Ricardo Javier Vázquez

IU scientist awarded $1.9 million NIH MIRA grant to advance cutting-edge research in biological imaging

Happy and excited to share that we are #NIHFunded thanks to the MIRA R35 mechanism from NIGMS. Now let's get to work and deliver cool Science with this taxpayer-funded award. 🔥 💰 🔥

Link: news.iu.edu/college/live...

Happy to share that the Supplementary Cover Art for our manuscript on Porous and Self-Doped Conjugated Polyelectrolytes (10.1021/acs.chemmater.5c01255) is now published in Chemistry of Materials. Thanks to the ScienceBrush design team for the 🔥design!

Adipocyte-Derived Amino Acid Storage Proteins are Required for Germline Stem Cell Maintenance in Adult Drosophila Females Tissue homeostasis is dependent on precise coordination between endocrine organs in response to changes in organism physiology. Secreted circulating factors from adipocytes (called adipokines) regulat...

My lab’s newest preprint is now available.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Porous and Self-Doped Conjugated Polyelectrolytes Exhibiting Open-Shell Character and Dual Ion-Electron Conduction Here, we report the synthesis and characterization of two porous two-dimensional conjugated polyelectrolytes (2D CPEs) exhibiting persistent room-temperature open-shell character (radical/polaron) alongside dual ionic and electronic conductivity in aqueous environments. The 2D CPEs incorporate the self-doping, hydrophilic subunit potassium 4,4’-(4H-cyclopenta[2,1-b:3,4-b’]dithiophene-4,4-diyl)bis(butane-1-sulfonate) (CPDTSO3K2) with archetypal porous linkers: triphenylamine (2D CPE-TPA) and triphenyltriazine (2D CPE-TRZ). Gas physisorption measurements revealed BET (Langmuir) surface areas of 9.7 (10.4) m2·g–1 (N2) and 113 (341) m2·g–1 (CO2) for 2D CPE-TPA, and 23.7 (40.3) m2·g–1 (N2) and 142 (334) m2·g–1 (CO2) for 2D CPE-TRZ, comparable to archetypal porous polymers. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and UV–vis-NIR spectroscopy confirmed an open-shell configuration with Voigtian-shaped EPR signals. Solid-state EPR revealed a higher polaron concentration than in solution, specifically after acid-fumed exposure, revealing that intermolecular interactions enhance radical availability, stability, and interchain delocalization. Cyclic voltammetry indicated pseudocapacitive behavior with low turn-on potentials of 0.22 V (2D CPE-TPA) and 0.60 V (2D CPE-TRZ) vs Ag/AgCl. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy estimated electrical conductivities of 1.1 mS·cm–1 (2D CPE-TPA) and 0.9 mS·cm–1 (2D CPE-TRZ), with Warburg analysis indicating higher ionic conductivity in 2D CPE-TPA (3.4 μS·cm–1) versus 2D CPE-TRZ (0.31 μS·cm–1), both correlating better with pore dimension rather than with overall porosity. Our findings underscore the role of self-doping moieties for persistent intermolecular radical formation and charge-ion transport, positioning 2D CPEs as promising electroactive porous and magnetic materials.

It is possible to develop open-shell, self-doped, and porous conjugated polyelectrolytes (2D CPEs) by combining the self-doping CPDTSO₃K₂ moiety with archetypal 2D subunits, namely triphenylamine and triphenyltriazine. Out in Chemistry of Materials. 🔥

🔗 : doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.5c01255

Welcoming the 2025 JACS Au Early Career Advisory Board

I’m happy to share that I’ve been appointed to the ACS JACS Au Early Career Advisory Board. I look forward to contributing to the journal and its editorial board on behalf of early-career researchers.

🔗: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacsau.5c00822

Last month, Kingsley Bortey became the first student from #BEAMSLab to advance to Ph.D. candidacy.

We are extremely proud of Kingsley’s growth as a scientist and grateful for his contributions to our lab. More to come soon! 😄

Many thanks to Bipasa Samanta, the postdoc in our group, who performed the calculations and taught me about the connection between bond angles in perovskites and conjugation in organic molecules, and to Ricardo for inviting us to this collaboration.

A Conjugated Oligoelectrolyte Exhibiting Room Temperature Spin-Correlated Radical Pair Character for Biological Sensing We report a water-soluble conjugated oligoelectrolyte (COE), Quantum-COE, exhibiting photogenerated spin-correlated radical pair (SCRP) behavior sensitive to the electric field of DNA, but not to that...

Do you want to know how to develop water-soluble qubits operable in biologically relevant media? Look no further! 🔥

Thanks to @alexandrubg.bsky.social and Aliaksandra Lisouskaya (from ND) for their contributions to this manuscript.

🔗: chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...

Friday was a bittersweet day ending my time as a postdoc in the Klausen lab. I'm so grateful for @bekkaklausen.bsky.social ongoing mentorship and guidance. It was an amazing experience learning new skills and mentoring younger scientists. Excited to start my independent career at Indiana University!

