The research profile of Huynh’s group is built up around “functional materials”area whose chemistries are strongly inspired by nature. The materials of interest are polymers including biopolymers and conducting polymers but not limit in polymer composites (by incorporating the polymers with active materials such as conductive graphene and copper sulfide or high-strength cellulose nanocrystal). These functional materials are prepared from novel ways of chemical functionalization, allowing them to form molecular interactions (hydrogen bonding, pi-pi stacking, metal-ligand coordinating, and so on) with target molecules. The materials therefore exhibit successful applications in the medical and environmental research. First and foremost is using the functional materials as mimicked receptors in a sensor array and then combining with multivariate analysis to assemble an electronic tongue (e-tongue) or electronic nose (e-nose) for discriminating metabolites of early-stage cancer. Besides, several functionalized biopolymers possessed both biocompatible and biodegradable properties and exciting chemistries, have demonstrated as potential scaffold for studying cell biology.
