Latest News (Follow us @johnsonchem; click here for group Wiki):

14 March 2021: Congrats to Bin for being selected as a 2023 PMSE Future Faculty Honoree, which will be celebrated at the Fall ACS Meeting in San Francisco!

14 March 2021: Congrats to Aiden for being awarded a David H. Koch Graduate Fellowship for his work on the development of bottlebrush prodrug protein degraders!

13 March 2023: Sachin's paper introducing TLR-agonist bottlebrush prodrugs (TLR-BPDs) and exploring the impact of TLR agonist release kinetics on immune activation is accepted for publication in Science Advances! This work shows that the acute systemic toxicity of TLR agonists can be mitigated without compromising anti-tumor responses through molecularly optimized BPD linkers. Congrats to Sachin for leading this great work and to our collaborators from the Irvine, Shalek, Spranger, and Langer groups! More details to come.

10 March 2023: Wencong's paper in collaboration with Tetsu Ouchi and Prof. Stephen Craig at Duke on probing the effect of strand length on mechanochemical transduction in elastomers is accepted for publication in Polymer Chemistry! In this work, Wencong prepared discrete oligosiloxane-based spiropyran force probes of varied length, which Tetsu used to create crosslinked silicone elastomers and explore how the length of the force probe impacts its mechanochemical behavior. Congrats to the whole team for this great work and thanks to MONET for support. More details to come.

20 February 2023: Our collaborative paper with Prof. Bradley Olsen led by Haley Beech on using small-angle neutron scattering to probe conformations of polymer strands in end-linked networks appears online in ACS Macro Letters! Congrats to Haley for this great work and thanks to MONET for support. Click on the image below to check out the paper.

26 January 2023: Our collaborative paper with Dr. Peter Ghoroghchian and Dr. Irene Ghobrial on molecular bottlebrush prodrugs for multiple myeloma therapy appears online in Nature Nanotechnology! This paper (1) introduces a next-generation proteasome inhibior with improved potentcy and safety, (2) shows that multi-drug synergy can differ between free drug and nanoparticle prodrug, necessitating identification of synergy in the nanoparticle context, and (3) demonstrates mathematically and experimentally that a synergistic combination of multiple drugs in 1 nanoparticle outperforms a mixture of single-drug nanoparticles at the same overall drug ratio. Thanks to Dr. Alex Detappe and Dr. Hung Nguyen for leading these studies, and congrats to everyone on the team for this important work! Click on the image below to check out the paper and see the associated MIT News article by Anne Trafton HERE as well as the News & Views article by Twan Lammers and Alexandros Marios Sofias HERE.

24 January 2023: Former student Dr. Matthew Pearson's paper on using mixtures of multivalent polymer linkers and small-molecule linkers to tune gas uptake in polymer metal–organic framework (polyMOF) materials is published online in Molecular Systems Design and Engineering! This paper reveals that mixtures of polymeric linkers and small-molecule linkers can produce interesting synergistic material effects. For example, mixed polyMOF-5 analogs made from polymer and small-molecule linkers displayed greater CO₂ uptake than either the pure polyMOF-5 or MOF-5. Congrats to Matthew on this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

13 January 2023: Keith's paper on octanoic acid-catalyzed exchange of bifuntional silyl ethers (BSEs) to enable deconstruction or remolding of polydicyclopentadiene thermosets is published online in JACS! This paper shows that comonomers can be used as drop-in additives to convert permanently crosslinked, industrial thermosets into covalent adaptable networks. It also introduces octanoic acid-catalyzed BSE exchange as a tool for dynamic covalent chemistry. Congrats to Keith and all of our MONET collaborators who made this work possible! Click on the image below to read the paper.

9 January 2023: Kicking off 2023 with Zehao's work appearing online in Nature Nanotechnology! This paper introduces "intrinsic molecular confinement" as a strategy to produce novel self-assembled network phases from the bottom-up. Congrats to Zehao and thanks to our collaborators Prof. Caroline Ross and Prof. Alfredo Alexander-Katz! Click on the image below to check out the paper and see the associated News & Views article by Dr. Kevin Yager HERE.

31 December 2022: We rounded out the year in style with Wencong's paper featured on the cover of JACS and an epic group dinner/karaoke event! See you in 2023!

14 December 2022: We enjoyed hosting students from Sarah Greenwood Dual Language School for a fun discussion about polymers, polymer networks, mechanophores, and life as scientists! Special thanks to Luis Hernandez for helping to make this event possible, and MONET for presentation materials and support. Looking forward to seeing you next year!

14 December 2022: It's been an exciting week for Dr. Keith Husted. Not only did he defend his thesis (see picture below), but two papers he led as part of his thesis work were accepted for publication in JACS and ACS Central Science! Congrats to Keith for all of your accomplishments!

7 December 2022: Our paper led by former group members Dr. Terhuiko Saito and Prof. Megan Hill is published online in JACS. This work introduces a novel catalytic method for the conversion of common polyolefins to conjugated block copolymers for electronics applications. Congrats to Megan and Teru and all of our collaborators! Click on the image below to read the paper.

10 November 2022: Our paper led by former group member Prof. Mingjiang Zhong and his group at Yale University on the assembly of complex multi-block bottlebrush copolymers is published online in Nature Materials. This work takes the first step toward realizing one of our longstanding dreams of designing tri- and tetra-block bottlebrush copolymers as building blocks for the assembly of complex, hierarchical bulk morphologies. Amazing work by Prof. Zhong and his group! Click on the image below to read the paper.

20 September 2022: Wencong's paper on the synthesis and biological performance of polymer–insulin conjugates based on discete, chiral polymers is published online in JACS. This work presents proof-of-concept for a new approach to polymer–polypeptide/protein conjugation that avoids the heterogeneity of traditional polymers and offers opportunities for the generation of diversely functionalized conjugates. Congrats to Wencong and the whole team for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

1 August 2022: We are thrilled to welcome our newest postdoc Dr. Su Nguyen to the group! We look forward to working with you Su!

12 July 2022: Alayna's paper on orthogonally deconstructable and depolymerizable polysilylethers via entropy-driven ROMP is published online in Chemical Communications! Outstanding work Alayna, Keith, and Landon. Click on the image below to read the open-access paper.

12 July 2022: Our manuscript initiated by Nate and ultimately led by Chris and David on "polyCAT" gels is published online in JACS. This work combines features of metal–organic frameworks (e.g., well-defined pore structures) with amorphous polymers (e.g., robust mechanical properties) to enable predictable design of freestanding heterogeneous catalysts that improve catalyst recyclability and enable catalysis under conditions where the homogeneous catalysts are not effective on their own. Congrats to the whole team for this great effort! Click on the image below to read the paper.

28 June 2022: Our manuscript led by Gavin on the deconstruction of common vinyl polymers (e.g., polystyrene, polyacrylate, and styrenic thermosets) using thionolactone comonomers, and subsequent repolymerization of the deconstructed fragments to generate recycled materials with similar molar masses and thermomechanical properties compared to the parent material, is published online in JACS. This work offers a promising strategy to break down and chemically recycle vinyl polymers using common polymerization methods (e.g., free radical polymerization), as well as a simple deconstruction and repolymerization workflow that uses readily available, selective reagents. Moreoever, it introduces new synthetic routes to thionolactones, allowing for tuning of their physical properties for copolymerizations. Congrats to the whole team for this great effort! Click on the image below to read the paper.

24 June 2022: Zehao's paper on "intrinsic molecular confinenment" self-assembly is posted online in ChemRxiv! In this work, Zehao shows how triblock bottlebrush polymers can be designed to access never-before-observed 3D mesh bulk morphologies. Congrats to the entire team for this outstanding work!

14 June 2022: Tian's paper outlining a new strategy for accelerating polymer electrolyte property screening using machine learning is published online in Nature Communications! Thanks to Tian and the Grossman, Shao-Horn, and Gómez-Bombarelli groups for this exciting collaboration. Click on the image below to view the paper.

6 June 2022: We are thrilled to welcome Sawyer Cawthern as an incoming PhD student to MIT and to the Johnson Group! We look forward to working with you!

1 June 2022: We're proud of our collaborator and visiting student Ekua Beneman for her presentation at Spelman's Research Day event. Great work Ekua!

1 June 2022: We're proud of our collaborator and visiting student Taylor Talley for her presentation at Spelman's Research Day event. Great work Taylor!

27 May 2022: Congratulations to our UROP Mary Dai on her graduation from MIT! Mary will pursue a PhD in Chemistry at Harvard University this fall. We'll miss you Mary, but we're excited to see the great work you'll do at Harvard and beyond!

