Profile

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Abstract

Journal of Materials Chemistry profiles the new members of the Editorial Board: Cameron Alexander, Carsten Tschierske and John Irvine.

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Cameron Alexander is a Reader in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham, UK, where he heads the Advanced Drug Delivery Group within the Division of Advanced Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering. Dr Alexander received BSc and PhD degrees from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Durham, UK, completing his doctorate in 1990 under the supervision of Professor W. James Feast, FRS, in the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Polymer Science. He then carried out post-doctoral work with Professor Anselm Griffin at the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis at the University of Cambridge, UK, and followed this with positions as a Senior Scientific Officer in the Biotechnology Group at the BBSRC Institute of Food Research in Reading, and as a Senior Lecturer at the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, University of Portsmouth. Dr Alexander was awarded an Advanced Research Fellowship by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in October 2000 which he completed in September 2005. Dr Alexander is also a founder member of the RSC Biomaterials Chemistry Special Interest Group.

Research interests^1,2 are centred around the applications of synthetic polymers in the biomedical sciences, with a particular focus on the use of active or ‘smart’ polymers to control processes at biomolecular surfaces and interfaces, and in the applications of self-assembly in polymer synthesis and molecular recognition. He has published extensively in the area of molecular imprinting, contributing to the first reports of whole cell and inorganic crystal imprints, as well as the use of imprinted polymer binding sites to effect regioselective chemical transformations. More recently his group have reported polymeric switches controlling DNA-translocating molecular motors, and control of bioadhesion by surface-displayed smart polymers. Current work in Dr Alexander's group is focused on smart polymers in drug delivery, regulation of biopolymer activity, control of cell–surface interactions and gene therapy.

Plate1 Cameron Alexander

Carsten Tschierske is Professor at the Department of Organic Chemistry, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. Research in his group is centred on self-organisation in liquid crystalline systems. Current efforts include bent-core mesogens, metallomesogens, amphiphilic and amphotropic systems, multi-level segregating systems with complex superstructures as well as polar order and supramolecular chirality in soft matter. He received his PhD degree from the University of Halle in 1985, where his dissertation work was done with Professor Zaschke. He was invited as a visiting professor to the Universities of Marburg (1991–1992) and Würzburg (1992–1993) in Germany and the Institute for Advanced Materials Studies at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan (2001–2002). Since 1994 he has served as a Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Halle.

He received the “Dozentenstipendium” of the “Verband der Chemischen Industrie” in 1993.

Professor Tschierske is current president of the German Liquid Crystal Society. He has co-authored over 220 scientific papers.^3,4 He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of Chemical Communications and of the Editorial Board of Liquid Crystals.

Plate2 Carsten Tschierske

John Irvine is Professor of Chemistry at the University of St Andrews and works at the interfaces of chemistry, materials science, physics and engineering. He has a BSc in chemical physics from Edinburgh University, a DPhil from the University of Ulster on the photoelectrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide and performed his post-doctoral studies investigating alkali-conducting oxides for high temperature batteries at Aberdeen. In his independent research career, he has developed expertise in solid state chemistry, electronic conductors, structural chemistry and high temperature electrochemistry. He became a lecturer at Aberdeen University in 1989, before moving to St Andrews University in 1994. He has held one-year fellowships supported by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Nuffield Foundation, and was visiting Professor at Northwestern University in 1994. He and his colleagues have recently spun-out a company developing a new high temperature fuel cell concept. St Andrews Fuel Cells were recently awarded a SMART award by the Scottish Executive. He was awarded the Francis Bacon Medal for fuel cell research by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2003 and the Beilby Medal for materials research by the Institute for Materials, the Society for the Chemical Industry and the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1999. He has 190 publications in refereed scientific journals^5,6 and was recently elected as a European Councillor of the International Society of Solid State Ionics. He chaired the working group on stationary fuel cells that is part of the Strategic Research Agenda, a major part of the European Commission Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Programme, and is a member of the International Partnership in Hydrogen Energy Fuel Cell Task Force. He is particularly interested in clean energy production and is developing programmes to utilise renewable energy including a wide range of biofuels.

Plate3 John Irvine

References

1. B. Twaites, C. de las Heras Alarcón and C. Alexander, J. Mater. Chem., 2005, 15, 441.
2. C. de las Heras Alarcón, T. Farhan, V. L. Osborne, W. T. S. Huck and C. Alexander, J. Mater. Chem., 2005, 15, 2089.
3. T. Hegmann, B. Neumann, R. Wolf and C. Tschierske, J. Mater. Chem., 2005, 15, 1025.
4. R. Amaranatha Reddy and C. Tschierske, J. Mater. Chem. 10.1039/b504400f.
5. C. D. Savaniu, J. Canales-Vazquez and J. T. S. Irvine, J. Mater. Chem., 2005, 15, 598.
6. S. García-Martín, M. A. Alario-Franco, D. P. Fagg and J. T. S. Irvine, J. Mater. Chem., 2005, 15, 1903.

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