Two Argonne researchers will discuss their Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) sponsored work at the LDRD Seminar Series presentation Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019, at 12:30 p.m. in Building 212, Room A157. All are welcome to attend.
Visit the LDRD website to view upcoming seminars.
Jeffrey Hubbell
“Ultra-small, Ultra-stable Polymer Micelles Through Crystalline Assembly,” by Scientist Jeffery Hubbell (MSD)
Abstract
Polymer micelles have a number of important applications, including in drug delivery and vaccines. Advantages relative to other forms of polymer nanoparticles include the ease and homogeneity of assembly, which is determined by thermodynamic considerations that derive from the architecture of the polymer unimers. Block copolymers are commonly used, for example of a water-soluble block with an organic-soluble block, to lead to self-assembly in water driven by hydrophobicity. Typical hydrophobic block compositions and lengths can yield critical micelle concentrations of order micromolar. Here, we explore an approach where both hydrophobicity and crystallinity is combined in the micelle core to achieve very high stability, with critical micelle concentrations sub-nanomolar, at even very small block lengths, to obtain micelles that are order 10 nm in dimension. Applications in immunology will be presented.
Biography
Jeffrey Hubbell is professor in the Institute for Molecular Engineering of the University of Chicago. Previous to moving to Chicago, he was on the faculty of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL, where he served as director of the Institute of Bioengineering and dean of the School of Life Sciences), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and University of Zurich, the California Institute of Technology and the University of Texas in Austin. He holds a B.S. from Kansas State University and a Ph.D. from Rice University, both degrees being in chemical engineering. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2010, the National Academy of Inventors in 2014 and the National Academy of Medicine in 2019.
Hubbell uses biomaterials and protein engineering approaches to investigate topics in regenerative medicine and immunotherapeutics. In regenerative medicine, he focuses on biomaterial matrices that mimic the extracellular matrix and on growth factor — extracellular matrix interactions, working in a variety of animal models of regenerative medicine. In immunotherapeutics, he focuses on nanomaterials in vaccines that target lymphoid-resident antigen presenting cells and on protein engineering approaches to deliver antigen to the spleen and liver for inverse vaccines to induce tolerance to protein drugs and in autoimmunity. His interests are both basic and translational, having founded or co-founded six biomedical companies based on his technology.
Pinaki Pal
“Modeling and Simulation of Supersonic Combustion in a Non-Premixed Rotating Detonation Engine,” by Postdoctoral Appointee Pinaki Pal (ES)
Abstract
Over the last two decades, detonation based propulsion concepts have received a lot of attention as a means to achieve significant improvement in the performance of air-breathing and rocket engines. The detonative combustion mode is particularly interesting due to the resulting pressure gain from reactants to products, faster heat release, decreased entropy generation, more available work and higher thrust compared to conventional deflagrative combustion. Rotating detonation engine (RDE) is one such class of novel combustor concepts. In an RDE, fuel and air are injected at one end of an annular combustion chamber, and a continuous detonation, once initiated, propagates in the azimuthal direction within the annulus near the inlet, while the detonation products are expanded and purged from the chamber further axially downstream. A multitude of factors affect the flow field and operation of RDEs, such as fuel and oxidizer compositions, global equivalence ratio, mass flow rates, stagnation and back pressures, injector geometry and detonation channel geometry. In this context, the goal of this work was to develop a robust and cost-effective numerical model based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) that could capture the combustion phenomena in realistic full-scale RDE geometries accurately and enable rapid design space exploration and simulation-driven development/optimization of this technology.
Biography