Bernhard V.K.J. Schmidt has been awarded a Dr. Hermann Schnell Fellowship of the GDCh (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker; German Chemical Society)
The chemist and group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces will receive the award at the Conference of the Division Macromolecular Chemistry of the GDCh in Karlsruhe on the 24th of September 2018, which is endowed with 3,000 EUR. The foundation trustees appreciate Schmidt’s excellent results in polymer synthesis.
Schmidt and his team investigate water-soluble polymers. In particular they are interested in the combination of different types of water-soluble polymers to form tiny drug delivery or reaction environments in aqueous solution. "Our water-soluble polymers have the unique feature of structure formation in water that features significant permeability. In such a way small substances like drugs, sugars or reaction products can pass the delivery vehicles and reaction environments easily" says Bernhard Schmidt. The simplification of molecular transport might find applications in biomedicine in the future, e.g. in enzyme replacement therapy or chemotherapy.
Bernhard V.K.J. Schmidt
Bernhard V.K.J. Schmidt studied chemistry at the Technical University Darmstadt before he received a PhD in Polymer Chemistry with Prof. Barner-Kowollik (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) in 2013. After his PhD studies, he carried out postdoctoral research with Prof. Craig J. Hawker at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) as a fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Since 2015 he is a group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in the Colloid Chemistry department headed by Prof. Markus Antonietti. His current research focusses on self-assembled nanostructures, especially via double hydrophilic block copolymers as well as polymer nanoparticle formation, carbon nitride polymer composites and polymerization in confined environments.
Dr. Hermann Schnell Scholarships
At the German Chemical Society the successful industrial chemist and Staudinger awardee Dr. Hermann Schnell (1916 - 1999) established a foundation under his name in 1995. The Dr. Hermann Schnell Foundation supports young scientists in the field of macromolecular chemistry, its physico-chemical fundamentals, and its analysis. Support in the form of fellowships will be given to postgraduates from universities or other institutions under public law.