This planning visit will allow Drs. John C. Warner, Amy Cannon, and Sofia Trakhtenberg, University of Massachusetts Lowell, to meet with their counterparts in Santa Fe, Argentina, led by Dr. Diana A. Estenoz, Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnologico para la Industria Quimica (INTEC), to develop and coordinate a collaborative research project on green chemistry, specifically working with thymine-based photopolymers.
Synthetic methodologies and coating strategies have been developed that allow for the preparation of a wide variety of structural and morphological variations of thymine-containing polymers. The U.S. team is the only research group working with this family of polymers, where thymine residues are incorporated into water soluble styrene copolymers. The Argentine team has expertise in the mathematical modeling and characterization of polymeric systems. Collaboration between the two sides would provide a better mechanistic understanding of these photopolymer systems so as to allow the design of more efficient and specifically tailored materials. This visit will allow for a specific research plan to be developed, optimizing capacities at both sites.
