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A tale of biologically relevant amine functional polymers

Abstract

I will discuss highly unprecedented and pH-assisted self-assembled microstructures of weak cationic polymers. The talk will specifically focus on Polyethyleneimine (PEI), an industrially relevant amine functional polymer and a gold-standard non-viral vector for gene transfection.

Biography

Kamendra’s area of interest is in the design and development of soft materials. Kamendra finished his Ph.D. in 2011 at the Polymer Science and Engineering Department of National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. His work provided fundamental insights into the template-based assembly of nanostructures in surfactant-based lyotropic liquid crystals. This work offered novel routes for forming self-standing three-dimensional scaffolds with tunable microstructures. After his Ph.D., he moved to the University of Bristol, UK, where he worked with a new class of protein-based hierarchical materials with exquisite properties. Subsequently, he joined the Department of Chemistry, IIT Bombay, as an Assistant Professor in November 2015 to set up a vibrant Soft Materials Laboratory. 

His research group is currently interested in designing and developing multi-functional self-assembled colloidal materials using various colloidal building blocks (nanoparticles, polymers, surfactants, liquid crystals, and proteins). Through the state-of-the-art laboratory and brilliant students, they are working on various aspects of research related to protein-surface engineering, liquid crystal technology, synthesis and assembly of biomimetic nanomaterials, and polyelectrolyte dynamics in aqueous solutions. The self-assembled soft materials developed in their lab have been demonstrated for applications in (bio)catalysis, optical (bio)sensors, carbon sequestration and mineralization, and even additive manufacturing. Towards direct applications, his group actively collaborates with Industries related to formulations, detergency, and cosmetics. His work has been well recognized on different platforms, and apart from many awards during his PhD and post-doc, he was also awarded the IIT Bombay Early Research Achiever Awards.