In what was a fast-paced day of science and celebration, both Kim Clarke and Shalini Saxena defended their dissertations last Monday. Kim’s talk (The Fabrication and Study of Stimuli-Responsive Microgel-Based Modular Assemblies) focused on controlling the properties of responsive thin films composed of microgels by spatially separating the assembly-controlling functionalities from the responsive elements viaContinue reading “congrats to 2 more grads”
Author Archives: Andrew Lyon
congrats to Mark!
This is a little late, but it is still definitely worth a post! Last Tuesday, Mark Spears successfully defended his dissertation, entitled “Microgel-Based Coatings and their Use as Self-Healing, Dynamic Substrates for Bioapplications”. With a body of research spanning from non-fouling coatings to self-healing materials, Mark has done a ton of work in some veryContinue reading “congrats to Mark!”
platelet-like particles will cure what ails you
Well, maybe that is overstating it. However, PLPs, as we call them, are pretty cool. This massive collaborative effort between Ashley Brown, Sarah Stabenfeldt, Tom Barker, Wilbur Lam, Nina Guzzetta, Alexander Alexeev, and yours truly was recently published online in Nature Materials. I won’t rehash the whole paper here – you should go read it for yourself.Continue reading “platelet-like particles will cure what ails you”
congrats to Emily!
Today we witnessed an outstanding presentation by Emily Herman on the topic of microgel/polyelectrolyte interactions as the final step in her path to a Ph.D. Of course, she defended her dissertation successfully, so we now get to call her Dr. Herman, which for some reason sounds like a ’70’s TV hospital drama to me. We celebratedContinue reading “congrats to Emily!”
catching up
Updates have been challenging with all of the cross-country move activities. However, I finally found a few minutes to at least post on the newest papers from the group. First comes a collaboration with the Fernandez-Nieves group and Urs Gasser at PSI that we published in JCP entitled “Form factor of pNIPAM microgels in overpacked states“. Actually,Continue reading “catching up”
new Accounts article
Shalini and Caroline recently collaborated to write an Accounts of Chemical Research article on “Microgel Mechanics in Biomaterial Design“. The work is a review of some of our efforts in at the microgel/bio interface, with the highlights being depicted in the artwork to the right (drawn by Prof. Lyon in ArtStudio on an iPad). InContinue reading “new Accounts article”
bacon and karaoke
Last week the group came over to enjoy some food, drink, and merriment one last time. Check out the details after the jump…
ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…
The group is staying but Dr. Lyon is going – this is the last week of Dr. Lyon’s (short) time as School Chair, and he will depart GT at the end of June for a new, very different position. Click here for details. This site will continue to share news and info regarding all thingsContinue reading “ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…”
good luck to Bob!
In what might be the final Lyon Group dinner ever (wow), we ventured out to Mellow Mushroom to wish Bob good luck in his next position. He is off to UNC-Chapel Hill to work with Sergei Sheiko on TBDA (To Be Determined Awesomeness). We are all sad to see Bob leave so soon after hisContinue reading “good luck to Bob!”
reconfigurable materials
Following up on the last post (December? Wow – sorry for the radio silence – things have been busy), I wanted to bring the special issue of Soft Matter on “Reconfigurable Soft Matter” to everyone’s attention. This issue was masterfully edited by Anna Balazs and Joanna Aizenberg to contain a rich array of approaches to softContinue reading “reconfigurable materials”
another new paper
I guess I should have just waited a few days to include this in the last post. Anyway, the manuscript “Microgel Film Dynamics Modulate Cell Adhesion Behavior” was published on line this week in the journal Soft Matter. This is another collaboration between my group and the Garcia group, with Shalini, Mark, Jeff, and HiroContinue reading “another new paper”
a few new papers
In the last few weeks we have seen three new papers show up online. First, we have “Host response to microgel coatings on neural electrodes implanted in the brain” published in Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part A. Stacy Gutowski from the Garcia group did all the heavy lifting here, wherein she implanted neural electrodes inContinue reading “a few new papers”
welcome back, Bob
This week Xiaobo (Bob) Hu returned to the group, this time as a postdoctoral scholar. Bob previously spent two years in the group as part of a Ph.D. exchange with his home institution (South China University of Technology). Now, after spending some time working in industry, he is back in the states to work onContinue reading “welcome back, Bob”
congrats to Nicole!
Today we learned that Nicole Welsch has been awarded a 2-year fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG). Her proposed work, “Engineering of fibrin-specific biocompatible microgels for the use as hemostatic agents”, will help us to continue our growth in the area of extracellular-matrix derived materials. Congrats!
new issue of polymer chemistry
A new themed issue of Polymer Chemistry came out today, including an article from the group that I have already written about. Note that we also got a little artwork on the back cover, thanks to artist Jesse Larson. Check it out – the issue is well edited and covers a broad range of approachesContinue reading “new issue of polymer chemistry”
The Chapman Nanoanalysis Lab (ChaNL) 