Division/Committee: [PMSE: Division of Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering]

This symposium will highlight the critical roles that modern polymer chemistry, materials science, and polymer physics play in understanding disease and cellular function. Biomacromolecular interactions that drive life processes (e.g., protein-protein interactions, glycan recognition, cellular signaling cascades) occur at the macromolecular length-scale. Recent, significant advances in precision polymer chemistry have enabled the unprecedented access to well-defined, robust materials to probe and perturb these cellular processes on the same dimensional order as their natural analogues. As such, synthetic polymers have become indispensable tools to uncover fundamental insights in cellular biology. This symposium will encompass the design and analysis of well-defined macromolecules that are tailored to interface with cells, proteins, and subcellular machinery in a programmed fashion and introduce the sub-field of “materials biology,” which is focused on the role of precision macromaterials in understanding the natural world.

Cassandra Callmann

The University of Texas at Austin

Appearances