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Journal of Macromolecular Science"'.

Pan C: Polymer Reviews, 45:\95-\99, 2005


Copyright Taylor & Francis, Inc.
ISSN 1532-1797 pHnt/1532-9038 online
DOI; 10.1081/MC-200067713

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Perspective

Nano-, Bio-, Multi-, Inter-, ... : Polymer Research


in an Era of Prefixes
ANDREW J. LOVINGER
National Science Foundation, Polymers Program, Division of Materials
Research, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA, USA

The polymer field has experienced enormous growth in the last decade. One of the most
exciting aspects of this growth is that it is not simply an extrapolation of pre-existing lines
of research, but rather an entry into major new areas and an adoption of new mechanisms
for conducting research. In terms of new areas, perhaps most of the activities can be categorized under the broad umbrellas of "nanoscience" and "bio-related science". In terms of
new mechanisms, one sees a lot more of what could be termed "multidisciplinary" and
"interdisciplinary" research.
So we find ourselves in an era where our research is commonly hyphenated: nano-,
bio-, multi-, inter- (and other less frequent prefixes). And this not just for polymers: it
is happening across the fields of chemical, physical, and materials sciences and engineering. Some of it is a natural process. For example, the parallel revolutionary advances in
infonnation technologies and biomedical technologies have been acting as a common
catalyst to bring together the underlying physical and biological scientific disciplines.
But other aspects have been nucleated or helped along by design. One example of this
in the United States is the National Nanotechnology Initiative (www.nano.gov) which
has helped greatly to catalyze the explosive growth of this field at the dawn of the
twenty-first century, and whose forerunner was a grass-roots effort by a group of
Program Officers at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other Agencies who
started working together toward this goal in 1996.
Polymers are, of course, a "natural" for nanoscience. There has been wonderful
progress in the last few years in terms of techniques for self-assembly and generation
of supramolecular architectures at the nanoscale, formation and exploitation of dendrimers, brushes, surface- and interface structures, block copolymers, nanocomposites,
and many related areas. A wealth of fascinating morphologies have been discovered
Received and Accepted 18 April 2005.
Address correspondence to Andrew J. Lovinger, National Science Foundation, Polymers
Program, Division of Materials Research, Arlington, VA 22230, USA. E-mail: alovinger@nsf.gov.
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A. J. Lovinger

or engineered at the nanoscale, which have provided not only important new knowledge,
but are also being used as templates for the production of novel electronic and optical
devices. Coupled with techniques and instrumentation for probing and manipulation
at the nanoscale, areas such as nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, nanomechanics, and
nanofabrication are being actively pursued. This is not simply a result of the fact that
the natural morphological features in both crystalline and block copolymers reside at
the nanoscale: it is also a tribute to highly creative approaches in synthetic polymer
chemistry and supramolecular self-assembly that have led to novel materials,
uncovered new phenomena, and provided unprecedented understanding and molecular
control.
Almost as intense as the activity at the nanoscale has been the interest in bio-related
topics. Biology is being viewed as the new Eldoradothe bright new frontier of
immense opportunity for researchers in the physical, chemical, and engineering
disciplines. One after another. University Departments are vying to get a piece of the
"bio-pie" and to stake their "bio-claims." What used to be Departments of Chemistry
or Chemical Engineering now feature names such as "Chemistry and Biochemistry,"
"Chemistry and Chemical Biology," "Chemical and Biochemical Engineering,"
"Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering," "Chemical and Biological Science and
Engineering," and so forth.
It goes without saying that polymers are at the heart of these new bio-interfaces, since
by far most of the constituents of every living organism are polymericfrom DNA and
RNA, to proteins (in animals) or complex carbohydrates (in plants). Yet, I must confess
that I am somewhat amused to see biology as "le dernier cri" in our field and to have
people describe it as the newest area in polymer science. They may have forgotten (or
never knew?) that polymer science was bom, grew up, and reached critical size through
biological polymers. In the decades of the 1920s and 1930s, cellulose, wool, silk, and
rubber were the workhorses of polymer research. Much of what we know about
structure determination, crystallinity, elasticity, orientation, fibers, and textiles was
forged out of the crucible of biopolymers by such early pioneers as Mark, Meyer,
Astbury, Kuhn, Guth, and Kratky. And the structure determinations of the a-helix,
DNA, RNA, hemoglobin, insulin, collagen, and other proteins were the big scientific
news of the late 40s and 50s. Of course, nowadays the focus is on exciting new areas
such as bioinspired synthetic and self-assembly methods, biomaterials for human repair,
drug-delivery vehicles, and many others. Wonderful progress has already been made
and the promise continues to be exceptional!
In terms of new approaches to research, "multi-" and "inter-" are all the rage. Multidisciplinarity has become a growing and very successful mechanism to attack problems
large and small. Major Centers of all types have proliferatedsome applied across broad
fields, others focused on targeted areas. At the NSF most of these are funded as
Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC) or Nanoscale Science
and Engineering Centers (NSEC), and polymers are well represented among them.
Predictably, a large fraction of the newest Centers have explicit missions related to
nano-, bio-, and even nano-bio-technologies. Multidisciplinary groups on a smaller
scale have also been highly appealing and have provided a sharply focused, multipronged approach to specific projects; one very successful vehicle has been the
Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Teams (NIRT) at the NSF. A clear benefit of
the Centers is their very broad and high impact in terms of education and outreach.
Some Centers have been trailblazers in providing truly remarkable opportunities for
undergraduates and even high-school students and teachers to be engaged in leading

