2021 FELLOWS

Stuart Cooper

Ohio State University

For distinguished accomplishments, exceptional contributions to engineering and science, and dedicated service to the causes of Sigma Xi.

Quote

"I was inducted into Sigma Xi as an undergraduate at MIT in the 1960s. I had done undergraduate research at MIT and was pleased to have been recognized by Sigma Xi on the threshold of going to graduate school. Many years later, when I was Provost at North Carolina State University in the early 2000's, I participated in chapter induction ceremonies with the NC State chapter. Ten years after leaving NC State for Ohio State, I was nominated for the Presidency of Sigma Xi in 2015.

When I was elected to the presidency, serving as President-elect in 2016, it was a challenging time for Sigma Xi. I saw that there was an opportunity to resurrect a more robust philanthropy effort that went beyond the still functioning Annual Giving Campaign. I did this by contacting past presidents, and with my own example, re-launched a “President’s Circle” giving campaign. That year I also joined the Executive Committee of the OSU Sigma Xi local chapter. When I became President of the Society, it was enjoyable to participate in the public and administrative business of the organization. It was very rewarding to attend the first March for Science in Washington DC that Sigma Xi had a role in promoting..

In planning the 2019 Annual Meeting, I suggested Madison, Wisconsin in the Frank Lloyd Wright Conference Center overlooking Lake Mendota, which was one of the most successful conferences in years. Overall, I have been honored to have served in the leadership of Sigma Xi and look forward to seeing the society go on to continuing success in the future."

Biography

I attended Brooklyn Polytechnic High School and enrolled in their “College-Prep” Chemical Course, which featured three years of chemistry courses, including organic and inorganic chemistry. This prepared me for earning a Chemical Engineering degree at MIT which was completed in 1963. I went on to Princeton as a Textile Research Institute Fellow and studied with physical chemist, Professor Arthur V. Tobolsky. There, I worked on a thesis relating to polyurethanes in while taking all the requirements for a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 1967. I went on to an academic career in the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Wisconsin, bringing with me some previous industrial experience in summer jobs with Texaco, Thiokol and Dupont. At Wisconsin I began a research program with components in polymer chemistry, polymer physics and engineering. After about 10 years my work on polyurethanes drew attention from colleagues in the Medical Scholl and with a hematologist, I began a program to study the blood-material interactions of polyurethanes and other polymers. My work in polymer science on the one hand and biomaterials on the other attracted considerable numbers of graduate students and support from federal agencies, foundations, and industry. I was at Wisconsin for 26 years and then left to become Dean of Engineering at the University of Delaware in 1993. My research was re-established at Delaware and between Wisconsin and Delaware, I directed the research of 62 Ph.D. students and 24 master's students, and supervised more than 20 postdoctoral associates and visiting professors. Many of these students have gone on to hold prominent positions in industry and academia. In 1988, I left Delaware to become vice president and chief academic officer at Illinois Institute of Technology. In 2001, I became Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at North Carolina State University. I resigned from that position in 2003 and joined the Ohio State University as Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from 2004-2014. I am currently a Distinguished Engineering Professor at Ohio State.

I have published over 350 original articles and review chapters in pee- reviewed journals and books. My research areas include polymer chemistry, polyurethanes and X-ray analysis of ion containing polymers. My research on biomaterials encompasses studies of blood-materials interactions, cell-surface interactions and tissue engineering. My career-long publication record yields an h-index of 89 with a total number of citations of over 28,000. I have also published two books on Polyurethanes in Medicine and edited 6 others. Over the years I have given numerous keynote and other significant lectures including 19 talks at Gordon Research Conferences. I served as President of the Society for Biomaterials in 1996 and Sigma Xi in 2018. I am a fellow of AIMBE, AAAS, AIChE, ACS, APS and was elected to the International College of Fellows-Biomaterials Science and Engineering. In 1987 I won the Charles M. A. Stine Award of AIChE. I received the Founders award of the Society of Biomaterials in 2010 and the Founders Award of AIChE in 2014. In 2011 I was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. In 2013 I won the Chemistry of Thermoplastic Elastomers Award from the ACS Division of Rubber Chemistry. Since its inception in 1982 I have served as one of the Co-Editors in Chief of the Journal of Biomaterials Science, Polymer Edition.

Research on Polyurethane and Ionomers
My research on polyurethanes provided the basis for relating the properties of this family of materials to the microphase (actually nanoscale in size) separation in the solid state. My graduate students and I revealed in quantitative studies of hydrogen bonding that these strong intermolecular interactions are not a primary determinant of the enhanced physical properties of polyurethane elastomers, but rather contribute a secondary effect in facilitating microphase separation between relatively short chain segments. Small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) was used to quantitatively define the microphase morphology of polyurethanes and ionomers. Ionomers are copolymers of nonionic acrylic monomers and acrylic or methacrylic acids which are neutralized by inorganic ions such as Zn++ or Na+. In the case of polyurethanes, microstructural features such as domain size, degree of phase separation, interfacial gradients and thicknesses were estimated using SAXS. In Ionomers, we proposed a quantitative model of ionic microdomains to rationalize the “ionomer x-ray peak” and used extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) to look at ordering in the ionic microdomains. Our work on polyurethanes and ionomers was supported for more than 24 years by NSF as well as for shorter periods of time by the Petroleum Research Foundation, the US Army, Navy and several corporations including 3M, Johnson and Johnson and Medtronic.

Research on Biomaterials
Colleagues in the Wisconsin Medical School were interested in seeing if polyether-urethanes of the type described by Boretos at NIH could serve in implant applications and particularly if they had potential to serve in vascular applications. With several multi-year grants from NIH we carried out some of the earliest research on the blood-material interactions of polyurethanes. We developed an ex-vivo arterio-venous shunt and studied radiolabeled protein and platelet deposition on polyurethanes of varied chemistries and surface treatments. Other contributions involved the synthesis and characterization of functionalized polyurethanes purposefully designed for biomedical applications. Examples included quaternized polyurethanes having biocidal and antimicrobial properties and sulfonated polyurethanes that form anionic hydrogels and which exhibit anticoagulant properties and as well did not activate platelets. We went on to develop very hydrophobic polyurethanes containing silicone or polyisobutylene soft segments that were more biostable than conventional systems. We also studied protein adsorption on polyurethanes which involved albumin, fibrinogen, fibronectin and vitronectin separately and sequentially where we showed that the activity of the adsorbed protein depended on the sequence of deposition as well as the adsorption time.

After arriving at Delaware, I established a significant effort on bacteria-biomaterial interactions and leukocyte-biomaterial interactions, respectively related to infection and the inflammatory response associated with implants. We also synthesized dendrimer-based biocides, patenting and publishing early work on this application, and starting a company based on this technology. Our more recent work at NC State and Ohio State involved tissue engineering where we tethered cell binding ligands to polyurethanes as well as acrylic terpolymers. We employed phage display to identify ligands that tightly bind human blood outgrowth endothelial (stem) cells and went on to bind these oligopeptides to scaffold polymers. This work involved cysteine terminated peptides that are incorporated into the acrylic system via chain transfer during polymerization.

Currently I am busy at Ohio State with teaching our High Polymer Science and Engineering course, assisting in our undergraduate unit operations laboratory, and managing the manuscript flow for the Journal of Biomaterials Science, Polymer Edition.

2021 FELLOWS

Stuart Cooper

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