10:30 - 11:00 a.m. Coffee with speaker | 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Seminar
"Controlled Polymerizations Applied to Organic Bioelectronics"
Laure Kayser, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Delaware
Abstract: Organic bioelectronics refers to the use of organic materials, particularly (semi)conducting π-conjugated polymers, in electronic devices specifically designed for biological applications such as analyte biosensing, monitoring physiological signals, repairing nervous injuries or even treating Parkinson’s disease. Currently, most bioelectronic devices rely on inorganic (semi)conductors that lack ionic conductivity, mechanical compliance, biocompatibility, and/or specificity, thereby limiting their translation. Polymers that are ionically- and electronically-conductive, i.e., organic mixed ionic-electronic conductors (OMIECs) could address these challenges. But, the commercial OMIEC currently used in the majority of studies, poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) still suffers from similar problems and has a proprietary composition, which prevents material/device optimization and functionalization towards specific applications in biology. To solve challenges in bioelectronics, my team focuses on novel OMIECs made by controlled radical polymerizations (e.g., reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer, RAFT) to precisely tune the properties and functionality of OMIECs in thin-film electronics and bulk conductive hydrogels. The first part of my talk will cover on progress in thin-film electronics. I will show how the precise tailoring of PSS in PEDOT:PSS led to electronic devices with higher performance and stability than commercial materials. I will also share a new synthetic strategy for making PEDOT:PSS from plastic waste. In the second part, I will shift to conductive hydrogels and discuss our work on photo- and thermo-responsive copolymers to achieve adaptive electronics deployed on skin, in vitro, or in vivo.
Bio: Laure Kayser is an associate professor at the University of Delaware (UD) in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and holds a joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. After undergraduate studies and a master's degree in chemistry and supramolecular chemistry at the University of Strasbourg in France, she earned her doctorate degree at McGill University in Canada working with Prof. Bruce Arndtsen on multicomponent polymerization of conjugated polymers. She moved to the United States for her post-doc in nanoengineering at the University of California San Diego with Prof. Darren Lipomi working on stretchable electronics. She started her independent faculty career at UD in 2019, where her group uses innovative synthetic chemistry to solve problems in human health (polyelectrolytes for bioelectronics, osteoarthritis treatments and haptics) and sustainability (plastic upgrading). Her research led to several recognitions including the Gerard Mangone Young Researcher Award (UD), the outstanding early career faculty from the College of Engineering (2025), ACS PMSE Early Investigator (2024), NSF CAREER award (2023), Beckman Young Investigator (2023), Rising Star in Polymers (ACS Polymers Au, 2023), ACS PRF doctoral new investigator award (2023). At UD, Prof. Kayser is the co-director of professional development of the NSF Research Traineeship in Computing and Data Science Training for Materials Innovation, Discovery, and AnalyticS (NRT-MIDAS) and a mentor for the NIH-funded Chemistry-Biology Interface (CBI) graduate training program.