Increased Toughness and Excellent Electronic Properties in Polythiophenes

Today a new paper from the Sydlik Group appeared online in Advanced Electronic Materials! In collaboration with Prof. Genevieve Sauve at Case Western and Prof. Rick McCullough at Harvard, we synthesized and characterized a novel series of random copolymers of polythiophene. Unlike traditional electronics that are stiff and brittle, these plastics that conduct electricity were found to be exceptionally tough and flexible. This was as a result of the random incorporation of an unsubstituted thiophene into the polymer backbone. Further, these materials have excellent electronic properties, suggesting their potential for use in rollable, foldable electronics such as a portable solar cell. You can read the full paper here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aelm.201600316/full. This is just one example of how the concepts of polymer design have the potential transform our lives!

Image is the property of Advanced Electronic Materials & the Sydlik Group

Sydlik Lab Space

Last Friday was the last day of classes here at CMU! The Sydlik Group had a lot to celebrate, with the end of the semester and the end of renovations in our lab space. We held an open house to show off our new spaces and share the holiday spirit with our colleagues. Check out the space in the pictures below!

Prof Sydlik's office. Now you see why the website is these colors!

Through that door...

...lies the student office!

Main synthetic lab space

With chemical fume hoods for miles!

Even more chemical fume hoods 

Safety first!

Biosafety lab

Super cool microscope. So much automation!

Lunch room follows the color scheme!

Congrats to Will!

Congratulations to senior undergrad Will Koshut on his acceptance to the Chemistry PhD program at the University of Tennessee! Will's going to be Dr. Koshut some day! Thrilled to have helped nurture Will's passion for research during his time in the Sydlik Group.

Sydlik Groupsgiving

This Sunday, in preparation for Thanksgiving, the Sydlik group gathered at Prof Sydlik's house to celebrate our first annual Sydlik Groupsgiving. We had a great time celebrating all we were thankful for: interesting science, good labmates, and great food!

#SydlikGroupSelfie

Biscuit was pretty upset that he didn't get his own plate.

QOMSBOC 2016

This past weekend, the Sydlik Group took to the roads again (no car selfies this time, sorry!) to present at the QOMSBOC, that is the Quebec-Ontario Mini-Symposium for Organic and Bioorganic Chemistry, in Canada. The conference ran 11/11- 11/13 and was held at the University of Waterloo, where Stefanie's former Swager labmate Derek Schipper, is a professor. Annie, Dan, Caoxin, and Jenny all gave posters, and Zoe gave a talk entitled "Sutureless Would Closure and Covalent Controlled Local Drug Delivery: Therapeutic Methacrylate Adhesives". This was the first time we had undergraduate researchers present at a conference, and Zoe's first conference talk. I was very excited to send these students, and thrilled with how well they represented the Sydlik Group!

Sydlik Group, all cleaned up & looking great! Dan (GS2), Zoe (GS3), Annie (GS3), Jenny (junior), and Caoxin (junior)

Annie presented a very colorful poster on her biomimetic graphene!

Dan captivates audiences with his triptycene #blindedbyscience

Lots of good scientific discussion going on at the poster session. The real question is: did they have good coffee?!

In it for the Long Haul!

Today, Brian, Annie, and Prof. Sydlik's paper "In It for the Long Haul: The Cytocompatibility of Aged Graphene Oxide and Its Degradation Products" first appeared online in Advanced Healthcare Materials! The paper follows the cytocompatibility of graphene oxide as it degrades over time in an aqueous environment, mimicking the toxicity that would be experienced with implantation of graphene oxide device for tissue regeneration. We found graphene oxide to be degradable and biocompatible over almost a year, making it a promising candidate for next-generation biomaterials. You can read more about it here! http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adhm.201600745/full

This cool image  by Brian was almost cool enough to be cover art. They accepted us for an inside
cover, but we are holding out for the real deal!

Hello World

Welcome to the Sydlik Group's new home on the internet! As a millennial, I've decided that it makes more sense to keep a group blog than a more traditional group website. Research moves quickly, especially in an assistant professor's group and it's easier to keep you up to date through social media. We'll be adding posts with more details about research projects and team members in the coming weeks and months. For now though, you can follow @StefSydlik on Twitter or @ProfBiscuitSydlik on Instagram to get up to the minute updates as we bring our website up to speed. Thanks for stopping by!

Graphene Oxide as a Scaffold for Bone Regeneration

Today, the Sydlik Group's first paper, "Graphene Oxide as a Scaffold for Bone Regeneration" appeared online in WIRES Nanomedicine and Nanotechnology. The article is a review of literature investigating and discussing the potential of graphene oxide as a biomaterial for bone regeneration. With extensive research, we found that as long as care is taken to control the biocompatibility of the material, graphene oxide holds great potential due to its autodegradability and ease of chemical modification. We are actively working to transform graphene oxide into a degradable, cell instructive scaffold so this paper lays important groundwork for our continued investigations! You can read more here: http://wires.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WiresArticle/wisId-WNAN1437.html

Copyright WIRES Nanomedicine & Nanotechnology, from Zoe Wright and the Sydlik Group

The spot where we got the acceptance email for this paper. I was riding my bike over a mountain pass in Colorado :)

Group Picture, Fall 2016

Sydlik Group, Fall 2016 

Left to Right: Val Senavsky (junior, Chem), Will Koshut (senior, Chem), Dan Siroky (GS2, Chem), Anne Arnold (GS3, Chem), Brian Holt (postdoc), Gauav Begur (junior, BME/ MSE), Caoxin Tang (junior, Chem), Wyatt Swift-Ramirez (sophomore, Chem), Zoe Wright (GS3, Chem), Jenny Gao (junior, Chem), Stefanie Sydlik (Professor)

World Biomaterials Conference

On Tuesday May 17, 2016 members of the Sydlik Group traveled to Montreal to present at the 2016 World Biomaterials Conference! Annie and Brian gave excellent talks and Prof Sydlik and Zoe gave posters. We had a great time and heard a lot of inspiring science.

Sydlik Group with the Biomaterials Moose. We certainly clean up well!

Brian, Zoe, and Annie were coerced to pile into Prof Sydlik's Subaru to make the 10 hour drive to Montreal. To pass the time, we listened to the audiobook of Jurassic Park. Nothing like being trapped with your advisor in a confined space!

Prof. Sydlik presents a poster on our osteomimetic graphene scaffolds for bone regeneration

Moose calls to signify the start of symposia were a highlight of the conference!

Montreal is very pretty