People

Prof. Nico Bruns

nico.bruns@strath.ac.uk
Location: University of Strathclyde
ORCID: 0000-0001-6199-9995
Google Scholar: Link

Nico studied Chemistry at the Universities of Freiburg (Germany) and Edinburgh (Scotland). He graduated from the University of Freiburg as Diplom-Chemiker in 2003 and, under the supervision of Prof. Joerg C. Tiller and Prof. Rolf Mülhaupt, undertook a PhD in Macromolecular Chemistry, which he obtained in 2007. In his doctoral work, Nico investigated amphiphilic polymer conetworks as nanostructured support for biocatalysis in non-aqueous media. From 2007 to 2008, he joined the group of Prof. Douglas S. Clark at the University of California, Berkeley, as Postdoctoral Researcher where he explored biotechnologically engineered protein cages as mechano-responsive sensor molecules in polymeric materials. Upon returning to Europe, Nico joined the Department of Chemistry of the University of Basel in Switzerland. From 2008 to 2013, he led an independent junior research group as Habilitand and recieved the Venia Docendi for Chemistry in 2014. He was awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship, which enabled him to join the Adolphe Merkle Institute as Associate Professor of Macromolecular Chemistry from 2013 to 2018. In 2018, he was appointed full Professor of Macromolecular Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde.

Nico is a founding member and principal investigator of the Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Bio-Inspired Materials and coordinates the EU-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network Plant-Inspired Materials and Surfaces (PlaMatSu).

Nico, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the recipient of a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation, a Marie Curie Fellowship, a Holcim Stiftung Wissen Habilitanden Fellowship, a Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship, and the Pfizer Research Award for Young Scientists. He was honoured as Emerging Investigator by the journals Chemical Society Reviews and Journal of Materials Chemistry A. Furthermore, his Hemolytics team won the 3rd place of the Yposmed Innovation Award 2019.

Dr. Michela M. Pellizzoni
Ambizione Fellow

michela.pellizzoni@unifr.ch
Location: Adolphe Merkle Institute
ORCID: 0000-0003-4294-0247

Dr. Michela M. Pellizzoni received her M.Sc. degree in Biotechnology in 2011 from the University of Milan. She earned her PhD degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2015 on the development of hybrid systems based on new chiral aminophosphine and diamine ligands and their applications in asymmetric synthesis.

After 2 year in the group of Prof. Ward in Basel working on the development of new catalytic reactions and protein scaffold engineering for in vivo catalysis with artificial metalloenzymes, in October 2017 she joined Bruns group. In this second post-doc experience she is involved in the enzymatic ATRPase project. Using chemo-genetic optimisation strategies, she is developing tailor-made catalyst for Atom Transfer Radical Polymerisation reactions.

Recently, she received the Ambizione grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation to establish her independent academic career and to develop novel bio-inspired catalysts for controlled radical reactions under mild and physiological conditions.

Dr. Jonas Pollard
Gebert Rüf Foundation Fellow

jonas.pollard@unifr.ch
Location: Adolphe Merkle Institute
ORCID: 0000-0002-9331-576X

Jonas obtained his PhD degree in chemistry from the Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg in 2017. Since then he is leading the Hemolytics project targeting the development of a novel, highly-sensitive and inexpensive malaria diagnostic device to assist malaria eradication campaigns.

Dr. Kyle J. Rodriguez

kyle.rodriguez@unifr.ch
Location: Adolphe Merkle Institute
ORCID: 0000-0002-3208-8612

Kyle graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 2012 with a B.A. in Chemistry. During his time there he worked as a research intern at Genocea Biosciences. In 2012, he joined Samuel Pazicni and Erik Berda’s research groups as a PhD student at the University of New Hampshire where he investigated the role of secondary sphere interactions in heme proteins using porphyrin‐cored polymer nanoparticles. After obtaining his PhD In 2017, he joined Prof. Nico Bruns’ group at the Adolphe Merkle Institute where his research focuses on investigating metalloproteins for their use in controlled radical polymerizations.

Dr. Philip B. V. Scholten

philip.scholten@unifr.ch
Location: Adolphe Merkle Institute
ORCID: 0000-0001-5187-7003

Philip studied chemistry at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom, and obtained his master degree in 2015 studying ring-opening polymerisations of macrolactones under the supervision of Prof. Andrew P. Dove. He then undertook a PhD within the Marie Curie EJD-FunMat programme under the supervision of Dr. Christophe Detrembleur (Université de Liège, Belgium) and Prof. Michael Meier (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany). Within this EU-funded program, Philip investigated the synthesis of novel copolymers based on renewable resources and ethylene using reversible deactivation radical polymerisation, as well as novel pathways towards the combination of cellulose and industrial polyethylene using renewable compatibilisers.

Philip then joined the Adolphe-Merkle Institute in 2019 as a Post-doctoral Researcher as part of the NCCR Bio-Inspired Materials, investigating polymersome-based nanocarriers for drug delivery.

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