Professor of Supramolecular & Polymer Chemistry / Director of the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis

What we do

Our research interests include the synthesis of functional nanosystems, controlled polymer architectures and dynamic supramolecular assemblies through molecular recognition processes.

The underlying theme of our research lies at the interface between synthetic organic efforts on small molecules and macroscopic properties at the materials level, developing a macro-organic approach to chemistry. Dynamic supramolecular self-assembly of materials will be an area of great importance in the coming years, allowing for innovations in nanotechnology and at the biological and chemical interfaces.

We are particularly interested in exploring topics such as water-soluble and stimuli-responsive materials, template and imprinting technologies of functional polymers for use in chiral separations and enantioselective catalysis, and controlling material morphologies and architectures both in solution and in the solid state through rational design and a multi-step, hierarchical self-assembly process.

Watch Professor Scherman discuss his research

Take a tour of the Scherman Lab

Publications

Metastable single-chain polymer nanoparticles prepared by dynamic cross-linking with nor-seco-cucurbit[10]uril
EA Appel, JD Barrio, J Dyson, L Isaacs, OA Scherman
Chemical Science
(2012)
3
Isolation of cucurbit[ n ]uril homologues with imidazolium salts in a recyclable manner
D Jiao, OA Scherman
Green Chemistry
(2012)
14
Gold nanoparticle self-assembly with cucurbit[n]urils in microfluidic droplets
RJ Coulston, J Zhang, R Taylor, J Baumberg, C Abell, OA Scherman
ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
(2012)
244
6.16 Dynamic Supramolecular Polymers
EA Appel, U Rauwald, OA Scherman
(2012)
One-step fabrication of supramolecular microcapsules from microfluidic droplets
J Zhang, R Coulston, O Scherman, C Abell
ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
(2012)
244
Triply Triggered Doxorubicin Release From Supramolecular Nanocontainers
XJ Loh, J del Barrio, PPC Toh, T-C Lee, D Jiao, U Rauwald, EA Appel, OA Scherman
Biomacromolecules
(2011)
13
Plasmonic junctions with cucurbit[5]uril 'glue': Fabrication of precise sub-nm junctions in gold nanoparticle assemblies
RW Taylor, TC Lee, OA Scherman, R Esteban, J Aizpurua, FM Huang, JJ Baumberg, S Mahajan
Optics Infobase Conference Papers
(2011)
High molecular weight polyacrylamides by atom transfer radical polymerization: Enabling advancements in water‐based applications
EA Appel, J del Barrio, XJ Loh, J Dyson, OA Scherman
Journal of Polymer Science Part A: Polymer Chemistry
(2011)
50
Supramolecular Polymer Engineering
GBWL Ligthart, OA Scherman, RP Sijbesma, EW Meijer
(2011)
1
Supramolecular composite materials from cucurbit[8]uril
RJ Coulston, ST Jones, TC Lee, E Appel, OA Scherman
ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
(2011)
242

Head of group

Telephone number

01223 334372 (shared), 01223 331797

Email address

College