Juncheng Lu is awarded the Master of Chemical Sciences Capstone Award

At the University of Pennsylvania’s 266th Commencement ceremony, group member Juncheng Lu (Luke) was awarded the Master of Chemical Sciences Capstone Award for his Capstone project titled “Targeted Delivery of mRNA with One-Component Multifunctional Sequence-Defined Ionizable Amphiphilic Janus Dendrimers”. Luke received the award together with his Master of Chemical Sciences diploma during the ceremony.

César Rodriguez-Emmenegger interview as he starts a position of ICREA Professor at the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia

Former member César Rodriguez-Emmenegger interview is highlighted on Advanced Science News.

César was born in the north of Uruguay. He graduated from the Universidad de la República (Montevideo, Uruguay) as a Chemical Engineer. Later he moved to Prague to pursue his PhD in Biophysics, Chemical and Macromolecular Physics at the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and Charles University in Prague. During his PhD, César visited the group of Prof. W. T. S. Huck in Cambridge University (Cambridge, United Kingdom) and Prof. V. Percec in University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, USA) as part of research stay. With the support of an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship, he worked in the group of Prof. C. Barner-Kowollik in Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Karlsruhe, Germany) and subsequently, he was a visiting scholar at Prof. Percec group, working on living radical polymerization of (meth)acrylamide water soluble monomers and the synthesis of Janus dendrimers. He established his junior group first in IMC Prague and later in DWI Aachen and is now moving to the Institute of Bioengineering of Catalonia in Spain. In his interview, he says “Be passionate, creative, and bold”.

Please see the interview here.

 

Professor Virgil Percec elected as a Foreign Member of the Academy of Academia Europaea

Professor Virgil Percec was elected to be a Foreign Member of the Academy of Academia Europaea in the Chemistry section, 2020.
The Academia Europaea is the pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as the functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of European interests in national research agencies.
Congratulations to Virgil!

New Publication in PNAS Highlighted by Penn Today

A paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America entitled “Nanovesicles displaying functional linear and branched oligomannose self-assembled from sequence-defined Janus glycodendrimers” was published recently by our group and highlighted by E. K. Brockmeier “A new tool for cell biologists” in Penn Today. This work is a collaboration between Penn, Temple University, the Max Planck Institute, the Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, RWTH Aachen University, and Freie Universität Berlin, This story demonstrated how our research on synthetic vesicles coated with oligomannose can do for coronavirus.

Devendra (Dev) Maurya Selected for the MCS Capstone Award

Master Student Devendra (Dev) Maurya was selected for the MCS capstone award.

Devendra Maurya obtained a B.Tech in Surface Coating Technology form the Institute of Chemical Technology, India in 2017. He completed the capstone project entitled “Can Mixed Ligand and Catalytic Solvent Effects Transform Single Electron Transfer Living Radical Polymerization (SET-LRP) into a Commercializable Process?” under Prof. Virgil Percec mentorship at UPenn Chemistry. He expanded the concept of mixed ligand effect to other metal-catalyzed polymerization, identified conditions that are more cost effective, and expanded the library of solvent which can be used with TREN. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Organic or Polymer Chemistry after graduation.

Former Member Steph Korey highlighted in VOGUE

Former Member Stephanie Korey was highlighted in VOGUE, a fashion magazine in November 2019.

Stephanie was born in the United States and grew up in Ohio. She studied international relations at Brown University and received her MBA from Columbia University.

Stephanie is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Away, a direct-to-consumer lifestyle brand that creates luggage and other travel products. She worked in Percec Laboratory as a high school internship student and co-authored a publication in J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 6713-6720.

Professor Virgil Percec in the 100 Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA), with Former Member Professor Ulrica Edlund

Professor Virgil Percec visited Sweden in the 100 Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) from Oct. 23 to Oct. 29, 2019.

Professor Ulrica Edlund was a postdoctoral research fellow in Percec’s group from 2000 to 2001. Among other projects, she contributed to the dipeptide project published in Nature (Nature 2004, 430, 764–768). Ulrica was elected to The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) on 2018.

The picture shows Professor Virgil Percec and Professor Ulrica Edlund during the 100 Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).