26 May 2022: Today we celebrate commencement and the amazing contributions of three Johnson Group PhD recipients: Dr. Matthew Pearson, Dr. Peter Qin, and Dr. Wencong Wang! It has been our great honor to work with each of you, and we cannot wait to see how you impact the world in positive ways in your future careers!

18 May 2022: Congrats to Dr. Matthew Pearson for receiving a Chemistry Department 2022 Mentorship Spotlight Award in recognition of his mentorship contributions in the Johnson Group and beyond!

29 April 2022: Congrats to newly minted Dr. Matthew Pearson who successfully defended his thesis today!

25 April 2022: Congrats to newly minted Dr. Wencong Wang who successfully defended her thesis today!

22 March 2022: Another first for the group: Our first collaborative paper with our great friends in the Swager group has appeared online in Chemistry of Materials. Congrats to Weize Yuan and all involved!

1 March 2022: We are thrilled to welcome our newest postdoc Dr. Ho Fung (Edmund) Cheng to the group! Edmund joins us following PhD studies with Prof. Chad Mirkin at Northwestern. We look forward to working with you Edmund!

18 January 2022: Congratulations to newly minted PhD Dr. Peter Qin who defended his thesis today! Peter is the 10th PhD from the Johnson Group... my how the time has flown. Next he's heading to Oregon where he's joining 3D Systems. Congrats again Peter. We'll miss you!

1 January 2022: Happy 2022! We are thrilled to announce that PhD student Wencong Wang was selected to present in the 2022 Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Symposium at the upcoming ACS National Meeting in San Diego. Congrats Wencong!

20 December 2021: We are thrilled to announce that our own Dr. Megan Hill has received the MIT Infinite Expansion Award! This major Institute-wide honor recognizes Megan's exceptional science as well as her mentorship and leadership contributions. Congrats Megan!!!

10 December 2021: Matthew's paper on the synthesis of polymer metal–organic frameworks (polyMOFs) using reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and free radical polymerization (FRP) is publishd online in Chemistry of Materials. This work represents the first use of radical polymerization to form polymeric ligands for polyMOFs, opening the door to a wide range of new polyMOF compositions. Additionally, Matthew found that polymer ligand dispersity plays a key role in polyMOF crystallinity, with higher dispersity FRP-based polymers more readily forming crystalline polyMOFs than lower dispersity RAFT-based polymers. This result provides a new design principle for polyMOF synthesis, allowing rational tuning of ligand composition to balance material properties in the future. Click on the image below to read the paper!

6 December 2021: We are thrilled to welcome our newest graduate student Juan A. Cintrón Cruz to the group! Juan is a Course 3 (DMSE) student who joins us as part of the MIT PPSM program. We welcome you Juan and look forward to working with you!

25 November 2021: Happy Thanksgiving! Our paper initiated by former postdoc Jonathan and ultimately led by former group members Hung and Yivan describing the synthesis and biological investigation of bottlebrush polymers with discrete, chiral side chains appears online today in Nature Chemistry! In this work, we developed a new iterative exponential growth (IEG) strategy for the synthesis of discrete macromonomers with precise absolute configurations and tunable conformational rigidities. Two pairs of enantiomeric macromonomers were prepared and subjected to ROMP to produce bottlebrush polymers with mirror-image sidechains. Remarkably, we found that bottlebrush polymers with conformationally flexible side chains displayed handedness-dependent biological properties in vitro and in vivo, whereas comparably rigid bottlebrushes did not. These finding were rationalized using a simple model of chiral objects interacting with a chiral wall, showing that when the lock-and-key model does not apply, conformational flexibility can enhance chiral recognition. Thanks to all of our former group members (Hung, Yivan, Jonathan, Nate, Kathleen, Qixian, Matt, and Katherine!), current student Wencong, and our collaborators Rafael Gómez-Bombarelli, Adam Willard, Mike Hore, and their group members for their excellent contributions to this work! It has been years in the making! Click on the image below to read the paper.

21 October 2021: The magic electrolyte strikes again! Our paper with the Li and Shao-Horn groups realizing high-voltage Li||LiCoO2 batteries using our LiFSI/DMTMSA electrolyte is published online in Energy and Environmental Science. Congrats to current and former group members Megan and Wenxu, respectively, as well as Weijiang from the Li lab for leading this work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

7 October 2021: We are thrilled to announce that current postdoc Megan (below left) and former PhD student Yuwei (below right) were selected to participate in the PMSE Future Faculty Symposium at the upcoming ACS National Meeting! Congrats to both of you!

7 October 2021: Our MONET team paper led by Steve Craig and Zi Wang of Duke University on using mechanochemical extension of polymer network strands to increase hydrogel toughness is published online in Science. What an exciting way to begin Phase II of MONET! Click on the image below to read the paper.

28 September 2021: We are thrilled to welcome our newest postdoc Dr. Elisabeth Prince to the group! Ellie joins us as an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow following PhD studies at the University of Toronto. Welcome Ellie!

16 September 2021: PhD student Sachin has received a National Cancer Institute Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition (F99/K00) Award! He is the first student from MIT to ever win this incredibly prestigious honor. Congrats Sachin! Click on the image below to read the MIT News press release about Sachin and his work.

17 August 2021: Need to do tensile testing of your polymers but you don't have access to appropriate instrumenation and you don't want to spend too much $? Check out our new paper in Materials Advances. This work, which was led by former visiting student Martin Henriksen, describes a custom-built tensile tester made from readily available parts for about $500. Congrats to Martin for this great and very useful work! Click HERE to read the open access paper.

10 August 2021: Manu and Yivan's paper on the efficient synthesis of discrete glycomacromolecules—"glyco-IEGmers"—published online in JACS Au. Here, Manu and Yivan used iterative exponential growth (IEG) to prepare mannosylated oligotriazoles of varying lengths, absolute configurations, and topologies. Working in collaboration with Prof. Remzi Becer, we studied the binding of these molecules toward 8 different human lectins, showing that their molecular features can give rise to several orders-of-magnitude variations in binding affinity and selectivity. Then, with Prof. Laura Kiessling, we showed that their cellular trafficking can be tuned by altering their sidechain composition. All of these results were supported by molecular dynamics simulations from Prof. Rafael Gómez-Bombarelli, which revealed that the stereochemistry of the glyco-IEGmer backbone impacts its conformational diversity, which in term affects lectin binding. Congrats to everyone involved in this great work! Click on the image below to read the open access paper.

1 July 2021: The Johnson Group celebrates its 10-year anniversary! Thanks to all of our outstanding group members and collaborators who have made so many outstanding contributions over the years. Here's to the next 10!

28 June 2021: Our News & Views article with collaborators Yang Shao-Horn and Nicolò Minafra is now available online in Nature Energy. Thanks Yang and Nicolò for including us in this fun project! Click on the image below to read the article and check out the corresponding paper from Xiao, Liu, and coworkers.

14 June 2021: We welcome new UROP Lori Won to the group!

9 June 2021: We welcome MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP) visiting students Ekua Beneman and Taylor Talley from Prof. Michelle Gaines' group at Spelman College!

8 June 2021: Our team's effort on the design of "strand-cleaving crosslinker" additives for manufacturing chemically deconstructable versions of existing thermosets without compromising thermomechanical properties published online in ACS Macro Letters. Great work Keith, Peyton, David, and Sam! Click on the image below to check out the paper.

29 May 2021: Sachin's review on the development and delivery of TLR agonists is now available as an open access paper in Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews. Awesome work Sachin! Click on the image below to check out the paper.

4 May 2021: Michael receives a PMSE Best Poster Award for his presentation entitled "Highly Ordered Ion Conducting Polymer Electrolytes for Decoupled Ion Transport" at the Spring 2021 Virtual ACS Meeting! Congrats Michael!

7 April 2021: Our paper on the development of BET inhibitor bottlebrush polymer prodrugs is featured in JACS Spotlights! Check it out HERE.

6 April 2021: Our review on efficient covalent bond cleavage reactions, which we refer to as "clip" reactions for their complementary nature to bond-forming "click" reactions, appears online in Chemical Reviews as part of a special thematic issue on Click Chemistry. This manuscript has been a dream for many years and it's exciting to see it come to fruition! This also happens to be the group's 100th paper! Congrats to Peyton, Megan, Wenxu, and Samantha on this awesome work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

1 April 2021: The MONET team's review on characterization of polymer networks appears online in Chemical Reviews. Congrats to all involved! Click on the image below to read the paper.

25 March 2021: Our paper with the Li and Shao-Horn groups on the design of a new liquid electrolyte that enables cycling of ultra-high-voltage (4.7 V) Ni-rich lithium–metal batteries appears online in Nature Energy. Congrats to former group members Mingjun, Wenxu, and Sipei for their contributions to this great work. Click on the image below to read the paper, and check out the accompanying MIT News story HERE.

