PMSE 2001 Spring Meeting Preface

It is a pleasure for me to introduce the proceedings for the Spring 2001 meeting of the ACS Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE). These proceedings contain the preprints of papers to be presented at oral and poster sessions during the San Diego, California meeting. The proceedings also provide information on future meetings and proposed Symposia, awards and grants sponsored by PMSE, membership information and PMSE Committee structure. PMSE utilizes the ACS OASys system for receipt of abstracts and preprints. Please see further information in these proceedings and on our website at: http://membership.acs.org/P/PMSE.

The PMSE Symposia in San Diego contains 600 papers and covers a broad spectrum of polymer science from synthesis through applications. The Symposia include two Award Symposia. The 2000 ACS Award for Team Innovation, sponsored by the ACS Corporation Associates, honors an interdisciplinary team of research chemists, semiconductor device process engineers and chemical engineers. This Team successfully took an inven-tion relating to the design of 193nm lithographic materials from research concept through polymer scale-up to market availability in only 2 years. Polymer materials issues related to imaging applications will be the highlight of this event. The PMSE Cooperative Research Award in honor of Professor Anne Hiltner and Dr. P. S. Chum highlights the accomplishments resulting from several synergistic relationships developed between industry and universities. Cooperation has resulted in the understanding of structure-property relationships in new polymers that has led to their rapid development and accelerated commercialization.

The symposium on Functional Polymers and Dendrimers provides an excellent view of the state of the art in the field of functional polymers with significant emphasis on highly branched dendritic structures. The sym-posium covers the field quite broadly from the most recent advances in synthesis and physical characterization to practical applications from sur-face modification to therapeutics. As a result of their controlled structures, nanometer sizes and reactive functionality's, the macromolecules described in this symposium are ideal building blocks or functional entities for nano-technology. Among the many areas highlighted in this 5-day symposium are drug delivery, energy harvesting and photoactive molecules, catalysis, sensors and nanoscale science and technology.

The Macromolecular Self-Assembly at Surfaces and Interfaces Symposium covers one of the newest frontiers in the field of materials chemistry, which is the control of structure from the molecular to the macroscopic length scale. Synthetic and naturally occurring polymers can assemble or arrange at surfaces and interfaces in ways that result in nanoscale order. The rational design of specific polymeric structures and the manipulation of interfacial free energy can result in a number of interesting new systems with applications ranging from nanoscale lithography to templating of photonic arrays. Invited speakers in this 4-day symposium address issues of biomimicry in polymers, self and directed assembly in biomolecular systems, block copolymer assembly, chemistry-directed surface patterning on the nano to micron scale, as well as investigations of polymeric systems in solution and at the air-water interface.

New Polyolefin Copolymers, begins with a tutorial session. This symposium describes the exciting science utilized in developing new polyolefins and discusses their potential for commercial applications. It addition, and it will gather some of the most active researchers in the world to discuss the progress and new issues facing this important area.

The symposium, Polymers in Supercritical Fluids, will feature a broad range of talks addressing the application of supercritical fluids to polymer synthesis and processing and the fundamentals upon which these pro-cesses are based. Each session will begin with a 50-minute, invited plenary lecture from a leader in the field offering broad perspectives and new directions for established researchers and newcomers to this technology.

The Practical Polymer Synthesis symposium combines the fundamentals of modern polymer synthesis with practical polymerization tips and recipes. The presentations will emphasize recent advances in various fields of poly-merization (e. g. ionic, free radical, transition metal). Speakers will not only summarize their important results and conclusions but will also include at least one "working example" in the PMSE Preprint paper and the talk.

The Functional Condensation Polymers Symposium describes polymers containing functional groups that are either present prior to polymer for-mation, introduced during polymerization, or introduced subsequent to the formation of the polymer. The polymers can be linear, branched, hyper-branched, dendritic, etc., and are important reagents in the formation of ordered polymer assemblies and new architectural dendritic-like materials.

A symposium on Advances in Controlled Drug Delivery presents the technology that bridges the discoveries from the advances in medicine and genomics to the development of effective and innovative therapeutic products. This symposium provides a multidisciplinary forum for physicians, scientists and engineers to discuss and exchange their research findings. It will cover emerging areas in medicine, such as gene therapy and the applications of macromolecular drugs. Novel concepts in drug delivery technologies, new polymeric materials and innovative detection methods will also be presented.

I wish to thank and acknowledge Alec Scranton, the current Program Committee Chair, Jay Dias, the past Program Chair, and our Symposium Organizers for their contributions to this meetings' Program. We all owe Eileen Ernst, PMSE Administrative Assistant, a special thank you for her perseverance in compiling one of the largest PMSE Preprint Books while for the first time utilizing the ACS Online System to collect all submissions.