Reimund Stadler Minerva Center at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

The Reimund Stadler Minerva Center for Mesoscale Macromolecular Engineering, established in 1998 and headed by Prof. Dr. Moshe Gottlieb, focuses on investigating properties of natural and synthetic polymeric and surface active materials, in the meso-scale.
The proposal for the establishment of a scientific center focusing on multi-level ordering by competing short and long range interactions in polymers and surface active materials was conceived and prepared jointly by the late Prof. Reimund Stadler from Universitaet Bayreuth and Prof. Moshe Gottlieb from Ben Gurion University following many years of fruitful collaboration. It emerged from a common interest in questions related to polymer self organization and the effect of topological and thermodynamic constraints on this organizations with special consideration to implications and relevance to biological systems.
The center aims to promote German-Israeli collaboration and exchange of ideas between Israeli and German scientists involved in the area of mesoscale material science and engineering, promote interdisciplinary collaborations, attract and educate young scientists in the field, create lively and active scientific atmosphere.
The scientific activity undertaken by the Center members is geared towards answering one common question: how can we control and manipulate the nanostructure of complex systems based on or aided by macromolecular entities, to yield desired structures or functionalities. More specifically, we are interested in the ability to control the desired structures or functionalities by steric constraints, thermodynamic constraints or external force field constraints. The systems under consideration vary from relatively simple polymer molecules used to alter interparticle forces in colloidal systems all the way to complex biopolymer based active filament-motor systems. The methodologies employed for these investigations range from first-principle theoretical tools via molecular-manipulation experimental techniques to macroscopic polymer processing tests. Contemplated applications range from colorimetric biosensors via molecular electronics to improved performance composite materials.

Some of the scientific objectives are stated below:

• Investigate the interplay between the chemical composition of polymer molecules and their organization at the mesoscale.
• Design and synthesize novel materials, surfaces and interfaces with well defined functionality, chemical affinity, structure or biological activity.
• Develop a better understanding of the effect of intermolecular and interfacial forces on the structural organization at the mesoscale
• Investigate the effect of confinement and steric constraints on the structure and properties of polymeric and composite materials and exploit confinement-induced organization for the engineering of new structured-functional materials in fields of electro-optics, biotechnology, nanocomposites, microelectronics, and catalysis.