19 March 2021: Our paper on the development of BET inhibitor bottlebrush polymer prodrugs that display improved safety and efficacy in mouse models of triple-negative breast cancer appears online in JACS. This work demonstrates that the unique bivalent bottlebrush polymer architecture, combined with modular linker chemistry, can enable predictive in vitro to in vivo optimization of clinical or lead compounds that suffer from poor drug-like properties or therapeutic indexes. Congrats to Farrukh and the rest of our awesome team on this work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

8 March 2021: On this International Women's Day we thank the Johnson Group Women for their many outstanding contributions to our group, the MIT Chemistry Department, and the world in general. You are awesome!

8 March 2021: Congrats to Sachin for being awarded a Slavin Family Foundation Fellowship!

15 February 2021: We welcome new first year graduate students Alayna Johnson and Aiden Wang to the group! Read their bios on the group page!

1 February 2021: Join us on February 16th for the next seminar in the JGSS. We are happy to welcome Dr. Darrel Boyd from the US Naval Research Laboratory. Click on the image below (or on the Seminar Series link at the top of this page) to register.

29 January 2021: The premier performance of Art of Polymers was a great success, with 300+ attendees remarkably few technical difficulties. Thanks to our collaborators from Multiverse for your creativity and beautiful music! Watch the full show at the link below.

18 January 2021: Jessica and Chris' review of the fascinating chemistry of N-hetereocyclic carbene-carbodiimide (NHC-CDI) adducts is published online in Chemical Science! Congrats to Jessica and Chris! Click on the image below to view the paper.

12 January 2021: Grace and Eileen's paper describing epoxidation of polybutadiene using dimethyldioxirane (DMDO) generated in continuous flow is accepted for publication in Polymer Chemistry! Congrats to Grace (Jamison Group) and Eileen! Click on the image below to read the paper.

4 January 2021: Welcome 2021! Wenxu's paper describing a new family of fluorinated aryl sulfonamide tagged (FAST) polyanions for single-ion conducting polymer electrolytes is published online in Chemistry of Materials! Congrats to Wenxu and our collaborators from the Shao-Horn and Watanabe groups! Click on the image below to read the paper.

21 December 2020: Two more pieces of great news! First, Dr. Samantha Kristufek has been awarded an Infinite Expansion Award from the MIT School of Science for her outstanding contributions to our research and our group and departmental climate as a whole. Second, Dr. Peyton Shieh has received a Chemistry Department 2020 Mentorship Spotlight Award in recognition of his mentorship contributions to the Johnson Group. Congrats to Sam and Peyton for these very prestigious honors!

9 December 2020: Two pieces of great news today. First, Dr. Peyton Shieh has been awarded a Kavanaugh Translational Innovation Fellowship to translate his degradable/recyclable thermoset technology from the lab to commercialization. Second, Dr. Bin Liu has received a Koch Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship, supported by the Ludwig Center at MIT, for his proposal to develop bottlebrush polymer-based cancer immunotherapies. Congrats to Peyton and Bin for these very prestigious honors!

1 September 2020: We welcome new postdoc Dr. Bin Liu! Bin conducted PhD research with Prof. S. Thai Thayumanavan at UMass Amherst. At MIT, he will advance many avenues of our bottlebrush-prodrug technology. Welcome Bin!

30 August 2020: Sachin receives a Koch Institute Graduate Fellowship from the Ludwig Center at MIT's Koch Institute! Congrats Sachin!

25 August 2020: Thanks to Professor Davita Watkins for being our first JGSS speaker and for presenting her exciting work on dendron-polymer hybrids for drug delivery!

27 July 2020: The Johnson Group Seminar Series (JGSS) officially launches! This series of monthly talks will include leading researchers in organic chemistry, polymer chemistry, materials science, and other adjacent fields. Check out the schedule of the first 5 talks and register to attend by clicking on the "Seminar Series" heading above. The JGSS is open to all; we look forward to seeing you online to learn some exciting chemistry!

23 July 2020: Degradable pDCPD paper highlighted in C&E News! Check out the story HERE (thanks to Ariana Remmel for writing this nice article).

22 July 2020: Peyton's paper on using silyl ether monomers to make degradable, recyclable polydicyclopentadiene through ROMP published in Nature. This work introduces a new class of recyclable thermosets that could potentially be used immediately. It also unveils a general design principle that may enable the fabrication of a wider range of recyclable thermosets. Congrats to Peyton, Wenxu, Keith, Samantha, and David as well as our wonderful collaborators from the Nelson and Plata groups. Click on the image below to read the paper and check out the MIT News highlight HERE (thanks to Anne Trafton for putting together this nice article).

22 June 2020: Hung's paper on "pro-ORCAs," which represent a new organic nanoparticle platform for MRI-based tracking of prodrug activation in cell culture and/or in vivo, accepted for publication in Polymer Chemistry. Congrats to Hung and thanks to our collaborators from the Rajca, Jasanoff, Ghobrial, and Ghoroghchian groups! Click on the image below to read the "just accepted" version of the paper.

19 June 2020: Dr. Gavin Kiel is awarded a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Chemical Sciences. Click on the image below to learn more. Congrats Gavin!

18 June 2020: Bo's paper on building a linear free energy relationship-based model to predict the impacts of different molecular substituents on the bulk properties of oligoethylene glycol-LiTFSI electrolytes published online in ACS Central Science. Congrats to Bo and our wonderful collaborators from the Shao-Horn, Gómez-Bombarelli, and Grossman groups! We also thank the Toyota Research Institute for their generous ongoing support for this work. Click on the image below to read the paper.

1 June 2020: Farrukh and Lauren's paper on the development of thermally responsive "ABC" triblock bottlebrush copolymers as injectable hydrogels for cancer immunochemotherapy published online in Chemical Science. This work provides a new modular and tunable self-assembled material platform for local therapeutic applications. Congrats to Farrukh, Qixian, Wenxu, Sachin, and Hung as well as our collaborators Lauren Milling and Prof. Darrell Irvine. Click on the image below to read the open access paper:

9 May 2020: Sachin receives a 2020 Vera List Prize for Writing on the Visual Arts! Congrats Sachin!

1 May 2020: Julia defends her thesis and is now officially Dr. Zhao! Congrats Julia!

22 April 2020: Dr. Gavin Kiel is awarded a Koch Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congrats Gavin!

22 April 2020: Collaborative paper with the Grossman and Shao-Horn groups on using machine learning and molecular dynamics to guide the design of polymer electrolytes published online in Chemistry of Materials. Congrats to Yangming and Tian from the Grossman group for this great work. Click on the image below to read the just accepted paper.

20 April 2020: We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Bo Qiao has accepted a junior faculty position in the School of Physical Science and Technology at ShanghaiTech University! Congrats Bo!

6 April 2020: PhD student Abe Herzog-Arbeitman named a Hertz Fellowship Finalist! Congrats Abe!

31 March 2020: PhD students David Lundberg and Hadiqa Zafar awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. Congrats David and Hadiqa!!

31 March 2020: Former Johnson Group PhD student Dr. Hung Nguyen receives an IUPAC-SOLVAY Internatioal Award for Young Chemists for producing one of the best PhD theses in the chemical sciences. Congrats Hung! Click on the picture below to read the award announcement.

17 March 2020: Yuwei and Julia's review article entitled, "Polymer networks: from plastics and gels to porous frameworks," published in Angewandte Chemie. Congrats on this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

9 March 2020: The Johnson Group and Window Therapeutics LLC awarded an Assay Cascade Award from the Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL)! Through this award, bottlebrush polymer prodrugs will undergo a rigorous evaluation that may include sterility and endotoxin testing, physicochemical characterization, in vitro hemato- and immunotoxicity, and in vivo studies to evaluate safety, efficacy and pharmacokinetics. The studies are designed to promote the clinical translation of these novel therapies. Click on the image below to read more about the award. Congrats to the Johnson Group drug delivery team and Window Therapeutics LLC!

3 March 2020: Jeremiah promoted to Full Professor! Congrats also to Mircea Dinca and Gabriela Schlau-Cohen on their promotions to Full Professor and Associate Professor without tenure, respectively. Click on the image below to read more about these promotions.

2 March 2020: Nolan's paper on the discovery of a persistent distonic radical cation based on an N-heterocyclic carbene-carboodimiide (NHC-CDI) adduct published in Angewandte Chemie. Congrats Nolan! Click on the image below to read the paper.

1 March 2020: Peyton and Samantha selected for the PMSE Future Faculty Symposium at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco! Congrats!

27 February 2020: Dr. Gavin Kiel is awarded a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congrats Gavin!

19 February 2020: We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Jessica Lamb has accepted a junior faculty position in the Department of Chemistry at Univeristy of Minnesota! Congrats Jessica!

