Our research is focused on the development of polymerization techniques to make specialized polymer materials with applications in industry and the biomedical field.

The discovery of the Metal-Organic Insertion/ Light Initiated Radical Polymerization (MILRad) allows us to design distinct block copolymer architectures with selected functionalities in a one-pot process guided by light irradiation. It is possible to polymerize for the first time olefines and acrylates together in a one-step process.  It will be our goal to explore the MILRad polymerization with a variety of monomer combinations and catalytic systems to develop specialized thermoplastics.

A long standing interest in the area of biomaterials in our group has let us to explore hydrogel materials with unique mechanical properties which we develop with collaborators in Europe and the US.

We are active in the area of nanomaterials for drug delivery applications for the last 10 years and further develop our patented nanosponge technology to a second generation nanosponge material. Furthermore, photocatalytic processes allow us to probe deeper into functional expandable nanomaterials that are generated from one parent particle system. This technology affords nanomaterial size expansions, the integration of functional groups and other entities together with polymer linear and branched chains.