Sommaire:

Microemulsions, i.e. dispersions of liquid droplets within another immiscible liquid, are a versatile platform for the design of soft functional materials, such as encapsulation-and-delivery systems or biomimetic assemblies. I will briefly illustrate these two approaches with some results from my PhD and postdoctoral research. During my PhD at ENS Paris, I used interfacial complexation in water-in-oil emulsions to drive the accumulation of thermoresponsive polymers at the surface of water droplets, resulting in aqueous-core microcapsules with temperature-dependent properties (hydrophobicity, fluidity, permeability). In my current postdoctoral work at NYU, I use enzymatic reactions to program the out-of-equilibrium assembly of DNA-functionalized oil microdroplets. By controlling the hierarchical organization of the resulting droplet clusters in time and space, I show that this system can replicate key features of living cellular aggregates, such as dynamic reorganization and response to chemical cues.

Pour plus d'informations, merci de contacter Truzzolillo D.