13 February 2020: The annual Johnson Group Ski Trip to Killington, VT happened from Feb 11–13. Thanks to Samantha, Michael, and Eric for organizing the trip, Samantha and Michael for cooking great dinners, and Nate for designing the logo for the group sweatshirt. A great time was had by all. Looking forward to next year!

11 February 2020: The Johnson group celebrates International Day of Women and Girls in Science! Thank you Johnson Group Women for your amazing contributions to science and for making the Johnson group a wonderful place to be!

10 February 2020: Nate and Peter's paper describing Cu-based polyMOC gels featuring photoswitchable junctions published in Angewandte Chemie! This work comprises a wonderful collaboration with the Willard, Van Voorhis, and Craig (Duke) groups and is supported by the NSF Center for the Chemistry of Molecularly Optimized Networks (MONET). Click on the inside cover image below to read the paper.

3 February 2020: We welcome new postdoc Dr. Sipei Li! Sipei conducted PhD research with Kris Matyjaszewski at Carnegie Mellon University. At MIT, he will work jointly with the Shao-Horn group on the discovery of new electrolyte materials using high-throughput methods. Welcome Sipei!

24 January 2020: We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Nate Oldenhuis has accepted a junior faculty position in the Department of Chemistry at Univeristy of New Hampshire! Congrats Nate!

23 January 2020: We welcome visiting student Yi Cui from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC)!

4 December 2019: Our collaborative work with Prof. Jeff Grossman and Prof. Yang Shao-Horn using molecular dynamics simulations to understand how structural modifications to PEO impact lithium transport in concentrated polymer electrolytes published online in Chemistry of Materials! Click HERE to read the paper. Congrats to Arthur from the Grossman group and the whole team!

21 November 2019: The Johnson group is thrilled to welcome 8 new PhD students! Looking forward to working with you Abe, Hadiqa, Khrystofor, Landon, Leticia, Valerie, Yasmeen, and Zehao!

21 November 2019: Our collaborative work with Prof. Ju Li and Prof. Yang Shao-Horn on a new class of electrolytes for lithium metal batteries published online in Energy and Environmental Science! Click on the image below to read the paper, and stay tuned for more exciting results from this team!

28 October 2019: Jeremiah and our great collaborator Prof. Yang Shao-Horn were interviewed by C&E News as part of a story on Li-air battery technology. Check out the story HERE or click on the image below.

28 October 2019: Peyton and Hung's paper on bifunctional silyl ether monomers that enable the synthesis of polynorbornene-based copolymers with tunable degradability through ROMP published online in Nature Chemistry! Congrats Peyton and Hung! Click on the image below to read the paper and check out the MIT News highlight HERE.

22 October 2019: The Johnson group joins the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as an Associate Member. We are honored to be included within the incredible scientific community of the Broad. Looking forward to many exciting new opportunities!

12 September 2019: Exciting collaborative work led by Prof. Brad Olsen on the development of BigSMILES appears online in ACS Central Science! Click on the image below to read the paper.

10 September 2019: Yuwei, Mingjun, Wenxu, and Matthew's exciting work on the use of a polymeric ligand to facilitate the synthesis of MOF nanoparticles published online in Angewandte Chemie. Click on the image below to read the paper.

9 August 2019: Mingjun, Wenxu, and Bo's collaborative work with the Shao-Horn group appears online in Chemistry of Materials. Click on the image below to read the paper.

25 July 2019: Collaborative paper with the Shao-Horn group on the design of novel electrolytes for Li-O2 batteries accepted for publication in Chem. Congrats to the whole team! Click on the image below to read the paper.

17 July 2019: Yuwei is named as a finalist for the Reaxys PhD Prize 2019! Congrats Dr. Gu!!

27 June 2019: The Jonhson group mints 4 new PhDs! Congrats to Dr. Deborah Ehrlich (not shown in the picture below), Dr. Yuwei Gu (left), Dr. Yivan Jiang (middle), and Dr. Hung Nguyen (right)!

31 May 2019: PhD student Julia Zhao presented at the Excellence in Polymer Graduate Research Symposium at the ACS National Meeting in Orlando. Congrats to Julia for the well-deserved recognition!

29 May 2019: Jeremiah is honored to be named a Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists Finalist! Thank you to the New York Academy of Sciences and the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Click on the image below for more details.

13 May 2019: The group (finally) joined Twitter! Follow us @johnsonchem!

3 May 2019: Hung successfully defends his thesis! Congrats to Dr. Nguyen!!

2 May 2019: Yivan successfully defends his thesis! Congrats to Dr. Jiang!!

29 April 2019: Junpeng's paper on quantifying primary loops in sidechain crosslinked polymer networks and single-chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) published online in Chemical Science. Congrats on this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

19 April 2019: Yuwei successfully defends his thesis! Congrats to Dr. Gu!!

12 April 2019: Deb successfully defends her thesis! Congrats to Dr. Ehrlich!!

4 April 2019: Gaby and Hung's paper on ROMP of polyoxazoline macromonomers published online in ACS Macro Letters. Congrats on this nice work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

21 March 2019: Former graduate student Alex Zhukhovitskiy is featured in the ACS Polymer Division (POLY) Member Spotlight. Click on the image below to read the highlight.

11 March 2019: Congratulations to Matthew Golder for accepting a tenure-track position in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington! Click on the image below to read the announcement on the UW website.

9 March 2019: Samantha selected to receive a 2019 Misrock Postdoctoral Fellowship award for her proposed work on using brush-arm star polymers for CRISPR/Cas-9-mediated cancer therapy. Congrats to Samantha for this very prestigious honor!

5 March 2019: The somewhat annual Johnson Group Ski Trip to Killington, VT happened from Feb 19-21. Thanks to Samantha, Nate, and Shannon for organizing the trip, Samantha and Manuel for cooking great dinners, and Julia for designing the logo for the group sweatshirt (see below). A great time was had by all. Looking forward to next year!

4 March 2019: Congratulations to former graduate student Alex Zhukhovitskiy for accepting a tenure-track position in the Department of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill! Click on the image below to read the announcement on the UNC website.

25 February 2019: Julia and Yuwei's review on the topology of polymer networks accepted for publication in Trends in Chemistry. This short review provides an excellent introduction to how topology dictates the properties of polymeric materials, and highlights recent developments in the area of using chemistry to characterize and control polymer network topology. Congrats to Julia and Yuwei for this great work! More details to come...

18 February 2019: Former postdoc Junpeng Wang begins his independent career at the University of Akron!

13 February 2019: Yuwei wins the Extraordinary Prize of the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad. He is one of only 10 such awardees worldwide. Congrats to Yuwei for this very prestigious honor!

8 February 2019: Jessica's paper on trithiocarbonate-mediated photo-controlled radical polymerization of acrylates and acrylamides under ambient conditions (e.g., open vials) and with no additives published online in Polymer Chemistry. This work represents a significant advance toward our ultimate goal of enabling practical Living Additive Manufacturing (see ACS Cent. Sci. 2017, 3, 124). Congrats to Jessica for this excellent work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

8 February 2019: Collaborative paper with the Olsen group on a new and improved version of Real Elastic Network Theory published online in Macromolecules. Congrats to Tzyy-Shyang! Click on the image below to read the paper.

17 December 2018: Michelle's paper on bidentate NHC-thiolate ligands for gold nanorods is highlighted in Nature Chemistry News & Views!

15 December 2018: Welcome to our four new graduate students Allie Sourakov, David Lundberg, Keith Husted, and Michael Stolberg! Check out the group page for more information about them.

11 December 2018: Matt's paper on "ROMP-out" highlighted on the cover of the latest issue of Macromolecules.

14 November 2018: Matt's paper on "ROMP-out" published online in Macromolecules. Click on the image below to read the paper. Congrats Matt!

12 November 2018: Michelle's paper on the synthesis of exceptionally robust bidentate NHC-thiolate-stabilized gold nanorods published online in Nature Chemistry. Congrats Michelle!

5 November 2018: Former visting student Dr. Manuel Hartweg re-joins the group as a postdoc. Welcome back, Manuel!

18 October 2018: Hung's paper on triply-loaded nitroxide BASPs for metal-free magnetic resonance imaging of tumors published online in ACS Nano. Congrats to Hung and thanks to all of our collaborators for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

13 October 2018: The group and friends visited Connor's Farm for festive fall activities including apple picking, corn mazing, and cider donut eating!

10 October 2018: Yuwei's paper on harnessing the leaving groups in KAT ligation amide bond forming reactions to program the topology of polymer netwoks in a chemically traceless manner is published online in JACS. Congrats to Yuwei and thanks to the Bode group at ETH for this fruitful collaboration! Click on the image below to read the paper.

