News

7th November 2019
Group photo taken during the 2019 Joint Annual Meeting of SoftComp and EUSMI. Copyright: walbert visuelle

120 Participants at SoftComp/EUSMI Annual Meeting 2019

120 soft matter scientists attended the Joint SoftComp/EUSMI Annual Meeting 2019 wich took place in Portonovo (AN), Italy, from 8-10 October... (Read more)
4th February 2019
Polarized optical microscopy texture of a novel lyotropic liquid crystal phase formed by the self-organization of DNA nanoparticles. Copyright: authors of M. Salamonczyk et al., Nat.Commun. 7, 133358 (2016).

Molecular Engineering of Novel All-DNA Lyotropic Liquid Crystal Phases

Researchers from Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany, and Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, propose that DNA can be a versatile building block for fabricating all-DNA particles with engineered shape and interaction potentials that could serve... (Read more)
4th February 2019
Negative-staining TEM image of ß–lg aggregates formed at pH 5.8. Reproduced with permission from J. M. Jung et al., Biomacromolecules 9, 2477 (2008). Copyright (2008) American Chemical Society.

Formation and Use of Globular Protein Aggregates

Globular protein aggregates are used to texture aqueous systems either as gelling agents, viscosifiers or stabilizers of emulsions, e.g. in the food and cosmetics industries. Globular proteins are characterized by a rather rigid... (Read more)
4th February 2019
Micrograph showing the microfluidic chip used to create designer emulsions. Insets: First flow focusing device (top left) creating contact between the inner and middle phase. Middle left: flow focused on generating double emulsion droplets. Bottom row: gradual growth of the inner droplet. Picture: Iacopo Mattich/ETH Zurich

Designer Emulsions

The soft materials and complex groups at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and researchers from the KU Leuven, Belgium, have developed a generic and versatile method to create designer liquid-liquid interfaces, using transient double... (Read more)
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