Chemistry Commons^™

Polymer-Based Nanotherapeutics To Combat Difficult-To-Treat Bacterial Infections, Jessa Marie V. Makabenta

Doctoral Dissertations

The continuous emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a global health emergency, debilitating the capability to prevent and cure various infectious diseases that were once treatable. Antibiotic therapy is further rendered ineffective due to biofilm formation and the ability of bacteria to thrive and colonize inside mammalian cells. Given the diminishing efficacy of available antibiotics combined with the scarcity of new therapeutics entering the antibiotic pipeline, innovative treatment strategies are urgently in demand. Nanomaterial-based strategies offer ‘outside of the box’ approach for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. Nanomaterials feature tunable physicochemical properties that can be carefully modified to …

Reactive Chemistries For Protein Labeling, Degradation, And Stimuli Responsive Delivery, Myrat Kurbanov

Doctoral Dissertations

Reactive chemistries for protein chemical modification play an instrumental role in chemical biology, proteomics, and therapeutics. Depending on the application, the selectivity of these modifications can range from precise modification of an amino acid sequence by genetic manipulation of protein expression machinery to a stochastic modification of lysine residues on the protein surface. Ligand-Directed (LD) chemistry is one of the few methods for targeted modification of endogenous proteins without genetic engineering. However, current LD strategies are limited by stringent amino acid selectivity. To bridge this gap, this thesis focuses on the development of highly reactive LD Triggerable Michael Acceptors (LD-TMAcs) …

Machine Learning Modeling Of Polymer Coating Formulations: Benchmark Of Feature Representation Schemes, Nelson I. Evbarunegbe

Masters Theses

Polymer coatings offer a wide range of benefits across various industries, playing a crucial role in product protection and extension of shelf life. However, formulating them can be a non-trivial task given the multitude of variables and factors involved in the production process, rendering it a complex, high-dimensional problem. To tackle this problem, machine learning (ML) has emerged as a promising tool, showing considerable potential in enhancing various polymer and chemistry-based applications, particularly those dealing with high dimensional complexities.

Our research aims to develop a physics-guided ML approach to facilitate the formulations of polymer coatings. As the first step, this …

Controlling Mechanical Properties Of Well-Defined Polymer Networks, Ipek Sacligil

Doctoral Dissertations

Polymer networks are one of the most versatile and highly studied material class that revolutionized many aspects of life. Connecting the final network properties to the molecular parameters of its building blocks remains a major research thrust. Recent advances in network synthesis techniques allowed for accurate predictions of elastic modulus in model networks. Tew Group has developed highly efficient, thiol-norbornene networks with controllable mechanical properties. Chapter 2 focuses on modifying the gel fracture energy predicted by Lake-Thomas theory by accounting for loop defects. This study allowed for a priori estimates of gel fracture energy by combining theory, experiments, and simulations. …

Effect Of Chemical Identity And Morphology On Amphiphilic-Zwitterionic Block Copolymer Membranes, Ria Ghosh

Doctoral Dissertations

Amphiphilic block copolymers have gained a broad research interest attributed to their self-assembly properties over a range of pH, temperature, and ionic strength. Polyzwitterions have attracted special attention due to their hydrophilicity, charge sensitivity and coulombic attraction of the opposite charges over a range of environments making them a popular material of study in the field of stimuli responsive systems, for example in self-healing hydrogels, and water transport membranes. Combining the stimuli responsiveness and higher hydrophilicity of zwitterionic polymers with self-assembly behavior of amphiphilic block copolymers created an interest to study the effect of composition and identity of the zwitterionic …

Vapor Deposition Of Self-Wrinkling Polymer Films, Robert N. Enright

Doctoral Dissertations

Initiated chemical vapor deposition is used to grow polymer films on substrates of various three-dimensional shapes which exhibit wrinkling during film growth, termed self-wrinkling. Self-wrinkling avoids separate film growth and compression steps and more-closely mimics processes observed in nature. The self-wrinkling process is elucidated on flat elastic substrates, revealing control over the amount of compressive stress by changing deposition conditions. Next, a study of films grown on liquid substrates with interface profiles that either resemble cylinders or contain repeating concave cones, saddles, and bowls affirms the principle that the wrinkle roundness increases with interface curvature. The selection of high versus …