Event
Chemical Society Seminar: Brent Sumerlin- Well-Defined Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polymers: From Multifunctional Materials to Mucosal Medicine
Tuesday, February 11, 2025 13:00to14:30
Maass Chemistry Building
OM 10, 801 rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3A 0B8, CA
Abstract:
Relying solely on mild ultraviolet or visible irradiation of thiocarbonylthio compounds, a new avenue to polymer-protein conjugates, semi-telechelic polymers, and well-defined ultra-high molecular weight (UHMW) block polymers has been developed. This photomediated polymerization approach reaches number-average molecular weights in excess of 8.00 麓 106 g/mol with degrees of polymerization above 85,000, making these, to our knowledge, the highest molecular weight polymers ever achieved via a living polymerization. Ironically, the same chemistry that enables the synthesis of these polymers can also be harnessed to facilitate reversion to monomer (i.e., depolymerization), suggesting programmed polymer design can enable a low-energy approach to polymer life-cycle circularity. The utility of these techniques is further demonstrated in the area of mucin-mimetic systems.
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Bio:
Brent Sumerlin is the George Bergen Butler Chair in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Florida. He received his undergraduate degree from North Carolina State University in 1998 and later earned his PhD in Polymer Science & Engineering at the University of Southern Mississippi under the guidance of Charles McCormick. After completing his PhD, Sumerlin worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor/Postdoctoral Research Associate at Carnegie Mellon University under Krzysztof Matyjaszewski. In 2005, he took a faculty position at Southern Methodist University before moving to the University of Florida in 2012. Sumerlin is an associate editor for ACS Macro Letters and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has received awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, NSF CAREER Award, ACS Leadership Development Award, Journal of Polymer Science Innovation Award, Biomacromolecules/Macromolecules Young Investigator Award, the Hanwha-Total IUPAC Award, Mark Scholar Award, and the UF Doctoral Dissertation Mentoring/Advising Award.