Surface Grafted Polymer Brushes

161 Pages·2015·8.5 MB·English

Surface Grafted Polymer Brushes:
A Versatile Platform for Antibacterial Applications
THÈSE NO 6565 (2015)
PRÉSENTÉE LE 2 AVRIL 2015
À LA FACULTÉ DES SCIENCES ET TECHNIQUES DE L'INGÉNIEUR
LABORATOIRE DES POLYMÈRES
PROGRAMME DOCTORAL EN SCIENCE ET GÉNIE DES MATÉRIAUX
ÉCOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE
POUR L'OBTENTION DU GRADE DE DOCTEUR ÈS SCIENCES
PAR
Sorin Alexandru IBANESCU
acceptée sur proposition du jury:
Prof. P. Muralt, président du jury
Prof. H.-A. Klok, directeur de thèse
Dr Y. Simon, rapporteur
Prof. G. J. Vancso, rapporteur
Dr C. Wandrey, rapporteuse
Suisse
2015

The work described in this Thesis has been performed at the École Polytechnique
Fédérale de Lausanne from May 2010 until December 2014 under the supervision of
Prof. Harm-Anton Klok

This work was financially supported by the CCMX Competence Centre for Materials
Science and Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland

For Simina

The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.

Bob Harris

Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to thank Prof. Harm-Anton Klok for his supervision on my
PhD thesis and for providing all the conditions to perform the research. Moreover, I
sincerely appreciate his advices and support for the development and realization of some
particularly interesting ideas. His guidance and understanding were very important in
developing my research skills.
In addition, I would like to warmly thank my thesis committee members Prof. P.
Muralt, Prof. G. J. Vancso, Dr. Y. Simon and Dr. Christine Wandrey for taking the time
to review my thesis, for their patience and valuable discussion about my research.
Thanks to all collaboration partners, who significantly enriched this interdisciplinary
work: Prof. R. Landmann, Dr. N. Khanna and Dr. J. Nowakowska from Department of
Biomedicine, University Hospital Basel as well as Prof. J. McKinney who allowed me to
perform my antibacterial experiments in his laboratory and François Signorino-Gelo for
all his help during these experiments.
I would like to thank the whole team of the Laboratoire des Polymères, especially my
office colleagues Sanhao, Dusko, Nicolas and Justin for the nice time spent together and
their useful advices. Many thanks also to the other people in the LP, past and present, for
the amazing experience they gave me working together, for their help and interesting
talks. Special thanks to Solenne with whom I shared the lab for such a long time and Ana
who supported me in my most difficult moments. Also I would like to thank Conor who
helped me whenever I needed help and most importantly taught me about Saint Patrick's
Day. All these people were and are very important to me, forming a real family, helping
me to feel “at home” in Lausanne and at EPFL. I am especially grateful that many of
them became good friends and I hope this friendship will last past my doctoral years. I
learned a lot of things from them and I am grateful for all moments we shared.
I am truly grateful to my wife Simina for her support, confidence, patience and
kindness during our stay here. Last, but not least, all my gratitude for my family for all
their support throughout all these years of studies.