ACS is spread out across hotels and centers over at least a nine block-by-nine block chunk of downtown DC. There are shuttles rolling around but they rarely beat walking, so when you venture to a new location it’s best to be sure you want to stay for at least a few talks. I ended up grabbing lunch at one end of the stretch, so I thought I’d at least take a walk through the nearest ACS venue. Luckily I happened upon some fairly interesting talks about polymers — no huge breakthroughs, but certainly educational.

Richard Gross at the Polytechnic University at NYU presented some interesting work on sophorolipids — surfactants that are oozed out by yeast. Sophorolipids have been generating some interest with the increasingly eco-conscious pharmaceutical industry because they’re biodegradable, naturally and renewably produced and non-toxic, or at least low-toxic.

Gross has been hooking these glycolipids into polymers for a few years now using ring-opening metathesis polymerization, and here he showed how versatile the process was, not just producing high molecular weight polymers but also giving him the power to vary the polymer’s structure and “tune” its physical properties. He found that the polymers have similar physical properties to polylactic acid, an increasingly popular “green” plastic, but sphorolipids have unique potential because he can make them in funkier shapes.

I also checked out a talk about cavities with Joseph Antonucci from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, who’s trying to develop antibacterial fillings. There’s a recent trend to introduce antibacterial agents into fillings (and really, what industry isn’t following this trend?), but there’s a problem with leakage. A few years ago people started developing antibacterial materials that worked by contact with bacteria rather than releasing the agent, but these “biocidal” polymers were difficult to make.

Antonucci developed a new, one-step way to synthesize biocidal polymers — by adapting the “classic” Menschutkin reaction, which is apparently old hat for organic chemists. (Back in 1907 Nature ran an obit (pdf) on Prof Menshutkin if you’re into that kind of thing.) One of the surprises for Antonucci was the antibacterial product ended up being a viscous liquid, making it all the more suitable for filling in your cavities.

ACS is spread out across hotels and centers over at least a nine block-by-nine block chunk of downtown DC. There are shuttles rolling around but they rarely beat walking, so when you venture to a new location it’s best to be sure you want to stay for at least a few talks. I ended up grabbing lunch at one end of the stretch, so I thought I’d at least take a walk through the nearest ACS venue. Luckily I happened upon some fairly interesting talks about polymers — no huge breakthroughs, but certainly educational.

Richard Gross at the Polytechnic University at NYU presented some interesting work on sophorolipids — surfactants that are oozed out by yeast. Sophorolipids have been generating some interest with the increasingly eco-conscious pharmaceutical industry because they’re biodegradable, naturally and renewably produced and non-toxic, or at least low-toxic.

Gross has been hooking these glycolipids into polymers for a few years now using ring-opening metathesis polymerization, and here he showed how versatile the process was, not just producing high molecular weight polymers but also giving him the power to vary the polymer’s structure and “tune” its physical properties. He found that the polymers have similar physical properties to polylactic acid, an increasingly popular “green” plastic, but sphorolipids have unique potential because he can make them in funkier shapes.

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