9 October 2018: Yoshiki and Ryoichi's paper on the impact of PEO architcture on lithium ion conductivity published online in Journal of Polymer Science, Part A. Congrats to Yoshiki and Ryoichi for this excellent work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

17 September 2018: Jeremiah receives an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award!

15 September 2018: We are thrilled to be part of a new NSF Center for Chemical Innovation. Our center, called the "Center for the Chemistry of Molecularly Optimized Networks," or "MONET" for short, consists of researchers from the Craig and Rubinstein groups at Duke University, the Kalow group at Northwestern University, and the Johnson and Olsen groups here at MIT. Together, we seek to elucidate molecular design principles that will enable finely tuned control over the properties of polymer networks for emerging applications.

Image credit: Julia Zhao

11 September 2018: Dr. Samantha Kristufek joins the group as a new postdoc!

5 September 2018: Bo's paper on the role of selective anion binding in controlling litihium ion conductivity and transference number highlighted as a supplementary cover in JACS. Click on the image below to read the paper.

23 August 2018: Wenxu's paper on LiAlH4 reduction of polymethyl(meth)acrylate-based block copolymers to generate novel hydroxy-based block copolymers with exceptionally high chi values published online in Macromolecules. Congrats Wenxu for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

23 August 2018: Shuting's perspective article on an exciting development in lithium-oxygen battery chemistry from Nazar and coworkers published online in Science. Great work Shuting! Click on the image below to read the paper.

20 August 2018: Matt and Jenny's paper on brush-arm star polymer (BASP)-based telmisartan prodrugs for liver fibrosis therapy appears online in Nature Biomedical Engineering! Congrats to Matt, Jenny, and everyone on the team for this great work!

13 August 2018: Editorial article on polymers at the interface with biology published online in Biomacromolecules. Special thanks to Tim Deming and Harm-Anton Klok for including our work.

8 August 2018: Members of the group spent the morning volunteering at Cradles to Crayons in Brighton, MA. We distributed backpacks filled with school supplies to local teachers and organizations that serve kids in need. We all had a great time, though Matt almost fell out of a semi truck. Check out a photo of the group during a short break in the action:

25 July 2018: Dr. Jessica Lamb receives an NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congrats Jessica!

18 July 2018: Yuwei's paper on photoswitching the topology of polymer metal-organic cage (polyMOC) gels published online in Nature! Congrats to Yuwei for this awesome work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

17 July 2018: Bo's paper on using anion recognition to control the conductivity of lithium in solution is published in JACS. In this paper, Bo convincingly shows how the compound cyanostar, which is a macrocycle that selectively binds PF6 anions in a 2:1 ratio, can be used to increase the conductivity and transference number of lithium in a low dielectric medium (THF). This work was made possible by a great collaboration with the Shao-Horn and Flood labs at MIT and University of Indiana, respectively. Congrats to Bo and the whole team! Click on the image below to read the paper.

10 July 2018: Welcome back visiting undergraduate student Leticia Costa who joins us again this summer!

1 July 2018: Visiting undergraduate Oscar Gonzalez joins for the summer from Texas A+M University. Visiting PhD student Martin Lahn Henriksen joins from Aarhus University in Denmark.

7 June 2018: Collaborative paper with the Ross and Alexander-Katz groups on the self-assembly of polystyrene-branch-polydimethylsiloxane Janus bottlebrush copolymers appears online in Nano Letters. Congrats to the team for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

1 June 2018: Junpeng Wang will start his independent career as an Assistant Professor at the University of Akron in the Department of Polymer Science in January 2019.

18 May 2018: Collaborative paper with the Zhong and Osuji groups on the self-assembly of branched macromonomers and Janus bottlebrush polymers with oligomeric sidechains appears online in Angewandte Chemie. In this work, we show that Janus bottlebrush polymers with very short sidechains can self-assemble to form classical block copolymer morphologies with very small (sub-10 nm) domain sizes. Most importantly, the mechanical properties of the resulting materials are determined by the bottlebrush backbone length rather than the block copolymer sidechain length, which means that our materials can be mechanically robust despite their very small domain sizes. Congrats to Zi-Hao and the whole team for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

15 May 2018: Jeremiah becomes an Associate Editor of the journal Polymer Chemistry!

11 May 2018: Jeremiah named co-recipient of the 2018 Biomacromolecules/Macromolecules Young Investigator Award!

5 May 2018: The group convened at Fugakyu to enjoy sushi boats and to say goodbye to Dr. Yoshiki Shibuya and welcome Dr. Masamichi Shirakura and Dr. Teruhiko Saito. Best of luck in your future career at L'Oréal Yoshiki. We'll miss you!

1 May 2018: Welcome to visiting scientists Dr. Masamichi Shirakura from Otsuaka Pharmaceuticals and Dr. Teruhiko Saito from Panasonic!

30 April 2018: We are thrilled to be part of a Stand Up to Cancer "Dream Team" focused on the development of early diagnostic and therapeutic tools for multiple myeloma (MM) patients. In this project, we will work with clinicians to design targeted MRI contrast agents for identification of early-stage MM. We will combine these diagnostic tools with macromolecular prodrug therapies to enable early disease intervention. Looking forward to working with the Ghobrial (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) and Borello (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) labs on this exciting and impactful project!

20 April 2018: Collaborative paper with the Osuji group on the self-assembly of branched macromonomers and bottlebrush polymers that contain polymer and mesogen sidechains published in Macromolecules. Congrats to Katerina and Ken for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

11 April 2018: PhD student Julia Zhao orgnizes MIT's 2018 Polymer Day! As the name suggests, Polymer Day is a day where we celebrate all things polymer-related at MIT and in the greater region. Students, post-docs, faculty, and industry representatives come from all over to learn about and discuss cutting edge research in polymer science and engineering. Thanks to Julia for making this event a great success!

11 April 2018: Former PhD student Michelle MacLeod named a 2018 Change Maker by MIT's Violence Prevention and Response, Title IX, and Bias Response Offices! Michelle's efforts to raise awareness of sexual harassment and create an inclusive environment for all will have a longlasting impact on our Department and MIT as a whole. Congrats Michelle for this greatly deserved award!

10 April 2018: PhD student Yuwei Gu featured in several exciting venues! First, he presented at the Excellence in Polymer Graduate Research Symposium at the ACS National Meeting in New Orleans (top image below), where he also won a Division of Polymer Chemistry (POLY) Outstanding Poster Award. The latter led to him being featured in the latest POLY Division spotlight (bottom image below). Congrats to Yuwei for the well-deserved recognition!

26 March 2018: Nolan's paper describing a new class of main-chain-zwitterionic supramolecular polymers, called poly(azolium amidinate)s or "PAzAms," published online in Macromolecules. These fascinating new polymers are derived from the formation of N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC)-carbodiimide (CDI) adducts. Nolan shows that it is possible to finely tune the (thermo)dynamics of pZAms to enable their controlled depolymerization and morphing between different PAzAm structures. Congrats Nolan! Click on the image below to read the paper.

26 March 2018: Collaborative paper with the Shao-Horn group (MIT Mechanical Engineering) and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) on the design of modular salts for battery applications published online in Energy and Environmental Science. In this work, we sought to expand the structural scope of sulfonimides, which are common components of lithium and other batteries. The famous TFSI anion is frequently used in batteries thanks to its excellent stability, but it cannot be easily chemically modified to alter its properties such as solubility and size. In this paper, we develop a new family of sulfonimides called Fluorinated Aryl Sulfonimide Tagged ("FAST") anions that can be rapidly and easily modified to generate metal salts with tunable properties. FAST salts greatly expand the number of available Li or other metal salts available for use in battery research. Congrats to the whole team, especially Mingjun and Shuting, for this great effort! Click on the image below to read the paper.

26 March 2018: Hung's paper on a scalable synthetic strategy for multivalent macromonomers is published online in ACS Macro Letters. This approach described in this paper enables the synthesis of our macromonomers in 3 total steps (2 steps longest linear sequence) in 92% yield on the 100 g scale with no chromatography. In addition, it allows us to easily incorporate multiple functionalities onto the same macromonomer, which is a gamechanger for our projects on drug delivery and imaging with bottlebrush and brush-arm star polymers. Congrats Hung! Click on the image below to read the paper.

23 March 2018: It was great to hang out with friends and family at the ACS National Meeting in New Orleans!

23 March 2018: Dr. Peyton Shieh is awarded an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship! Congrats Peyton!

11 March 2018: Welcome to new UROP Rebecca Sloan and visting graduate student Zhihao Huang!

7 February 2018: Matt and Yivan's paper on the role of stereochemistry in the self-assembly of unimolecular block copolymers is highlighted as a supplementary cover in JACS. Click on the image below to read the paper.

