Prize for DCU postgraduate research student Jin Huang

DCU postgraduate research student wins prestigious Chinese Government Award

Jin Huang, a PhD student in the School of Chemical Sciences, was one of four Ireland-based students to be awarded a prestigious Chinese Government Award for outstanding self-financed students abroad. This prestigious award is made by the China Scholarship Council.

Only students with outstanding performances in their PhD studies are considered by the award selection panel and no more than 500 young talents are granted the award each year worldwide.

Jin Huang carried out his research with the polymer research group at DCU.  His supervisor, Dr Andreas Heise, said that the award was a recognition of the high quality of his research in polymers.  “The research project has been funded by the Science Foundation Ireland Principle Investigator Programme, so we only engage the brightest and the best researchers – and Jin certainly fits into this category.  As Jin’s supervisor, I would like to congratulate him on this award”.

The focus of Jin’s PhD studies was the design and synthesis of novel stimulus responsive polypeptides (so-called "smart" polypeptides) via the combination of a facile polymerization technique (N-Carboxyanhydride Polymerization) and other orthogonal chemistrie. Novel materials including lectin binding glycopeptides and stimulus responsive hydrogels have been developed, which aim to be applied for biological applications such as drug delivery carrier or tissue engineering.