It's not really a secret anymore, but I wanted to wait until the paperwork was all signed. I'll be starting at Indiana University this fall as an assistant professor in chemistry! The Harvey Group will focus on synthesis and spectroscopy of inorganic nanomaterials. Stay tuned for more.

Happy to have Edward Hickey-Figueroa back with us for our REU experience. He is on the team developing next-gen open-shell conjugated polyelectrolytes for energy transduction and optoelectronic applications.

Happy to have Pamela Murillo Zamora with us for our REU experience. She is working on the team developing next-gen water-soluble conjugated materials for biosensing applications, including quantum probes.

New work with my postdoc Bipasa Samanta on superconducting nickelates. After showing a remarkably strong correlation between in-plane Ni-O-Ni bond angles and Tc in La3Ni2O7, we investigate the effects of other factors (strain, correlations, layer number) on the likely Tc. arxiv.org/abs/2506.11427

may? definitely happening. a student i was recruiting specifically said he declined for this reason. will not come to the US.

Catalyst-Controlled Regiodivergent Synthesis of Bicyclo[2.1.1]hexanes via Photochemical Strain-Release Cycloadditions Bicyclo[2.1.1]hexane is an emerging scaffold in various pharmaceutical settings, but the scarcity of approaches to target different regioisomers from a common starting material prevents targeting a broader range of chemical space. Herein, we demonstrate a new design for the photocatalyst-controlled regiodivergent synthesis of this scaffold. Of particular interest is that the synthesis of two distinct substitution patterns was achieved under photochemical conditions with catalyst control. This was possible due to the activating group, N-methylimidazole, not only playing an important role in guiding divergent pathways but also enabling transformation to various functional groups. Transient absorption spectroscopy discerned between the regiodivergent mechanisms, as assignable bands consistent with electron transfer and energy transfer processes were distinctively observed, depending on the identity of the photocatalyst.

Happy to collaborate with Professor Kevin Brown in identifying photocatalyst-dependent transient species responsible for the regio-divergent synthesis of Bicyclo[2.1.1] hexane scaffolds. Cool stuff published in @jacs.acspublications.org

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Fantastic science this weekend at @iuqcb.bsky.social's Watanabe Symposium. Our grad student @jsrocchio.bsky.social even won the student poster competition! Thanks to @tripletstatesguy.bsky.social, @glycocode.bsky.social and all other speakers for great talks! #IUresearch

In work led by undergraduate student Emily Ward, we show how to build Wannier functions that allow visualization and interpretation of lone pairs in a solid, as well as complex bonding interactions in metal oxyhalides. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
Image: a lone pair in BiOCl.

Ready to hang up these cover arts for our ACS Nano paper and Virtual Special Issue on TADF published in JPC C as commemorative displays around the 6th floor at IUB Chemistry.

Impressive.

Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence (TADF) Active Systems: Mechanism, Applications, and Future Directions

Thanks again to guest editors of this special collection for the invitation to participate! Really a pleasure to contribute with a pair of articules, together with colleagues from @ctm-itodys.bsky.social and Université de Namur (Institute of Structured Matter) #chemsky #TADF #OLEDs

We are Dosa addicts. How about you?

Happy to share the preface of our virtual special issue on TADF materials! Grateful to the Journal of Physical Chemistry for the opportunity to serve alongside Prof Naoya Aizawa as guest editors, curating this stimulating collection of work.
🔗 pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcc.5c00333

makes you wonder if @acs.org ever considered running a Superbowl ad

Estrogen-Related Receptor is Required in Adult Drosophila Females for Germline Stem Cell Maintenance Stem cell self-renewal and proper tissue function rely on conserved metabolic regulators to balance energy production with inter-organ metabolic trafficking. The estrogen-related receptor (ERR) subfam...

My lab has a new preprint that is available! 🧵below.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our group at Indiana University Bloomington is getting bigger! Minh and Dhari were missed.

Catching up with Professor Doumon and part of the conjugated polyelectrolytes squad! Lots of new CPE-related work to get published this year.🔥 #CPEs

Happy to share the Supplementary Cover Art for the RPS-FLIM manuscript, now published in ACS Nano. Thanks to ScienceBrush Design for delivering such a cool and representative illustration. #TheFutureIsLifetime

Contento de presentar en la Sociedad Dominicana de Física (SoDoFi).

Resistive-Pulse Sensing Coupled with Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy for Differentiation of Individual Liposomes Characterization of individual biological nanoparticles can be significantly improved by coupling complementary analytical methods. Here, we combine resistive-pulse sensing (RPS) with fluorescence lif...

Biological nanoparticles, anyone?

RPS-FLIM combines the benefits of resistive-pulse sensing (RPS) and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) to differentiate dye-labeled biological nanoparticles by size, charge, and membrane composition. #ACSNano

doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c10813

Pick up one arroz con dulce and pass along the other containers. 🇵🇷