5 February 2018: Junpeng's paper on counting secondary loops in end-linked polymer networks appears online in ACS Macro Letters! In this paper, Junpeng figured out a way to use a non-degradable polymer chain in the context of Network Disassembly Spectrometry (NDS) to provide the first direct measurements of the secondary loop fraction in polymer networks. Prior to this work, it was only possible to measure primary loop defects. As we continue to investigate the impact of topological defects in polymer networks, Junpeng's "NDS2.0" will be an invaluable tool. Congrats to Junpeng and the rest of the group for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

2 February 2018: New Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT members announced. Click on the image below for details.

23 January 2018: Matt and Yivan's paper on the role of stereochemistry in the self-assembly of unimolecular block copolymers appears online in JACS. In this paper, Matt and Yivan prepared a series of stereoisomeric block copolymers using our IEG strategy. Remarkably, they discovered that these block copolymers self-assemble to form different morphologies. This work elucidates the fundamental role of stereochemistry in block copolymer assembly. Congrats to Matt, Yivan, and the rest of the group for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

17 January 2018: Collaborative paper with the Olsen group (MIT Chemical Engineering) on the topological structure of TetraPEG gels appears online in Macromolecules. In this paper, we developed kinetic graph theory and Monte Carlo simulations that allow for the study of cyclic topologies in A_4 + B_4 polymer networks. These studies confirm that secondary loops, wherein two strands link two adjacent junctions, play a particularly fundamental role in the properties of these ubiquitous materials. Congrats to Tzyy-Shyang and Rui for yet another great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

18 December 2017: The group welcomes new visiting student Shuto Mochizuki and visiting professor Prof. Masahiro Fujita.

5 December 2017: Collaborative paper with the Olsen group (MIT Chemical Engineering) on quantifying the gel point in end-linked polymer networks appears online in ACS Macro Letters. In this paper, we use Monte Carlo simulations to show that if loop defects defects are properly accounted for, one can predict the gel point without any other fitting parameters. These results further highlight the fundamental role of loops in determining the properties of polymer networks. Congrats to Rui and Tzyy-Shyang for this great work! Click on the image below to read the paper.

4 December 2017: Jeremiah receives the 2016-2017 School of Science Prize in Undergraduate Teaching! It is an incredible honor to be included on this list of amazing teachers... thank you MIT!

15 November 2017: Jeremiah joins the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT.

14 November 2017: The group welcomes 3 new graduate students! Sachin Bhagchandani, Matthew Pearson, and Wencong Wang!

8 November 2017: The group welcomes new UROP Alexandra Sourakov!

3 November 2017: Collaborative paper with the Shao-Horn group (MIT Mechanical Engineering) and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) on understanding electrolyte stability in the Li-air battery cathode published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A. In this paper, we calculate the bond dissociation energies, acidities, driving forces for nucleophilic substitution, and electrochemical stabilities of a wide range of organic molecules under conditions that mimic the Li-air battery cathode. These results allowed us to predict structure-stability relationships and degradation mechanisms that agreed with experimental stability tests. Congrats to the whole team, especially Shuting and Mao, for this great effort! Click on the image below to read the paper.

30 October 2017: Welcome to visting student Gaby Gil Alvaradejo and visting professor Xiaojuan Liao!

14 September 2017: The Tech, MIT's student newspaper, interviews Jeremiah about the new Minor in Polymers and Soft Matter (MPSM).

If you're an MIT undergraduate interested in polymer science and/or engineering, and you'd like to pursue the MPSM, click on the following links for details:

14 September 2017: Congratulations to Dr. Michelle MacLeod for successfully defending her thesis. The group's 4th PhD!!!

5 September 2017: Dr. Bo Qiao joins the group as a new joint postdoc with the Shao-Horn Group!

30 August 2017: MIT unveils the new Minor in Polymers and Soft Matter (MPSM)! If you're an MIT undergraduate interested in polymer science and/or engineering, and you'd like to pursue the MPSM, contact Jeremiah or click here for details.

22 August 2017: Michelle's block-co-polyMOF paper selected as the Paper of the Month by the Polymer Chemistry Blog. Congrat's Michelle!

21 August 2017: Alex and Jeremiah share the 2018 Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry.

21 August 2017: Yoshiki's paper on mikto-brush-arm star polymers ("MBASPs") is published online in ACS Macro Letters. In this paper, Yoshiki demonstrates the synthesis of brush-arm star polymers with arms of varied composition through the convergent cross-linking of independently synthesized living bottlebrush polymers. Congrats Yoshiki!

19 August 2017: New postdoc Dr. Jessica Lamb arrives from Cornell!

10 August 2017: Welcome to new postdoc Dr. Eileen Burke who joins us from UW-Madison!

12 July 2017: Hung's paper on BASP-ORCAs, the first metal-free paramagentic agents with sufficient stability and relaxivity for MRI imaging in vivo up to 20 h following injection, is published in ACS Central Science. This work shows that organic radical MRI contrast agents can potentially compete with metal-based agents, the latter of which suffer from serious toxicity concerns. Congrats Hung!

12 July 2017: Michelle's paper introducing "Block Co-PolyMOFs" is published in Polymer Chemistry. Block Co-PolyMOFs are novel polymer-polyMOF hybrid materials derived from block copolymers that feature a polyMOF forming oligomer block and an amorphous polymer block. Michelle demonstrates that these block copolymers can bind to zinc ions and yield easily processable and highly stable crystalline polyMOFs embedded within amorphous polymer networks. Congrats Michelle!

26 June 2017: Nate Oldenhuis receives an NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congrats Nate!

21 June 2017: Welcome to new postdoc Dr. Yoshiki Shibuya!

11 June 2017: Welcome to the rest of our summer visiting students: Julian Grundler, Sarah Al Abdullatif, and Leticia Costa!

8 June 2017: Congratulations to Dr. Ken Kawamoto, the group's third PhD!!!

29 May 2017: Welcome to the first of our summer visitors! Prof. Ellane Park joins us from Rollins College and Manuel Hartweg is a visiting graduate student from Queen Mary University of London.

24 May 2017: Michelle MacLeod was honored at the 2017 celebration of Graduate Women of Excellence. Congrats Michelle!

18 May 2017: Welcome to new postdoc Dr. Nate Oldenhuis!

10 May 2017: Congrats to Dr. Ken Kawamoto for successfully defending his thesis! The 3rd group PhD!!

24 April 2017: Yuwei's paper on using semi-batch monomer addition to control loops in polymer networks and thereby enhance or tune their mechanical properties is published online in PNAS. Congrats Yuwei!

19 April 2017: Ken Kawamoto presented his research on branched-bottlebrush polymer assembly in the Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Symposium at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco. Congrats Ken!

11 April 2017: Jiwon Park awarded a Fulbright Scholarship! Congrats Jiwon!

10 April 2017: New post-doc Peyton Shieh joins the group! Welcome Peyton!

3 April 2017: We are happy to be part of a multi-PI team sponsored by the Toyota Research Institute that will design novel polymers for energy storage applications. Click here for the MIT News announcement.

7 March 2017: Collaborative paper with the Olsen group on odd-even effects of junction functionality on the primary loop fraction in end-linked polymer networks appears online in Macromolecules. Thanks to Brad and Rui for the great work!

1 March 2016: The group welcomes two new group members: Simi Bright (MIT UROP) and Dr. Junpeng Wang (post-doc)! See group page for more details.

10 February 2017: Jeremiah joins the editorial advisory boards of Macromolecules and ACS Macro Letters.

6 February 2017: Collaborative paper with the Balazs group on photoregeneration of severed gels published online in Soft Matter. Thanks to Anna and her group for the great collaboration!

3 February 2017: Matthew Golder receives an NIH F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship. Congrats Matt!

2 February 2017: Mao's paper on a thermally responsive and recyclable gel photoredox catalyst for multiple-stimuli- and logic-gated controlled radical polymerization appears online in Journal of the American Chemical Society. Congrats Mao!

23 January 2017: Jiwon Park is highlighted by MIT News. Click on the image below to read the story. Congrats Jiwon for your amazing accomplishments!

13 January 2017: Mao and Yuwei's paper on Living Additive Manufacturing via Photo-Redox Catalyzed Growth (PRCG) of polymer networks published online in ACS Central Science. Click on the image below to view the open access paper, and read the MIT News story here. Congrats Mao and Yuwei and the whole team!

5 December 2016: Yufeng's paper on Star PolyMOCs published online in Angewandte Chemie. Click on the image below to view the paper. Congrats Yufeng!

4 December 2016: Jeremiah is promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure!

28 November 2016: The group welcomes first year graduate student Peter Qin!

20 October 2016: Welcome to new postdoc Dr. Nolan Gallagher and UROP Kathleen Chen!

10 October 2016: Congratulations to Dr. Jenny Liu, the group's second PhD!!!

3 October 2016: Former group member Dr. Mao Chen begins his new position as Assistant Professor at Fudan University. Congrats Mao!

