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Recent News!

=2024=

• Welcome Keira Crasta(!!) a high school student joined our research group from FA24.

• Karla was awarded the best 3rd year GA in Annual Chemmys! 

• Madiha gave a great research talk in honors NED Talk conference at UofM in March 2024, and won🏆 the UG category.  

=2023=

• Congratulations Karla for her MS degree! in Dec 2023!

• Congratulations Madiha on winning first place at the 133rd Annual Meeting of the Tennessee Academy of Science on November 18, 2023, hosted by Rhodes College.

• Welcome Erin Allums, started UG research fall 23 semester.

• From August 23, Madiha Syeda, BME major joined our group- Welcome!!

• Welcome Salma Garcia, a visiting summer research student from John Hopkins University. She is working on smart hydrogel project this summer!

• Tasnia, new PhD student joined in SP23. Welcome to the polymer/biomaterials group!

• Karla is back! Yay~

• Welcome Antonio Villarreal, UG, joining in our group in SP23.

=2022=

• Haley Marino and Quinten Brown joined our lab from FA22. Welcome!

• Farraday Jonson (BME-UG) joined our lab in SP22, and awarded Honor's Summer Fellowship for summer 22! 

=2021=

• New graduate students of Fall 2021, Anthony Giacalone and Assefa Akinwole have joined our collaboration team with Dr. Brewster lab, as a joint graduate research assistant, to work on metal-drug delivery biomaterials. Welcome to the team!!!

• Congrats to fabulous high school researcher Naisha, for winning bronze medal in materials science category at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF 21)! A big🥉!

• The collaboration paper on 3D-printable hydrogel published (finally~)!

• Congratulations Darwin, 🎉 UG (BME) researcher in our group, to get the first place🥇at the 2021 Student Research Forum!!

• Alyssa, Chemistry major joined in our group from SP21. Welcome!

=2020=

• Darwin at BME joined in our group in fall 2020 for his senior research project. Welcome!

• Made our first trip in 2020 (finally!)🚙🚙🚙 Marcy, Tamanna, Karla, and Tomoko visited AFM Workshop at Hilton Head Island, SC for our AFM tuning/training on Aug 4-7.

• Extra warm congratulations to Melody and Sapna for graduation with BS in this special year! May 9, 2020

• PI and all researchers completed crazy Spring 2020 semester at home! Well done💯 Can't wait for summer research together!!!

• New Book published, edited by Drs. Fujiwara, Liu, Ohya, and Wang.              

• Two new graduate students in our group (officially!)... Welcome Karla and Ryan!!

=2019=

• Dec 15, Kwei's Hooding Ceremony at FedEx Forum. Congratulations! 🎓🎉 

• Congratulations Karla for graduation with BS!👩🏻‍🎓

• Melody presented "Polymer Brush" research at Work-In-Progress Conference on Nov 11. Well done!👍

• Karla and Naisha presented their posters at Materials Day at FIT on Oct 4. Congratulations on their great achievement 🙌 

• Marcy and Tamanna, new graduate students joined Fujiwara group from FA19! Welcome to the team!!

• O~kay~~~ Kwei has defended for his degree and FA19 will be his final semester here... Congratulations!

• Leyla Akmanligil, UG at Purdue University joined our group for her summer research. Big welcome Leyla!!

• Naisha's success continues! She won again in the high school division at the regional science competition in April, and going to the biggest competition, Intel International Science & Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/education/competitions/international-science-and-engineering-fair.html). 

• Melody presented the literature work in 4901 on Apr 8. Great job!!

• Fujiwara, along with Professor Yongmei Wang, organized 3-day symposium, "Polymer-based Gene and Drug Delivery Systems" at the ACS National Meeting at Orlando. It was a big success!!!

  • And...Karla got a 2nd place in the physical science division with her poster presentation at the annual Student Research Forum, University of Memphis.🥈👏

  • Naisha got a 1st place presenting her research on printable hydrogels in the science far at her high school on Mar 20.🥇👏

• Tyree Morris, the 1st year graduate student joined our group in March 2019, Welcome!

• Melody Wilson, Sapna Abdullah, Karla Cisneros Vargas, and Naisha Chowdhury, Welcome to the group!!!

• We have new & young research members from January 2019!

=2018=

• We didn't have any news in 2018😳???? My fault (TF) 🙇‍♀️  

=2017=

• Congratulations Tuli! She defended successfully and graduate as a new PhD on Dec 17, 2017. Wishing her all the best!!

• New graduate student, David Ide joined in our group in Oct 2017. Welcome!!!

