Cells' local mechanical environment can be as important in guiding cellular responses as
many well-characterized biochemical cues. Hydrogels that mimic the native extracellular …

Softness plays a key role in determining the macroscopic properties of colloidal systems,
from synthetic nanogels to biological macromolecules, from viruses to star polymers …

During the last three decades, a series of key technological improvements turned atomic
force microscopy (AFM) into a nanoscopic laboratory to directly observe and chemically …

Polymers have been widely applied in various fields in the daily routines and the
manufacturing. Despite the awareness of the aggressive and inevitable aging for the …

Develo** efficient and affordable electrocatalysts for the sluggish oxygen evolution
reaction (OER) remains a significant barrier that needs to be overcome for the practical …

Biomolecular interactions underpin most processes inside the cell. Hence, a precise and
quantitative understanding of molecular association and dissociation events is crucial, not …

Polymers with precisely defined monomeric sequences present an exquisite tool for
controlling material properties by harnessing both the robustness of synthetic polymers and …

Covalent crystals such as diamonds are a class of fascinating materials that are challenging
to fabricate in the form of thin films. This is because spatial kinetic control of bond formation …

Probing material properties at surfaces down to the single-particle scale of atoms and
molecules has been achieved, but high-resolution subsurface imaging remains a …

The viscosity and crowding of biological environment are considered vital for the correct
cellular function, and alterations in these parameters are known to underly a number of …