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research. Their potential and actual roles in reaching out to groups not highly represented in science and engineering cannot be overemphasized. The same is true for
getting children excited about the sciences and potentially attracting them to scientific
or technological careers.
Just as projects benefit from a variety of disciplines, so do individuals. Some level of
interdisciplinarity is becoming a necessity these days, and breadth of knowledge is a
strong asset. In industry the success of a project almost always requires expertise
beyond a single discipline. The polymer scientist who knows about other classes of
materials, who can converse in a mutually beneficial way with chemists, physicists, and
engineers has a very distinct advantage. The fact of the matter is that polymer researchers
generally already get excellent interdisciplinary training with strong elements of chemistry
and physics, materials science, and chemical engineering. Depending on their area of
work, some knowledge of electronics/photonics or mechanical engineering is also
frequently highly beneficial.
However, there is a broad and rapidly growing area in which the need for interdisciplinary knowledge is acute: it is the interface with the biological sciences and bioengineering. Of course, this is not a phenomenon unique to the polymer field; it is pervasive for all
physical scientists and engineers. Andit is equally so for the other side of the fence (or,
more correctly, the chasm): a greater ability to use the knowledge and tools of the physical
sciences is becoming more and more necessary for biological research. Some people are
beginning to build bridges across this gap; many of them are polymer scientists, facilitated
no doubt by the unique role of polymers in both the physical and biological worlds. Nevertheless, this is not enough: what is needed is not more bridges here and thereit is the
chasm itself that has to be filled. We need to make physical scientists and engineers
broadly conversant with biological scientists and vice versa. This will require a very substantial restructuring of curricula and will be a major challenge because it is, of course, far
from clear what, if anything, could be dispensed with in order to make room for the
necessary new courses.
The prefix inter- does not remind us just of interdisciplinarity; it stands also for international, which is becoming a growing characteristic of our evolving research environment. World-class research is no longer the domain of a few countries, it is practiced
increasingly across the world. And publications from laboratories all over the globe
keep sprouting in the literature like mushrooms after the rain at an ever-quickening
pace. This means in turn that international collaborations are also becoming more and
more frequent. They are a great vehicle not only for leveraging the complementary
strengths of the different participants, but also for providing very special educational
and cultural benefits to the students and post-doctoral researchers who are fortunate
enough to be involved in them.
The unprecedented growth in nano-/bio-/multi-/inter-/,.. and the accompanying
explosion in the published literature have also led to some questions. Many of these
represent very specific challenges to the new technologies, e.g. the safe handling and
human-health considerations of nanomaterials. I will bypass these and mention instead
a couple of broader research- and publication issues.
Remember, There is a Big, Wide World of Polymer Research Out There
Andit does not end with nano and bio. There are still a multitide of exciting opportunities for fundamental research all across the polymer horizon! From new synthetic
techniques and novel materials, to new characterization tools and processing advances.

