The McBain medal is awarded annually by the RSC/SCI Joint Colloids Group to recognize a rising star in colloid and interface science. This year’s awardee is Dr João Cabral (Imperial College London), for his outstanding work on the thermodynamics and assembly of colloid and polymer mixtures, and the design of functional materials via interfacial instabilities. An enthusiast of scattering, his team and collaborators have pioneered the use of neutron and X-rays to study flow processing of complex fluids in complex microfluidic flows.

Below is a photo of Dr Joao Cabral from Imperial College receiving the McBain medal during the meeting at the SCI.

For more information please visit this Link

Professor Daan Frenkel was the 2017 Rideal Lecturer. The Rideal Lecture is awarded jointly by the RSC Colloid and Interface Science Group and SCI Colloid and Surface Chemistry Group, to recognise a sustained and distinguished contribution to colloid and interface science in the UK (photograph below).

A one-day symposium was held at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge on Tuesday 4th April 2017. The symposium featured contributions by Willem Kegel, Richard Sear, Zorana Zeravcic, Roel Dullens, Erika Eiser and Rosalind Allen and finished with the Rideal Lecture.

We gratefully acknowledge support from CCP5 and from BP for this symposium.   Alex Routh Jeroen van Duijneveldt

For synopsis of the Rideal Lecture, please follow this link.

Organised by SCI’s Colloid & Surface Chemistry Group and RSC’s Formulation Science and Technology Group and Colloid & Interface Group

This meeting was for scientists interested in soft matter and its application. Each speaker was an outstanding scientist with experience of a different industry. Speakers described the high-quality science underpinning products in the context of the challenges that their industry faces, which can range from product performance to regulation. Each industry has different constraints (cost / purity / safety / shelf life etc.). Application environments can range from ambient (agrochemical) to inside the body (pharmaceutical) or to extremes of temperature and pressure (oil). These differences mean successful formulations require innovative and excellent use of colloid, polymer, surfactant and interfacial science.

For a flyer please use this link.

#MiBio-2016

The MIBio conference series engages world leading experts from industry and academia in a discussion on the latest advances in biopharmaceutical formulation. This year there was a special emphasis on creative use of formulation to support novel drug-device combinations and product formats, including new formulation approaches, use of computational techniques in product optimisation and discussion of regulatory implications.

More details about this event and previous events can be found on – www.mibio-conference.com

Organising Committee

Jan Jezek (Arecor)

Nicholas J. Darton (Arecor)

Tejash Shah (GSK)

Stephen E. Harding (University of Nottingham)

The RSC/SCI Colloids Group organised a meeting for both academia and industry colleagues to link the latest research on interfacially-active particles to current and future applications in the captivating and inspiring atmosphere of the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds.  

Adsorption and desorption of particles at liquid-liquid and liquid-gas interfaces have formed an expanding part of colloidal science and technology over the last 15 years. Their applications as emulsion and foam stabilisers are starting to find their way into various formulated products. This meeting will address several different aspects of this topic, including the synthesis of interfacially-active particles, the characterisation of their behaviour at interfaces, their use as Pickering emulsifiers and as building blocks for functional materials.

Professor Rachel O’ Reilly from Warwick University has been awarded the 2014 McBain medal for her pioneering research in novel polymeric nanoparticles, responsive materials and controlled self-assembly.  The 2015 McBain medal has been awarded to Professor Giuseppe Battaglia of Univerity College, London, for his work in developing novel functional polymers for biomedical applications, design rules for self-assembly of soft-matter and the development of colloidal systems for drug delivery. Both winners were presented with their award at the McBain meeting on 8th December at the SCI Headquarters in Belgrave Square. Additionally invited speakers at the symposium were:

• Prof Tony Ryan, Sheffield University
• Dr Oscar Ces, Imperial College
• Prof Steve Armes, Sheffield University
• Prof Stefan Bon, Warwick University

The MIBio conference series engages world leading experts from industry and academia in a discussion on how the latest molecular interaction based discoveries can be exploited in biopharmaceutical formulation to produce more effective, patient-friendly and safer therapeutic products. Seven key experts in the field presented during the day on this topic, and, as is traditional in the MIBio series, there were opportunities for audience participation. The conference website where next years event details will be available soon, can be found here: www.mibio-conference.com

The MIBio 2015 organising committee is:

• Jan Jezek (Arecor)

• Nicholas J. Darton (Arecor) 

• Tejash Shah (GSK)

• Stephen Harding (University of Nottingham)

2015 Rideal Meeting: Polymers in colloid science, 23rd April 2015, SCI, London, UK

The winner of the 2015 Rideal Medal was Prof Paul Luckham of Imperial College and the theme of the 2015 meeting is Polymers in Colloid Science. The speakers were all former students of Paul or academics and industrialists he has collaborated with during his career. This one day meeting included a student poster session and a wine reception prior to Paul’s Rideal lecture which was given at the end of the conference.

The conference flyer can be found at this link.

The RSC/SCI Colloids Group was pleased to announce a meeting for academia, industry and students to link the latest research on colloidal gels to tomorrow’s applications in the captivating and inspiring atmosphere of Cambridge. Colloidal gels are complex materials that when suitably designed give the performance and function to a wide range of advanced modern day products. Fundamental to designing such materials is understanding the interplay between interparticle forces on the molecular level and mesoscopic and macroscopic phenomena of network formation, mechanical properties and time-evolution. Understanding how all these components behave and interact together was the focus of this colloquium.

The following line up of excellent international speakers headlined the program: Dr. L. Berthier (Montpellier), Prof. D. Bonn (Amsterdam), Prof. L. Cipelletti (Montpellier), Dr. W. Frith (Unilever), Prof. P. Schurtenberger (Lund) & Prof. H. Tanaka (Tokyo).

The flyer for this event can be downloaded from this link.