15 September 2016: Mingjiang, Rui, and Ken's paper on quantifying how topological defects impact the elasticity of polymer networks published online in Science. Congrats to the team! Click on the image or links below to see the paper, read the MIT News highlight, and watch our video on loops in polymer networks!

14 September 2016: Jonathan's paper with Peter Bruno and Mike Hemann (MIT Dept. of Biology) on using RNAi signatures to investigate the mechanism of action of 3-drug conjugated BASP nanoparticles built from platinum crosslinkers published online in JACS. Congrats to Jonathan and the whole BASP team! Click on the image below to read the paper.

8 September 2016: Alex and Julia's paper on the role of polymer chain length and branching in the structure and properties of polyMOCs published online in Macromolecules. Congrats!

1 September 2016: Ken and Mingjiang's paper on the self-assembly of "A-branch-B" diblock bottlebrush copolymers published oline in JACS. Congrats Ken and Mingjiang!

17 August 2016: Our work on structurally controlled polymers using Iterative Exponential Growth (IEG) highlighted in a wonderful feature article by Mark Peplow in Nature:

16 August 2016: Yufeng's paper on "Block Co-PolyMOCs" published in JACS. Congrats Yufeng!

3 August 2016: Welcome to new postdocs Dr. Wenxu Zhang and Dr. Mingjun Huang, as well as visiting professors Xingui Li and Meirong Huang.

1 August 2016: Former group member Dr. Yufeng Wang begins his new position as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at The University of Hong Kong. Congrats Yufeng!

21 July 2016: Dr. Matt Golder wins an IUPAC-SOLVAY International Award for Young Chemists for his PhD thesis work with Prof. Ramesh Jasti. Congrats Matt on this very prestigious award!

21 July 2016: Yivan's paper on IEG synthesis and bulk self-assembly of uniform diblock copolymers published online in JACS. Congrats Yivan!

15 July 2016: Former PhD student Dr. Alex Zhukhovitskiy wins a Life Sciences Research Foundation postdoctoral fellowship for his upcoming work with Prof. Dean Toste at UC Berkeley. Congrats Alex on this very prestigious fellowship, and best of luck at Berkeley!

5 July 2016: The group welcomes visiting students Yoshiki Shibuya, Wencong Wang, and Seth Freedman!

1 July 2016: Alex's paper on inserting persistent carbenes into Si-H bonds in molecules, nanoparticles, and planar surfaces appears online in JACS. Congrats Alex!

1 July 2016: Former group member Dr. Mingjiang Zhong begins his new position as Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Yale University. Congrats Mingjiang!

1 July 2016: Former group member Dr. Jonathan C. Barnes begins his new position as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis. Congrats Jonathan!

14 June 2016: The group welcomes new post-doc Dr. Farrukh Vohidov! See the group page for more info.

10 June 2016: Congratulations to Dr. Alex Zhukhovitskiy, the group's first PhD!!!

10 June 2016: The group welcomes visiting students Yasmeen AlFaraj and Yongsheng Gao! See the group page for more info.

7 May 2016: Paper with Rui Wang, Brad Olsen, and Alfredo Alexander-Katz on "Universal Cyclic Topology in Polymer Networks" appears in Physical Review Letters. Congrats to all and especially Rui! In this work, Rui was able to show that all loop defects in polymer networks are kinetically linked, such that if we can measure one (which we can) we can measure them all. Truly outstanding!

1 April 2016: Collaborative paper with Anna Balazs using simulations to study phase separation in our photo-growth gels published in Polymer Chemistry!

15 March 2016: Mao and Mingjiang's review on light-controlled radical polymerization appears online in Chemical Reviews!

25 February 2016: Jonathan Barnes accepts a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis! Congrats! See Announcement Here.

19 February 2016: Mao and Mingjiang's Chemical Reviews article on Photo-controlled Living Radical Polymerization is accepted for publication! Details to follow. Congrats!

16 February 2016: The group welcomes new visiting student Alan Enciso and new UROP Cathy Zhang!

14 February 2016: Welcome to two new group members: Shidong (Will) Deng (visting undergraduate student from Tianjin University) and Prof. Jun Lin (visiting professor from Yunnan University).

13 January 2016: IEG+ paper highlighted in Synfacts!

4 January 2016: Jeremiah receives the 2016 Young Talent Award from the organizers of the 1st International Conference of Molecular Engineering of Polymers (MEP-1). This exciting conference will be held in October 2016 in Shanghai. Thank you to the MEP-1 organizers and, in particular, Prof. Jiandong Ding.

24 December 2015: The Johnson Group's work is highlighted in the Boston Globe's STAT News. See the article here: "Three People to Watch in Kendall Square in 2016."

9 December 2015: Yufeng's baby boy Charles Hanyou Wang is born! Congrats Yufeng!

1 December 2015: Ken and Mingjiang's paper on counting primary loops in tetrafunctional and mixed-junction networks prepared using click chemistry appears online in Macromolecules!

16 November 2015: Alex and Mingjiang's paper on high branch functionality and loop rich PolyMOCs appears online in Nature Chemistry! Congrats!

12 November 2015: The group welcomes back Julia Zhao! Once a visiting undergraduate student, now a PhD student. Welcome Julia!

5 October 2015: New post-doc Matt Golder joins the group! See group page for more information. Welcome Matt!

1 October 2015: Alex and Mingjiang's paper on highly branched and loop rich "Polymer Metal-Organic-Cage" (PolyMOC) gels is accepted for publication in Nature Chemistry! Details to follow. Congrats Alex and Mingjiang, and thanks to all of our collaborators on this work!

22 September 2015: Alex and Michelle's review article on carbenes in surface chemistry is published online in Chemical Reviews! A lot of very hard work went into this fantastic paper. Congrats!

14 September 2015: IEG+ paper highlighted by Chemistry World!

10 September 2015: Jeremiah has joined the editorial board of Polymer Chemistry!

7 September 2015: Jonathan's paper on the synthesis of stereo- and sequence-controlled polymers by iterative exponential growth plus side-chain functionalization (IEG+) appears online in Nature Chemistry! Congrats Jonathan!

19 August 2015: Flow-IEG paper highlighted by C&EN@ACS Boston 2015 and C&E News, Science and Technology, News of the Week!

12 August 2015: The joint Johnson/Van Humbeck group volleyball team (Jeremiah was a Van Humbeck Whale) takes 3rd place in the Chemistry Department summer beach volleyball league!

12 August 2015: Frank's paper on continuous-flow iterative exponential growth (flow-IEG) of unimolecular polymers appears in PNAS! Congrats Frank!

17 June 2015: Michelle's paper on PEGylated-NHC functionalized gold nanoparticles appears in JACS! Congrats Michelle!

30 April 2015: Mao and Michelles's paper on using 10-phenylphenothiazine as an organic photo-redox catalyst to mediate visible-light controlled radical polymerization from a trithiocarbonate appears online in ACS Macro Letters! Congrats!

20 April 2015: Jonathan wins an IUPAC-SOLVAY International Award for Young Chemists for his PhD thesis work with Prof. Fraser Stoddart. Congrats Jonathan on this very prestigious award!

9 April 2015: Ken's paper on combining tetrazine-metal coordination and Diels-Alder reactions for the synthesis of functional supramolecular gels appears online in ACS Macro Letters! Congrats Ken!

2 April 2015: The group welcomes new post-doc Dr. Qixian Chen!

1 April 2015: Congrats to Hung for receiving an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!

17 March 2015: Mao's paper on improving photo-controlled radical polymerization from trithiocarbonates using continuous flow techniques appears online in Chemical Communications Congrats Mao!

4 March 2015: NHC cycloelimination paper selected for the cover of Chem. Euro. J.!

20 February 2015: Alex and Julie's paper on cycloelimination of NHCs appears online in Chem. Euro. J. Congrats!

13 February 2015: Michelle receives a WIC Travel Award for support of her trip to the ACS National Meeting in Denver, CO. Congrats Michelle!

15 January 2015: The group welcomes a new UROP: Katherine Young!

18 November 2014: Molly and Jessica's paper on nitroxide-based branched bottlebrush polymers for dual-modality imaging in vivo appears in Nature Communications. Congrats! Thanks to the Rajca group at University of Nebraska and the Hammond group here at MIT for the fruitful collaboration.

