Robert Luxenhofer

Background

About Robert Luxenhofer

I studied Chemistry at the Technische Universität München (TUM) and completing my PhD in 2007 at TUM in Polymer Chemistry. My dissertation on click chemistry and chemoselective reactions using poly(2-oxazoline) formed an important basis for commercial and clinical development of novel polymer therapeutics by Serina Therapeutics. For my first postdoc, I moved to the University of Nebraska Medical Center enjoying the opportunity to work with Alexander V. Kabanov on drug delivery and endocytosis of polymers. I had the opportunity to discover a novel drug delivery platform for hydrophobic drugs, which has since been patented in several countries. In 2009 I returned to Germany to start a Habilitation in Macromolecular Science on the novel and very exciting family of polymers and biomaterials called polypeptoids at the TU Dresden. In 2012, I was appointed Associate Professor at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg and started the Functional Polymer Materials group. I am co-founder of FluxPolymers GmbH (incorporated 2017) and DelAqua Pharmaceuticals (incorporated in 2018). In 2019, I accepted offer from the University of Helsinki to lead the Soft Matter Chemistry as Full Professor. My research interests include synthesis of highly defined and tailored polymers, their interaction with biological entities and development of novel biomaterials and the formulation highly hydrophobic drugs. More recently, I am also interested in 3D (bio)printing, tissue engineering and biocompatible hydrogels.