• Question: From your experiments thus far what have you discovered about polymers?

    Asked by Nimisha to Anne, Arthur, Rose, Ruhina, Thomas on 18 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by POwen, IDidNotSignUpForThis, Chlo.
    • Photo: Arthur Wilkinson

      Arthur Wilkinson answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      I’ve been studying and working with polymers for 38 years and what I’ve found out so far is that they are still very interesting to me. Every day something new and interesting turns up.

    • Photo: Rose Simnett

      Rose Simnett answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      I have discovered that the polymers that I’m trying to make are pretty tricky to actually make. I have also learned that small differences in repeat unit structure can mean massive differences in the properties of the final polymer

    • Photo: Ruhina Miller

      Ruhina Miller answered on 19 Jun 2015:

      They are very versatile and have many more uses than I previously considered!

    • Photo: Thomas Farrugia

      Thomas Farrugia answered on 21 Jun 2015:

      Hoi all – I can’t say that I have discovered major things, but from a personal point of view I had never thought of using polymers to modify biological molecules like proteins.

      The really cool thing about this is that you can add a whole new sort of functionality to the molecule by choosing your polymer carefully – some of the guys in our group stuck polymers that fold and unfold when changing the temperature onto their proteins, and the proteins then assemblde into droplets that can then shrink and expand when cooled and heated. In my case I’m using them to make these nanoparticles which can then be used to form films.

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