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My research interests are in the field of polymer and materials chemistry, specifically the interaction between metals and branched polymers. Applications of this work include remediation of metal contamination from water, and drug delivery of organometallic drugs such as cisplatin.
Poly(amidoamine) dendrimer with silsesquioxane core, 8 branches and 16 primary amine terminal groups
Dendrimers and Hyperbranched polymers are highly branched polymeric architectures that radiate from a core. In contrast to linear polymers, they possess many terminal groups and, by virtue of this, can carry multiple functional groups such as ligands or drug molecules. The number of terminal groups a dendrimer has is determined by the monomers used in its synthesis and the nature of the core molecule.
Cubic silsesquioxane with 8 reactive sites
Many dendrimer cores such as ammonia or pentaerythritol permit just three or four branches. Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxanes are silicon-oxygen cage molecules and the cubic form [RSiO1.5]8 has eight potential points to which branches may be attached.