• New book chapter came out! Ch 6. 'New Routes to Tailor-Made Polyesters', co-authored with Dr. Kazuki Fukushima.

• 05/06/2017!! Hooding ceremony... and farewell to "Dr" Brandon! He will start new job as a synthetic chemist at Buckman Laboratories, Inc.

• Brandon has defended oral examination for PhD on March 30, and all corrected dissertation has been submitted! Congratulations!!

• The earliest membrane work was finally published!

  • Gindt, B. P.; Tang, Z. J.; Watkins, D. L.; Abebe, D. G.; Seo, S.; Tuli, S.; Ghassemi, H.; Zawodzinski T. A.; Fujiwara T. “Effects of Sulfonated Side Chains Used in Polysulfone Based PEMs for VRFB Separator” Journal of Membrane Science, 2017; 532, 58-67. 

• Welcome Nekesa Oliver, new graduate student to our research group!!! 

• Rachel orally presented her research at URC at Rhodes College. Congrats!

• Made a road trip to APS for non-sleep SAXS experiment on Feb 8-11! 

=2016=

• Protocol book chapter-

  • Abebe, D.G.; Kandil, R.; Kraus, T.; Elsayed, M.; Fujiwara, T.; Merkel, O.M. “Stealth polyplexes: biodegradable three-layered micelles and injectable hydrogels” In Non-Viral Gene Delivery Vectors: Methods and Protocols, Methods in Molecular Biology; Candiani, G. Ed; Springer: NY 2016; vol. 1445, Ch11, p175-185

• Our collaborator, Prof. Merkel's group has prepared very nice open access audio file on our latest publication in Journal of Controlled Research!  http://audioslides.elsevier.com//ViewerSmall.aspx?source=1&doi=10.1016/j.jconrel.2016.08.020

• Congratulations Tuli and Sadi on the birth of their first baby boy!!!

• Welcome new post-doc, Dr. Hyun in the group!

• Aaron Jones Joined Fujiwara group for his PhD research on Mar 2016. Welcome!

• Congrats Brandon on your paper published!!!

  • Gindt, B. P.; Abebe, D. G.; Tang, Z. J.; Lindsey, M. B.; Chen J.; Elgammal R. A.; Zawodzinski T. A.; Fujiwara T. “Nanoporous Polysulfone Membranes via Degradable Block Copolymer Precursor for Redox Flow Batteries” Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2016; 4, 4288–4295.

• WELCOME Rachel Wiley, an UG researcher, who has started "Micelle-Hydrogel Gene Delivery" project this spring :):)

=2015=

• Team Fujiwara attended International conference, PacifiChem @ Honolulu and PPC @ Kauai on Dec 10-22, 2015, giving 6 presentations from the group!!! Members learned a lot and had so much fun! Visit our Hawaii album HERE! Great to meet the former lab member Shizuka (currently a PhD student at Univ. Tokyo), my advisors Prof. Yoshi Kimura and Prof. Ken Wynne, and many our collaborators!

• Daniel's SANS paper published!

  • Abebe, D.G.; Liu, K-Y.; Mishra, S.; Wu, A.; Fujiwara, T. “Time-Resolved SANS Analysis of Micelle Chain Exchange Behavior: Thermal Crosslink Driven by Stereocomplexation of PLA-PEG-PLA Micelles” RSC Advances, 2015; 5, 96019 - 96027.

• SERMACS-SWRM, in Memphis Convention Center, Nov 4-7th, 2015. We held a symposium, "Bio-related Polymers: synthesis and applications". Drs. Davita Watkins and Daniel Abebe were invited for the talks. Brandon and Tuli presented orally at "Ion-conducting Polymers" session. Lee presented his REU work at UG organic poster session. Well done everyone!

• Kwei defended his prospectus in Oct 2015. 

• Dr Daniel's departure, Sep 2015! Thanks for your great work and good luck on your future development!

• Lee Dunlap completed his REU research with a formal paper writing and final presentation on Aug 7, 2015. Great job!!!

• Daniel orally presented at The International Society for Biomedical Polymers and Polymeric Biomaterials (ISBPPB), July 8-10, 2015 in Orlando, Florida

• Dal Williams, graduate student in Watkins group at Ole Miss visiting our group for 2 weeks June 29 - July 10. Welcome Dal!

• Brandon, Tuli, Lee, and Tomoko attended TNSCORE 5th annual meeting @Nashville, June 18-19, 2015

• Brandon Gindt and Sayema Tuli defended for their prospectus, and received MS degree on May 2015 commencement. Congratulations! One more degree to go :)

• Tuli received the first place for her poster presentation at the UM Research Conference!

