang, University of Liverpool, UK

Symposium Information

Soft matter is not a new topic - indeed de Gennes was awarded a Nobel prize for research into soft matter in 1991. However more and more researchers are realising that the work they do, on the edges of physics, chemistry, materials science, or biology, does not fit into these traditional disciplines but it does fit under the umbrella term of soft matter. 

This meeting aims to give researchers from all areas of soft matter the chance to discuss their research and to see how their knowledge can be applied in solving a range of soft matter problems, from adhesion to cell membranes to rheology of polymer mixtures.

Sessions:

• Tissue engineering (e.g. hydrogels, polymer scaffolds, regulation of cell function)
• Molecular self-organisation of soft systems (e.g. peptide, copolymers, biomaterials)
• Proteins and cells (e.g. cell adhesion, membranes, biophysics)
• Surfaces/rheology (e.g. polymer physics, theory)