Designation/Position- Postdoctoral Fellow
Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organiques offers postdoctoral fellow position for candidate having PhD or equivalent degree in Polymer Chemistry with solid expertise in techniques from the synthesis to the characterization.
About- The Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organiques (LCPO) has been focusing its academic research in Polymer Science on the mechanisms of polymerization and macromolecular engineering.
While these two domains are still the background of our activity, important projects are oriented towards the design of functional high value-added polymers and the study of their macroscopic properties for target applications, in particular in the domains of life sciences, energy and technology. Green and biomimetic synthetic approaches together with the understanding of structure/properties relationships are presenting the core of our scientific strategy.
Research/Job area– Polymer Chemistry
Location- Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organiques, France
Eligibility/Qualification- Applicants should hold a PhD in Polymer Chemistry with solid expertise in techniques from the synthesis to the characterization. Specific knowledge in electrochemistry is highly desired. Team capability and good skills in English are required.
- REQUIRED EDUCATION LEVEL- Chemistry: PhD or equivalent
- REQUIRED LANGUAGES- ENGLISH: Excellent
Job/Position Description- The generation of novel materials to capture biological signals and harness them in biosensors is extremely attractive for biomedical technologies. Indeed, physico-chemical stimuli are detected, amplified and treated by cells, transduced into bio-signals, and these “cellular algorithms” provide the high specificity and sensitivity of biosensors. Electrical activities form the base of key events such as brain activity, heart beat or hormone secretion and can be connected to command lines for actuators. Electrical signals are precisely shaped over time via the in- and outflow of distinct ion species through specific plasma membrane channels and the resulting electrical activity can be captured by electrodes. Current extracellular techniques have limited discriminatory power as they do not permit one to distinguish between different ion species, which requires patch-clamp recording: a technique demanding considerable skill and time and permitting only short-term observations.
Flexible organic electronics such as organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) are particularly well suited for interfacing with tissues/cells. Their mixed electronic/ionic conductivity and decreased impedance allows richer electrical recordings with local signal amplification and unprecedented signal-to-noise ratio. This should allow their use not only in neuronal or cardiac cells, but also in other excitable cells with notoriously small signal amplitude, but known to be excellent sensors and involved in important chronic diseases (pancreatic islet b-cells, vascular cells, etc.).
The purpose of this project is thus to explore the possibility to develop a new generation of recording devices displaying such multi-sensing capabilities. Polymers may provide such a breakthrough by specific recognition of ions in line with recent advances in organic electronics. Multimodal (co)polymers will be developed consisting of electron conducting polymer segments associated with polymer sequences bearing ion sensing moieties. Herein, we will develop chemical approaches aimed at conferring cation specificity/sensitivity to the ambivalent (ionic and electronic conductive) polymer complex PEDOT:PSS. Specific metal cations involved in various cell/organ activities, such as K+, Na+or Zn2+, will be investigated through the synthesis of appropriate monomers and (co)polymers. The latter could be obtained via classical oxidative polymerization or electropolymerization reactions.
The newly derivatized (co)polymers will for instance be evaluated by 1H NMR titration, UV-vis spectroscopy and electrochemistry and further integrated into OECTs.
