Excited to share our latest work in collaboration with @dcongreve.bsky.social—Light-Responsive Star Polymers for Reprocessable Network Formation and Deconstruction—now published in Macromolecules! @pubs.acs.org @acs.org Read it here: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

PhD student Michelle Quan's review article on “Biomolecular Actuators for Soft Robots” was selected for the cover of Chemical Reviews! Michelle highlights the history and new frontiers for biomolecules as tools to actuate movement in soft robots. #MyACSCover @acs.org @pubs.acs.org

Last month, Dr. Michael Burroughs won a Best Poster Award from the ACS PMSE Division @acspmse.bsky.social!! Mike’s poster featured his recent work on the hybrid synthesis of bottlebrush DNA polymers for direct visualization at fluid–solid interfaces. Congratulations, Mike!

On to the next meeting! Mike Burroughs and I will share some new results at the @acs.org Spring Meeting in San Diego 🌴 Stop by to learn more! @acspmse.bsky.social @acspoly.bsky.social

Eleanor and I are excited to travel to the American Physical Society @apsphysics.bsky.social Global Summit in Anaheim! Stop by next week to learn about our newest discoveries in polymer physics!

Congratulations Dr. Marina Chang, the 1st PhD student from the Mai Lab to defend her dissertation!! In her defense, Marina shared her work on "Leveraging Sequence Repetition to Engineer Calcium-Responsive Protein Polymers". We are excited to celebrate Marina's contributions & accomplishments!!

In Memory of Andy Acrivos: University of Minnesota Alumnus and Titan of Chemical Engineering cse.umn.edu/cems/news/me...

In Memory of Andy Acrivos: CEMS Alum and Titan of Chemical Engineering

Andreas (Andy) Acrivos passed away on February 17, 2025. Born in Greece in 1928, Prof. Acrivos arrived at Minnesota in 1950 following undergraduate studies at Syracuse University, becoming the  second...

cse.umn.edu

I’ve added quite a few new polymer scientists to this starter pack over the last couple days! Check them out! #chemsky #polymersky Also, always appreciate the help in finding people! Comment/DM to be added and continue to share :) go.bsky.app/AgjxzFa

1st post in a new space seems like a good spot to feature the 1st project by the lab's 1st PhD student! We set out to engineer calcium-responsive proteins as muscle-mimetic materials and discovered some surprises along the way. Congrats to Marina, Winnie, Gatha, and Kenny! doi.org/10.1039/D4PY...

Sequence-defined structural transitions by calcium-responsive proteins

Biopolymer sequences dictate their functions, and protein-based polymers are a promising platform to establish sequence–function relationships for novel biopolymers. To efficiently explore vast sequen...

doi.org