Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
luxenhoferlab.bsky.social
Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
@luxenhoferlab.bsky.social
On my way to the PhD defenses of two of my students at the University of Würzburg, maybe the final endpoint of this chapter of my academic life. Finally daring to travel from Helsinki to Germany only by ferry and train. Right now riding the overnight train from Stockholm to Hamburg.
October 19, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Just came across this very interesting paper on academic ethics by Yasemim J Erden. Perfect weekend or summer read for anybody interested in addressing the rampant issues in current academia around the replicstion crisis and the obvious failure of academic metrics.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Hyper-ambition and the Replication Crisis: Why Measures to Promote Research Integrity can Falter - Journal of Academic Ethics
This paper introduces the concept of ‘hyper-ambition’ in academia as a contributing factor to what has been termed a ‘replication crisis’ across some sciences. The replication crisis is an umbrella te...
link.springer.com
July 6, 2025 at 8:53 AM
What a wrap-up of #EPF2025. Florian Kaps, PhD student in our lab, received one of the poster prizes. We are very proud of his great work and thankful to allwho voted for Florian! Also congrats to all other awardees, including Julian Schmidt (Frey Lab) and one from the Jordan group at TU Dresden.
June 27, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Very proud supervisor! My team won the pub quiz at #EPF2025!!
June 25, 2025 at 4:53 PM
That's fantastic!! In particular that you donated the prize money!
Honored to be one of the Awardees of this years' Andrew Keller Award. Truely appreciate the acknowledgment of our work and the opportunity to give an invited presentation at the #EPF2025
The prize money got matched and donated to @missionlifeline.bsky.social, Break the Fake and Panama e.V.
June 25, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Florian Kaps, PhD researcher in our group giving a short poster pitch at #EPF2024.
June 24, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Reposted by Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
This week our PhD student @celinekuchler.bsky.social is attending the 10th European #Crystallography School in Ohrid, Macedonia.
She presents a poster "Controlled Crystallization and Morphological Studies of All-organic Salt Particles" and is looking forward to interesting lectures and discussions!
June 24, 2025 at 7:48 AM
Reposted by Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
My train is my office! On the way to #EPF2025 in Groningen, enjoying my favorite music and the scenery were I grew up, Germany's flatlands...
June 22, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Great talk by Jörg Tiller at #EPF2025
And here is some science from @metrazymes.bsky.social members at the European Polymer Congress @epf2025.bsky.social: PI Prof. Joerg Tiller presenting work of his group on double network hydrogels!
June 24, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Reposted by Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
And here is some science from
@metrazymes.bsky.social members at the European Polymer Congress @epf2025.bsky.social: PI Prof. Nico Bruns @bruns-lab.bsky.social presenting enzymatic radical polymerizations!
June 24, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
Andrea on the big stage! Indeed,a very large lecture theater @epf2025.bsky.social!
June 24, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Reposted by Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
It’s a great pleasure to host the group of Prof. Arn Mignon @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social under the support of @unaeuropa.bsky.social @helsinki.fi Looking forward to the trip to Leuven soon!
April 5, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Day 2 is starting at #EPF2025. From our Lab, Maurice Pütz is presenting his poster on bioinks (#289) Florian T. Kaps a poster on our cool lipopolymer platform (#291). But the star of the day, Yuquan Chi will present in the big Theaterzaal her work on starpolymers for pancreatic cancer radiotherapy..
June 24, 2025 at 6:11 AM
Askican Hacioglu just presented results from his PhD thesis and Ilia Elizbarian's MSc thesis at #EPF2025. Really interesting results on the tionation of different water-soluble amide bearing polymers. We are still working on the full picture, but really interesting, non-trivial effects observed.
June 23, 2025 at 4:22 PM
#EPF2025 is starting!! Katja Loos is opening, looking forward to a great week, great talks and inspiration! @polymerreaction.bsky.social
June 23, 2025 at 7:15 AM
Reposted by Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
*looking for reviewers who reviewed a recent opinion piece of mine*

An unusual request, I know. I wrote an opinion article on my experience as trans person in science upon invitation of a journal. Despite mostly good reviews, the article was rejected.

#trans #academicchatter
May 21, 2025 at 9:20 AM
You want to crosslinked bioprinted samples with red light, because it is particularly safe and penetrates deep? But you don't like that the products are colored, as they need to interact with the red light? We have a solution!

advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Traceless Photopolymerization with Non‐Pulsed Red Light Enables 3D‐Printable Cell‐Laden Hydrogels
The paper presents a red-light-induced polymerization process, initiated by the FDA-approved dye methylene blue and the cytocompatible co-initiator triethanolamine, for fabricating hydrogels. This ph...
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
May 16, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Recently, we published a very nice paper with the team of @daltonlab.bsky.social on volumetric 3D printing. Check out the videos too! Now I brewed the corresponding paperbeer. A Westcoast IPA called Volumetric Vision. It turned out quite alright!

advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
April 30, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Chemistry is the perfect mixture of hands-on work, deep theoretical scientific concepts of the foundations of matter and all things and incredibly creative. In what other profession can you think of new molecules that never before existed, make them from scratch and test their properties? #chemistry
April 9, 2025 at 8:21 PM
It has been quite a while in the making, but now finally out, Julian's work, wrapped up by Aaron, shows new thiophene bearing poly(2-oxazoline)s and poly(2-oxazine)s. These could be quite interesting precursors for conductive polymers. Have a look!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Synthesis and Polymerization of Thiophene‐Bearing 2‐Oxazolines and 2‐Oxazines
Thiophene-bearing 2Ox and 2Ozi monomers are produced by utilizing the Witte and Seeliger method. The monomers are characterized by spectroscopic methods and x-ray diffraction to resolve structural da....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
January 30, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers.

This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder.

Auschwitz took time.
January 27, 2025 at 10:00 AM
One of the reasons I moved the lab to Finland was the prospect to get more into computational modeling of complex nanomedicines. Awesome work by Josef Kehrein, with Alex Bunker using the LUMI supercomputer. He studied LNP with different lipopolymers and investigated the surface interactions.
Moving Beyond PEG: Poly(2-oxazolines) and Poly(2-oxazines) Alter the Surface Properties of Lipid Nanoparticles

Authors: Josef Kehrein, Robert Luxenhofer, Alex Bunker
DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv-2025-v4cjh
January 8, 2025 at 9:09 AM
Back in my student days there as a German app called StudiVZ. Basically same as facebook before facebook was in Germany. I thought it just stole my lifetime. Facebook worse it seems...
Yay, Zuck! Facebook was already an app I always wondered why I ever open it, but now it may finally push me into deactivating my account. Who needs moderation about immigration and gender topics?
January 8, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Reposted by Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
Moving Beyond PEG: Poly(2-oxazolines) and Poly(2-oxazines) Alter the Surface Properties of Lipid Nanoparticles

Authors: Josef Kehrein, Robert Luxenhofer, Alex Bunker
DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv-2025-v4cjh
January 6, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Reposted by Soft Matter Chemistry @ University of Helsinki
Take a look at our latest publication in Adv. Mater. Interfaces together with Rafael B. Lira. This paper deals with
properties of Pickering Stabilized Water-In-Water Emulsions:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Properties of Pickering Stabilized Associative Water‐In‐Water Emulsions Based on Ultra‐High Molecular Weight Polyacrylamides
In here, the formation of water-in-water emulsions based on ultra-high molecular weight poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide) and poly(4-acryloylmorpholine) is investigated. The system phase-separates into aq...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
November 18, 2024 at 9:56 AM