Mitch Winnik: nanotech and polymer pioneer

Mitch Winnik of the Department of Chemistry is the first Canadian university scientist to be named recipient of the Applied Polymer Science Award by the American Chemical Society.

The award recognizes outstanding achievements in the science or technology of plastics, coatings, polymer composites, adhesives and related fields.

Winnik is a pioneer in applying the tools of nanotechnology to the study of coatings: work, for example, that has resulted in the development of more environmentally-friendly paints. On a broader perspective, his research focuses on interfaces in polymer systems, in particular how the properties of polymer systems depend in a crucial and often unknown way on events which occur within a very thin layer (the "interface," a few nanometers thick) where they meet.

"Our approach has been to study polymer systems in which the components contain fluorescent dyes attached at specific sites. These dyes serve as 'molecular spies,' reporting on their environment," explains Winnik. "It is then our job to relate this new information to the properties of the system as a whole, to make a connection between events which happen on a molecular scale, and the bulk properties of the system.

"One feature which makes our approach unique is that we must know how to prepare these different materials, and how to synthesize them with the right dye attached to the proper site in the polymer."

His research has provided paint companies with vital information about what is actually happening as their products are applied and as they dry. Volatile organic solvents may help paint dry at the right speed, but they contribute to air pollution.

Thanks to fundamental scientific knowledge generated by Winnik and his students, high-performance paints are being created that no longer need those solvents.

Other projects have investigated how to understand the strength of the joint when two pieces of polymer are welded together, and how to understand the connection between structure and properties in polymer blends. In many of these projects, Winnik's team worked closely with scientists in industry and at other universities around the world in order to study each problem with a wide variety of different techniques.

Winnik has also been interested in polymers with applications in biology and medicine. In the 1990s, as a consultant to Applied Biosystems Inc., he helped to develop polymers for DNA separation. He is co-inventor of the ABI 310 Sequencer, a predecessor of the instrument that was used to sequence the human genome for the first time. More recently, he and his students have created a new class of metal-containing polymers for attachment to antibodies. These polymers are used as reagents for the new technique of mass cytometry invented by DVS Sciences in Toronto. This technique is used to examine as many as one million individual cells, for example in a blood sample, not only to detect whether there are any cancer cells, but also to characterize which particular type of cancer may be present.

Winnik will receive the award at the American Chemical Society's meeting in New Orleans in March 2013.