• Daniel, postdoc fellow in our group receives a prestigious Merck/UNCF Postdoctoral Fellowship for next two years, and is working on exciting project with Davita Watkins at OleMiss. Huge congratulations to two of our PhD's for the great achievement on their application!!!

• New AFM arrived in our group! Brandon & Kwei traveled for the training in Jan 2015.

• Daniel's paper out!

  • Abebe, D.G.; Kandil, R.; Kraus, T.; Elsayed, M.; Merkel, O.M.; Fujiwara, T. “Three-Layered Biodegradable Micelles Prepared by Two-Step Self-Assembly of PLA-PEI-PLA and PLA-PEG-PLA Triblock Copolymers as Efficient Gene Delivery System” Macromol. Biosci., 2015; 15, 698–711.

=2014=

• Congratulations Dr. Daniel Abebe! Hooding ceremony on Dec 14, 2014!

• Tomoko visited Wayne State University to give a seminar at Nano@Wayne on Oct 28.

• Daniel successfully defended for his PhD on Oct 20. Congratulations!!

• Brandon presented orally at ACS SERMACS in Nashville on Oct 16.

• Tomoko gave a keynote lecture at ISF2014 in Tokyo on Sep 30.

• Welcome Colin for 'Smart DDS' project! And, congrats for the STEM scholarship award for upcoming UG research!

• Brandon, Paul, Jessica attended TNSCORE annual meeting, presenting a poster on June 26/27. 

• Two REU students joined our group this year! Welcome Jessica Ellett and Paul Koenig!

• Welcome Project SEED high school student, Shania Minnifield for summer research!

• TA-DSC was installed!

• Shizuka's last day...Mar 25. Thank you Shizuka for your nice work for two years in our group! Good luck on your next development in Japan.

• Daniel worked at our collaborator, Dr. Olivia Merkel's lab at Wayne State Univ for DNA/in vitro studies in Feb 24-Mar 8.

• Brandon visited Dr. Hossein Ghassemi's lab at CWRU in Feb16-20.

• Super exciting news!!! Dr. Davita will be soon a professor at Ole Miss!

=2013=

• Daniel, Kwei, and Tomoko made a crazy trip for SANS experiment on Nov 4-8, 2013. Lots of data!!!

• Dr. Olivia Merkel, our collaborator, visited us and gave a seminar on Nov 1st!

• Chizuru from Osaka University joined our group for visiting summer research. Welcome!

• Daniel's NIST user proposal was awarded for his hydrogel/SANS study.

• Welcome Jimmy Allen, REU student, summer 2013!!

• All three, Brandon, Tuli, and Kwei-Yu, survived (!!) at the first year conference in May 2013. Congratulations!

• Congrats Daniel(!) awardee of the 1st generation PhD scholarship.

• Daniel and Brandon presented the poster at the PEM conference held in Asilomar, CA, Feb 17-21, 2013.

=2012=

• And, welcome Kwei-Yu in our organic/polymer group!!

• Davita's paper was published! 

Watkins, D. L.; Fujiwara, T. “Bis-Spironaphthooxazine Based Photochromic Polymer Materials” Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 2013: 1 (3), 506-514. 

• Welcome Tuli as our new group member!

• Congratulations!!! Davita graduated on Aug 12 with her PhD, and accepted the post-doc position at UF chemistry!   

• Kazuya Takemura at Osaka University joined as visiting scholar in August 2012.

• Brandon Gindt joined the group in June and is working on Tnscore project! Welcome!!! 

• Daniel was selected to attend for the Fourteenth National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering to be held August 12-25, 2012 at Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.     

• Shizuka Hashiguchi, MS, joined our group from this summer, Welcome Shizuka!!

• Davita was awarded for ACS/DOC travel fund for ACS San Diego National Meeting, March 2012. 

• Daniel's paper was published!

Abebe, D. G.; Fujiwara, T. “Controlled Thermo-Responsive Hydrogels by Stereocomplexed PLA-PEG-PLA Prepared via Hybrid Micelles of Pre-Mixed Copolymers with Different PEG Lengths” Biomacromolecules, 2012; 13, 1828-1836.

• Daniel defended his MS degree!

• Davita's paper was published!

Watkins, D. L.; Fujiwara, T. “Synthesis, Characterization, and Solvent-Independent Photochromism of Spironaphthooxazine Dimers” J. Photochem. Photobiol. A, 2012; 228, 51-59

      ^_^  Research Group Meeting, Spring 2014: Tuesdays afternoon-

      ^_^  Journal Club: Fridays