As an undergraduate I focused my elective courses on organic chemistry and polymer technology. In the lab I worked on conductive dendrimers (we’d probably call them single-chain nanoparticles now), based on PPI dendrimers and dithienyl pyrrole. This yielded some interesting results, but not quite what we were looking for. I then worked on liquid crystalline dendrimers, based on, again, the PPI dendrimers and biphenyl-based mesogenic groups. This yielded some interesting data, which was published in 2 scientific papers and concluded my masters degree.
I then started working as a Ph.D. student on the dynamic properties of dimers with multiple hydrogen bonds. This included a lot of synthesis, including some nice heterocyclic chemistry, combined with a lot of physical chemistry using pretty much any technique I could think of that could add to our knowledge of these systems, including UV/Vis/NIR, fluorescence, scattering, (VT-)IR, DSC, ESR, X-ray diffraction, rheology, etc. etc. The main focus looking at the dynamics of these systems in solution, however, was NMR. I employed a scala of different techniques as a function of concentration or temperature to gain more insight in the dynamic properties of the molecules under investigation. The work was published in 6 scientific publications and a Ph.D. thesis.
After my Ph.D. I decided that I would diversify into another field and tissue engineering looked very promising at that point, from a scientific perspective, concerning rapid growth and availability of grants, but also from an employment point of view as an emerging speciality. As a result I then moved to the USA as a postdoctoral researcher and worked for Mark Grinstaff, first in Durham, NC (Duke U.) and then in Boston, MA (Boston U.). I worked on polyester dendrimers and dendrimer-like systems designed to produce stiff, biocompatible hydrogels for in situ cartilage tissue engineering applications. I synthesized some compounds, made materials, and did a lot of model studies investigating the scope of the materials.
I then moved back to the Netherlands and also moved from hydrogels to elastomers and from cartilage to cardiovascular tissue. I worked for Frank Baaijens and Carlijn Bouten working on vascular tissue engineering scaffolds based on custom thermoplastic elastomers. This was work on an external grant and produced some interesting proof of concept data and also considerable insight in the materials selection for such an application, which eventually led to much improved heart valve implants.
I then moved from elastomers to glassy polymers and from cardiovascular tissues to orthopedic implants. I worked for Han Meijer and Leon Govaert investigating the intrinsic mechanical properties of various polylactide polymers that had previously been used in e.g. spinal cages, in order to better understand the failure modes that occur with these types of implants. We gained some valuable insight into the properties of the different polylactides, and also on the influence of molecular weight on the intrinsic mechanical properties, very valuable data for degradable orthopedic implants.
After going from organic, physical and supramolecular science to hydrogels, elastomers and glassy polymers for biomedical engineering, I then started working for SyMO-Chem, where I work on design, synthesis, and implementation of molecules and materials for various biomedical applications.