Small molecule theranostic agents suffer from fast blood clearance whereas nanoparticle ones are incapable of molecular functions and often nondegradable. We propose to bridge the gap between nanoparticles and small molecule agents based on self-immolative polymers which undergo triggered cascade depolymerization at the chain level. Amphiphilic block copolymers containing side chain-functionalized

A century after Staudinger's Macromolecular Hypothesis, macromolecular science is entering a new era. In this perspective, we discuss size effects and the nature of macromolecules. With increasing molecular size, the complexity increases dramatically in terms of both primary chemical structure and assembled physical structure, as exemplified by the information-bearing molecules like DNA, RNA, and proteins

Self-assembly of giant building blocks beyond conventional molecules offers tremendous opportunities for the fabrication of new-generation structural materials. This work describes the macroscopic colloidal segregation in the vesicular self-assembly of binary nanoparticle amphiphiles (NPAMs) consisting of block copolymer-grafted nanoparticles in solution. Depending on their relative size and concentration

RNAs can mimic the information storage, replication and catalysis functions of DNAs and proteins, providing physical evidence for the widely accepted RNA world hypothesis that RNA alone constitutes earlier life forms. However, the currently found molecular chaperones for correcting RNA folding are proteins, which poses a question on whether RNA itself can avoid misfolding in the absence of proteins

Development of crystalline porous materials with luminescent properties have gradually attracted attention for their potential applications in drug delivery, bioimaging, photoelectronic and so on. To date, it is a formidable challenge to rationally design porous phosphorescent materials. Herein, we have reported a chemical strategy of breaking π-conjugated structures of phosphorescent molecules by

Frame-Guided Assembly (FGA) strategy has been recently reported to prepare vesicles with customized shapes and sizes. However, the effects of the interaction between leading hydrophobic groups (LHGs) and amphiphiles on the thermodynamic and kinetic control of the FGA process haven't been fully understood. In this work, we employed the pH low-insertion peptide (pHLIP) as the LHGs because its interaction

Although cation−π interactions play a critical role in biological systems, experimental studies in aqueous environments are limited due to a lack of suitable systems and methods. The recent success in synthesizing water-soluble poly(cation−π) bearing adjacent cationic/aromatic residues provides excellent systems for studying cation−π interactions in aqueous environments. In this study, we investigated

Highly dipolar mesogen-free liquid crystalline polymers are excellent candidates for achieving large spontaneous polarization under relatively low electric fields for advanced electrical and optical applications. In this report, the effect of grafting density of n-dodecylsulfonyl side chains on the mesogen-free liquid crystalline self-assembly of comb-like isotactic poly(oxypropylene) was studied.

A supramolecular orientational memory (SOM) effect that provides access to complex columnar hexagonal architectures that cannot be designed by any other methodology was recently reported by our laboratory. This SOM concept is encountered upon heating and cooling a hexagonal columnar periodic array via a Frank–Kasper phase that is generated from supramolecular spheres. Here, a library of twenty-four

Thermotropic order-order phase transitions (OOTs) in block copolymers are not commonly observed in the strong segregation region. Phase separation of giant surfactants composed of hydrophilic molecular nanoparticles (MNPs) as heads and hydrophobic flexible polymer chains as tails occurs generally in the strong segregation region. By introducing a rigid molecular segment at the junction point of the