Favorite Past Projects - Top 3

The Top-Three:

1)  J-aggregated π-Conjugated Macrocycles. A series of organic macrocycles were synthesized and self-assembled into high PL quantum yield (92%) J-aggregates. These materials exhibited strong light-matter coupling and robust ambient stability. This work was conducted at MIT. (Chan et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 5659-5666)

Article link:  http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja900382r

2)  Metal-Catalyzed Depolymerization of Lignin. We reported a non-oxidative vanadium-catalyzed depolymerization of natural lignin. This research was done at UC Berkeley. (Chan et al. ACS Catal. 2013, 3, 1369-1377)

Article link:  http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cs400333q

3)  Degradable Zwitterionic Polymers. A series of biodegradable water-soluble polycarbonates bearing zwitterionic sidechains were designed and shown to possess multifunctional properties for nanomedicine applications. This work was conducted at IBM Almaden. (Chan et al. Chem. Sci. 2014, 5, 3294-3300)

Article link:  http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2014/SC/c4sc00789a

Polymeric Mixed-Micelles for Nanomedicine Applications

Some work I performed as a scientist at IBM Almaden Research Center: A degradable polymeric mixed-micelle system based on amphiphilic mPEG-b-polycarbonate diblock copolymers was developed. This mussel-inspired polymer design features catechol side chains to which the anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) can be covalently conjugated as pH-sensitive p-quinoneimines via a mechanism that mimics the Raper–Mason pathway of mammalian melanogenesis.

  

Article link:  http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.macromol.5b02784

Metal-Free MRI Contrast Agents - a Radical Solution!

My paper on organic radical-functionalized polymers has just been published in ACS Macro Letters. This was work that was done 2 years ago at IBM Almaden Research Center. The idea behind this research was to employ a metal-free spin-active system that is also biodegradable. Our work on these radical-functionalized diblock copolymers can be accessed here: ACS Macro Lett. 2017, 6, 176-180.

Accompanying patent application: Chan, et al. “Biodegradable Organic Radical-Functionalized Polycarbonates for Medical Applications”, U.S. Patent App. 14/609,778, 2015.