Q&As in 2020

Dr Nicolas Mano is a Senior Researcher at Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal, France. His research interests include (bio)electrochemistry, biosensors, biofuel cells, enzymes engineering, and the use of carbonaceous materials for electrodes. His aim is to develop approaches where biochemical fuels can be converted into electricity and applied into bioelectrochemical applications. In this conversation, he is discussing the advancements in the field of biofuel cells in the past ten years and look ahead at future developments.

Winnie Byanyima is the Executive Director of UNAIDS and leads the United Nations’ efforts to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. She is also a longstanding champion of social justice and gender equality having led Uganda’s first parliamentary women’s caucus where she championed gender equality provisions during her 11 years as an elected member of the Ugandan parliament. To mark World AIDS Day 2020, Nature Communications interviewed Winnie about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the UNAIDS Fast Track targets, the impact of both epidemics on women around the world, and what is next in the fight against HIV.

Dr. Yi Liu is the facility director at the Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Trained as a supramolecular chemist and after a postdoctoral stay and working on click chemistry in Sharpless’s group he started his independent research career working on organic electronics, porous materials, and covalent organic frameworks (COFs). His aim is to develop nanostructured electronic materials through the design, synthesis and manipulation of tailor-made molecular constituents.

Prof. Donglin Jiang is a full professor at the National University of Singapore and is recognized as a pioneer in the field of 2D polymers and covalent organic frameworks (COFs). With a background in chemistry and studies on dendrimers for ten years, the beauty of dendrimers inspired him to consider the possibility of constructing other types of polymers with well-defined shapes and structures. After taking up an associate professorship in 2005 to set up an independent laboratory at the Institute for Molecular Science at the National Institute for Natural Science, he started to dedicate his work on the design, synthesis and functional exploration of 2D polymers, COFs and conjugated microporous polymers.

Professor Xiaodong Zou is a full professor and chair of Inorganic and Structural Chemistry and deputy head of the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry at Stockholm University. After completing her PhD in structural chemistry and electron crystallography, she started at the beginning of her independent career to apply these techniques in solving structures of porous materials. She first worked on development of inorganic porous materials, such as zeolites and related open-frameworks. A joint project with Prof. Michael O’Keeffe drew her attention to metal organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and reticular synthesis. Since then, she is working on developing structure characterization techniques for porous materials.

Prof. Natalia Shustova is the Peter and Bonnie McCausland Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina. After receiving her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Moscow State University and a second Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the Colorado State University, she became interested in porous frameworks during her time as a Postdoctoral Associate in the group of Prof. Mircea Dincă at MIT. After starting her independent research career first as an Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina in 2013 and since 2017 as Associate Professor, her research interest lies in the development of materials for sustainable energy conversion, sensing and artificial biomimetic systems.

Dr. Kishana Taylor (a microbiologist and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of California, Davis), Dr. Nella Vargas-Barbosa (an electrochemist and Scientist at the Max Planck Institute) and Dr. Anouk Beniest (a geologist and Postdoctoral Researcher at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel) talked to Nature Communications about their recent experiences at virtual conferences as early career researchers, since the onset of international COVID-19 travel restrictions. Kishana, Nella and Anouk share tips for navigating virtual conferences as junior researchers, and they also give suggestions for conference organizers to improve virtual scientific meetings so they more inclusive for younger scientists.

Cornelia Betsch (a psychologist, University of Erfurt), Vittoria Colizza (a computational epidemiologist, INSERM), Sara del Valle (a computational epidemiologist, Los Alamos National Laboratory), Chikwe Ihekweazu (a public health epidemiologist, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control) and Carmela Troncoso (a data security specialist, EPFL) talked to Nature Communications about their experience with COVID-19 response and their vision on a new system for disease surveillance and control, providing a view on how this should interact with policy making.

Robert S. Langer is an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Leading one of the largest biomedical engineering labs in the world his research covers many areas of biotechnology including tissue engineering, drug delivery, biofabrication and the development of medical devices. Mark Tibbitt is an Assistant Professor of Macromolecular Engineering at ETH Zürich. His research focuses on combining polymer engineering, synthetic chemistry, mechanical and bioengineering for biofabrication, drug delivery and mechanobiology applications.

Andrew J. Boydston is the Yamamoto Family Professor of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a trained chemist he worked on catalysts for the synthesis of polymers during his postdoc time and started his independent career as an assistant professor of Chemistry in 2010 at the University of Washington. In 2014 he involved in a project with colleagues at the mechanical engineering department at the University of Washington which piqued his interest in additive manufacturing and which remained one of his research lines after moving to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2018. He is interested in organocatalysts for polymerization reactions, mechanophores, polymers for controlled release and additive manufacturing.

Professor Peter D Lee is a materials scientist at the University College London. His group focuses on X-ray imaging and computational simulation of materials at a microstructural level for materials design and advanced manufacturing.

Professor Julia R Greer is a materials scientist at the California Institute of Technology. Her group focuses on designing, fabricating and characterising micro- and nano-architected materials using 3D lithography, nanofabrication, and additive manufacturing (AM) techniques for a multitude of applications ranging from biological devices to damage-tolerant fabrics.