13 November 2014: The group welcomes four new PhD students: Yuwei Gu, Gihan Hewage, Yivan Jiang, and Hung Nguyen!

15 October 2014: The group welcomes two new post-docs: Dr. Mao Chen and Dr. Yufeng Wang!

3 October 2014: The group successfully escapes from a room with a zombie.

1 October 2014: Several new faces in the lab! Welcome Dr. Mao Chen, Julie Geng, and Vivian Tian!

29 August 2014: Alex is recognized with a prestigious American Chemical Society Division of Organic Chemistry Graduate Fellowship. Congrats Alex!

12 August 2014: The lab receives a MIT-DuPont Alliance grant for the synthesis of "perfect polymers". Thank you DuPont!

8 August 2014: Angela and Yan's paper on the synthesis of pH sensitive BASP nanoparticles is accepted for publication in ACS Macro Letters. Congrats!

20 June 2014: The group welcomes visiting CMSE intern Julia Zhao!

11 June 2014: The group welcomes visiting MSRP student Leila Terrab!

10 June 2014: The lab receives NIH support for the development of organic radical MRI contrast agents. Thank you NIH.

9 June 2014: The lab receives MIT Lincoln Labs ACC support for the development of new materials for photo-controlled 3D printing. Thank you ACC.

29 May 2014: Huaxing, Eva, and Jenny's article on the application of crossover experiments to the analysis of molecular defects in polymer networks appears online in JACS!

27 May 2014: Alex receives a prestigious 2014 Intel PhD Fellowship! Congrats Alex!!

7 May 2014: Jeremiah receives a 2014 DuPont Young Professor Award! Thank you DuPont!

18 April 2014: Jeremiah receives a 2014 NSF CAREER Award! Thank you NSF!

10 April 2014: Yan and Jenny's work on the synthesis of multi-drug-loaded nanoparticles for ratiometric triplex combination cancer therapy appears in JACS. Congrats Yan and Jenny!

7 April 2014: The group welcomes new visiting student Kojiro Fujimura from Kyoto University!

20 March 2014: Jeremiah receives a 2014 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. Thank you 3M!

18 March 2014: The group receives a MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) Seed Fund Grant for the development of hybrid metal-organic polymeric materials with Prof. Niels Holten-Anderson's group in MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Thank you MITEI.

20 February 2014: Jonathan receives 2014 Life Sciences Research Foundation (LSRF) Postdoctoral Fellowship! Congrats Jonathan!

18 February 2014: Jeremiah receives 2014 Sloan Research Fellowship! Also congrats to colleagues Mircea Dinca, Bradley Olsen, and the rest of the MIT Sloan Fellows!

14 February 2014: The group welcomes new post-doctoral scholar Dr. Jonathan Barnes!

6 February 2014: The groups receives an Air Force Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) Grant to work on the synthesis and self-assembly of branched bottlebrush copolymers. Thank you AFOSR!

6 January 2014: The group welcomes visiting student Johanna Ertl!

1 January 2014: The group welcomes two new undergraduate researchers Chew and Katherine!

15 November 2013: The group welcomes new graduate student Deborah Ehrlich. Welcome Deborah!

15 October 2013: The group welcomes new post-doc Dr. Mingjiang Zhong. Welcome Mingjiang!

11 October 2013: Jenny and Angela's JoVE article titled "Particles Without a Box" is published online. Go see Jenny and Angela make a nice series of our PEG-BASPs HERE .

7 October 2013: Alan and Angela's paper that describes the synthesis of PS-PLA Miktoarm BASPs was accepted as part of a special issue of Macromolecular Rapid Communications focused on cutting-edge polymer synthesis. Congrats Alan and Angela!

30 September 2013: Alan and Yan's paper that describes the "Brush-first and Click Method" for photo-triggered drug delivery appears online as part of a special issue of Photochemistry and Photobiology dedicated to the memory of Prof. Nick Turro.

15 September 2013: Jeremiah was selected as an ACS PMSE young investigator. He will present as part of the PMSE Young Investigator Symposium at the Spring 2014 National ACS meeting in Dallas, TX.

14 September 2013: The Johnson group has received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the "Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer Our Future" (DMREF) program. Our project will focus on the design, synthesis, and computational analysis of polymer networks for emerging applications. This project will continue our strong/ongoing collaboration with Prof. Bradley Olsen's group in Chemical Engineering at MIT. Thank you NSF!

23 August 2013: Alexandra's "tetrazine-norbornene Diels-Alder model networks" paper appears in Macromolcular Symposia as part of a special issue highlighting the 2012 Polymer Networks Group conference in Jackson Hole, WY. Congrats Alexandra!

Note that while our article was in press, Professor Kristi Anseth's group published a related paper on tetrazine-norbornene hydrogels for 3D cell culture. See Kristi's excellent paper here: link.

20 August 2013: Congrats to Ken, Molly, and Angela for winning Department of Chemistry Awards for Outstanding Teaching!

20 August 2013: The Johnson and Surendranath Labs enjoyed an afternoon of intense laser tag action:

17 June 2013: The group welcomes two visiting students: Marco Messina from Mark Olsen's lab at Texas A&M and Tianyuan (Ryan) Liu from Roxbury Community College. It's great to have you both!

3 June 2013: Alex's JACS paper receives media attention:

30 May 2013: Carbene surfaces featured as the MIT homepage spotlight!

13 May 2013: Alex's "addressable carbenes for gold surfaces" JACS paper appears online. Congrats Alex!

3 May 2013: Discussion of our "Network Disassembly Spectrometry" (NDS) method in PNAS:

23 April 2013: "Photo-growth" paper highlighted in Nature Chemistry:

27 February 2013: Huaxing's photo-growth paper highlighted by various media outlets:

2 February 2013: The Johnson Group on their first somewhat annual ski trip:

18 January 2013: Huaxing's "photo-controlled gel growth" Angewandte Chemie paper appears online. Congrats Huaxing!

16 January 2013 : Two bits of great news:

(1) Huaxing's "photo-controlled gel growth" paper chosen as a "Hot Paper" by the editors of Angewandte Chemie: Angewandte "Hot Papers"

(2) Huaxing's PNAS paper on counting loops highlighted in Nature News and Views: Nature News and Views

27 November 2012: "Brush-first" paper highlighted in SYNFACTS .

15 November 2012: The group welcomes four 1st-year graduate students: Angela, Ken, Michelle, and Molly!

9 November 2012: Counting loops by "S/L Method" paper appears in PNAS (click on the image below to access the paper). Congrats Huaxing, Jen, and Alexandra!

4 October 2012: "Pseudo-alternating polymers" paper appears in Macromolecules. Congrats Alan and Alex!

6 September 2012: "Brush-first" paper appears in JACS. Congrats Jenny, Alan and Alex!

19 July 2012: The Johnson Group beach volleyball team:

1 June 2012: We welcome Eva-Maria Schoen to the group! Eva-Maria is visitng from Professor David Diaz Diaz's group. We are thrilled to have her here for the summer!

20 May 2012: The Johnson group celebrates their 6-month anniversary with an exciting day of food, drink, and laser tag.

8 May 2012: Johnson group journal blog launched. Click HERE to see what the group is reading.

30 March 2012: Alan O. Burts receives an NSF graduate fellowship. Alex receive's a Morse Travel Grant for the Fall 2012 ACS Meeting in Philadelphia. Congrats Alan and Alex!

17, 24 February 2012: The Johnson group celebrates the first annual Flory Day(s)! Each student gave a presentation on fundamental aspects of synthetic polymer chemistry. Topics included chain and step-growth polymerization, gelation and network formation, controlled polymerization processes, and polymer architectures. Fun was had by all.

11 November 2011: Welcome first year graduate students Alexandra, Jenny, Alan, Alex, and Jessica to the group! Also, welcome Huaxing Zhou (post-doc) and Elisha Yadgaran (UROP)! First group meeting today.

31 October 2011: Paper that describes EPR studies of nitroxide-labeled brush polymers appears in JACS.

8 September 2011: Classes begin! For info on Jeremiah's course, 5.53 Molecular Structure and Reactivity, go here .

15 August 2011: We welcome Jen Woo to the group!

11 July 2011: The Johnson Group begins! We welcome first year MIT graduate students Melissa Donaldson and Alan Burts!

9 June 2011: Thanks to Tim Swager for inviting Jeremiah to the NSF-sponsored "Future Faculty Workshop: Diverse Leaders of Tomorrow," which was held June 19-21 at the MIT Endicott House. For more information on this year's workshop click here .

1 July 2011: The Johnson group begins!

We seek to cultivate a diverse and intellectually engaging atmosphere of collaboration, integrity, and scientific excellence: an “incubator for discovery.”

Research:

Current Members:

The Johnson group firmly believes that diversity is a source of scientific creativity and innovation. We seek to continually support scientists from diverse backgrounds in an effort to enhance the talents and abilities of our lab. We value equality and inclusivity both in the scientific community and globally. You are welcome here! Click on the images below to learn more about our fantastic group members!