Born in Madrid (Spain) in 1986. Graduated in Chemistry (Bsc/Msc) at Universidad Complutense of Madrid. He did his graduation project at the Technical Universtity of Berlin as part of the Socrates Erasmus European Fellowship in the department of Bio-inorganic Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Grohman. Subsequently, he moved to Berlin (Germany) where he obtained his Master’s degree in Polymer Science; a joint program between the Free University (FU), Technical University, Humbolt University (HU) of Berlin and the University of Potsdam (UP). He carried out his graduation project at Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam within the department of colloid Chemistry and under the supervision of Prof. Markus Antonietti. He was accepted to be part of the ITN Sassypol network as an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) at Supprapolix B. V. in Eindhoven (Netherlands) starting on January 2014.
Research
Soft-biological tissues (known collectively as the extracellular matrix or ECM for short) are known to exhibit highly unusual mechanical properties originating from a tightly regulated hierarchical assembly of stiff protein polymers, including actin, microtubules and the intermediate filaments (Figure 1). Among these properties, perhaps the most striking one is their propensity to stiffen under applied stress in a way that is hard to reproduce in synthetic materials.
Figure 1. Group of cells with their nuclei (blue) embedded into actin (green) and tubulin (red) networks.
Various theoretical models have sought to describe the mechanism by which strain-stiffening occurs in biopolymer networks. In these models, the ECM is represented as a composite material consisting of rigid rods interconnected to each other via short, flexible linkers. 1 This simple approach provides excellent approximations to in vivo cell elasticity measurements.
Within the scope of this project, we seek to reproduce the above model experimentally through the combined approach of chemical synthesis, self-assembly and mechanical characterization. Along these lines, bisurea bolaamphihiles are able to self-assembly in water into stiff rodlike micelles through the formation of strong and directional hydrogen bonds between ureas. Additionally, the incorporation of diacetylenes in the bolaamphiphile core, allows the covalent fixation along the fiber under UV irradiation (Figure 2) thereby, improving its mechanical properties. 2 Crosslinking of such fibers is expected to result in networks mechanically indistinguishable from biological materials that will provide a deeper understanding on the underlying physical principles that regulate strain stiffening and, in the longer term, will allow us to develop improved biomimetic scaffolds with potential applications in tissue engineering.
Figure 2. Self-assembly and UV-induced cross-polymerization of the diacetylenes.
(1) Storm, C.; Pastore, J. J.; MacKintosh, F. C.; Lubensky, T. C.; Janmey, P. A. Nature 2005, 435, 191–194.
(2) Pal, A.; Voudouris, P.; Koenigs, M. M. E.; Besenius, P.; Wyss, H. M.; Degirmenci, V.; Sijbesma, R. P. Soft Matter 2014, 10, 952–956.
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