How far can we push chemical self-assembly? Bridging the gap between life sciences and materials science, using organic chemistry and polymer chemistry. 

Exploration of supramolecular systems and materials

At the Macro Organic Chemistry group we educate young students to become independent scientists and make them experienced researchers in the design, synthesis, characterization and possible applications of complex molecular systems with unconventional properties. Our research addresses the challenging question “How far can we push chemical self-assembly?”. This ranges from detailed mechanistic (kinetic) investigations on the self-assembly processes of various molecular structures (e.g. the formation of ordered arrays, under thermodynamic control as well as through kinetic experiments) to the design, non-covalent synthesis and use of artificial mimics of enzymes and extracellular matrices. Our group is part of the overarching research group for Molecular Science and Technology.

From the start in 1991, our research has been focused on the design, synthesis, characterization and possible applications of new functional molecular architectures. Over the years we have worked on dendrimers, semi-conducting oligomers/polymers and several supramolecular units, with chirality as a muse. In the course of time, our focus has shifted towards the synthesis and study of complex molecular systems and in 2007 our group became the founding father of the Institute of Complex Molecular Systems (ICMS) at TU/e. More recently, a renewed interest in functional supramolecular materials for electronics and biomedical engineering has underpinned the relevance of our knowledge in the design and synthesis of molecular units that self-assemble in a controlled way, producing materials ordered at the mesoscale. 

In our current research we aim at closing the gap between organic chemistry, polymer chemistry and chemical biology by applying well-controlled supramolecular chemistry protocols. Central to this is our concept of multi-step non-covalent synthesis of molecular systems, using well-defined small and large molecules. We thus synthesize and study novel artificial molecular systems where the position of all molecules in the system can be controlled with respect to time and space. To arrive at dynamic functionalties of these molecular systems, we investigate the response to external stimuli both experimentally and theoretically.