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to more powerful theories and modeling, to better understanding of structure and morphology and their correlation with processing and properties, to the study of crystalline
and amorphous polymers, copolymers and blends, polyelectrolytes and gels, surfaces
and interfaces, rheology and adhesion, electrical, optical, mechanical properties, to
environmental effects . . . the list is very long and very tempting, and the examples
above are just a small sampling! New opportunities and priority areas come and go, but
the core of the polymer field must not be neglected. When we look at a tree, we never
think of the roots and the trunkyet they are the ones that support and nurture the
foliage, blooms, and fruit to which we tend to devote all our attention.
Respect the LiteraturePast, Present, and Future
[Now, that is a curious comment; what on earth does he mean?] With the explosion in the
literature and our reliance on electronic databases and computer searches, much of the
work of prior generations is getting lost and forgotten. People commonly do an electronic
search, find relevant references, and read the abstracts. But many databases do not go back
far enough; and most journals do not grant access to the full electronic article unless one is
a subscriber. Partly for these reasons, but largely because the literature has grown
to overwhelming proportions and is very hard to command, one sees articles rediscovering old knowledge or recycling it with a new twist. Occasionally papers focus on examination of something well known, but now using the latest technique or equipmentonly
to confirm or minimally refine the existing knowledge. In many an article, the answer to
the question of what new knowledge or understanding has it imparted is "little or
nothing".
Along the same lines, the perceived pressure to "publish or perish" leads some people
to augment their publication lists by fragmenting their results across the maximum number
of SPUs. [What's a SPU? An acronym I made up for "smallest publishable unit" (it can
also stand for "sub-critical published unit"). It conjures up a mental image of publications
SPU-ing forth, which is rather appropriate for this acronym]. Another related and growing
trend is that many authors have got used to the idea of publishing (or at least attempting to
publish) a "rapid communication" or "letter to the editor" first and a fuller) paper later.
It is not always easy to admit that our results may not be sufficiently important and
urgent to warrant such a communication; or to fight the fear that we may be scooped by
our competitors (especially in these "hot" areas) unless we rush to press.
Yet when it comes to impact, the sad reality is that most publications in the literature
are cited never (other than by their authors) or just a handful of times. So we need to be
mindful first and foremost of the impact of our work and of what we leave behind
(including, very prominendy, our former students!) After all is said and done, after we
have traveled through our lifetime careers, what remains is our output and its impact.
Therefore, let us always be guided by Newton's monumentally modest statement "If I
have seen farther, it was by standing on the shoulders of giants" and let us try to
provide such shoulders to our future pioneers.
Issues aside, this is by every measure a very special time for polymer science. The
field is auspiciously placed at the intersection of many of the most exciting and topical
avenues of scientific endeavor and technological impactfrom medicine and biotechnology to communications and nanomanufacturing. Its fundamental core is stronger and more
active than ever. Its practitioners have grown dramatically in numbers all over the world.
Experts from different areas have been entering the field. Intemationai collaborations are
thriving. And the outputs of our discipline are truly making a difference to the

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advancement of science and the quality of our lives. All in all, not too had a time to he
involved in polymer research!

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr. Freddy Khoury for his helpful comments, and Drs. Thomas
Weher, Lance Haworth, and Judy Sunley for their reading and approval of the manuscript.
Andrew J. Lovinger has been Director of the Polymers Program in the Division of
Materials Research of the US National Science Foundation since 1995. where he also
served as Senior Staff Scientist. He continues to conduct part-time research at Bell
Laboratories, from which he retired in 2001. At Bell Labs he served for many years as
Distinguished Member of Technical Staff and Head of its Polymer Research Department.
He has BS, MS. and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering and applied chemistry from
Columbia University. His research has been concentrated in the areas of structure,
morphology, and properties of crystalline polymers, with frequent focus on electrically
active polymeric and organic materials. He is a recipient of the American Physical
Society's Dillon Medal (1985) and Polymer Physics Prize (2003) and was elected to
the National Academy of Engineering in 2004.

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