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Introduction
Franco's research interests are dynamic supramolecular polymers, functional molecular assembly, and biocompatible functional materials. Group Page: http://francokingchileung.com/
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
June 2019 - present
April 2017 - June 2019
April 2014 - March 2017
Publications
Publications (44)
Amphiphilic molecules, comprising hydrophobic and hydrophilic moieties and the intrinsic propensity to self‐assemble in aqueous environment, sustain a fascinating spectrum of structures and functions ranging from biological membranes to ordinary soap. Facing the challenge to design responsive, adaptive, and out‐of‐equilibrium systems in water, the...
Mimicking the native extracellular matrix (ECM) as a cell culture scaffold has long attracted scientists from the perspective of supramolecular chemistry for potential application in regenerative medicine. However, the development of the next-generation synthetic materials that mimic key aspects of ECM, with hierarchically oriented supramolecular s...
Soft robotic system, a new era of material science, is rapidly developing with advanced processing technology in soft matters, featured with biomimetic nature. An important bottom-up approach is through the implementation of molecular machines into polymeric materials, however, the synchronized molecular motions, acumination of strain across multip...
Nature preprograms sophisticated processes in operating molecular machines at the nanoscale, amplifying the molecular motion across multiple length‐scales, and controlling movements in living organisms. Supramolecular soft robotics serve as a new alternative to hard robotics, are able to transform and amplify collective motions of the supramolecula...
In the design of photoharvesting and photoresponsive supramolecular systems in aqueous medium, the fabrication of amphiphilic photoswitches enables a noninvasive functional response through photoirradiation. Although most aqueous supramolecular assemblies are driven by high-energy and biodamaging UV light, we have previously reported a design of am...
Molecular motor amphiphiles have already been widely attempted for dynamic nano systems across multiple length‐scale for developments of small functional materials, including controlling macroscopic foam properties, amplifying motion as artificial molecular muscles and serving as extracellular matrix mimicking cell scaffolds. However, limiting exam...
Designing photo-harvesting and photoresponsive supramolecular systems in aqueous media, the fabrication of photoswitch as an amphiphilic structure enables non-invasive functional response by photoirradiation. Although most of aqueous supramolecular assemblies across multiple length-scale were driven by high-energy and bio-damaging UV-light, previou...
Invited for this month's cover are the collaborating groups of Prof. Man‐Kin Wong and Dr. Franco King‐Chi Leung from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The cover picture illustrates chiral gold (III) amphiphiles assemble into tubular supramolecular structures in aqueous media through counterion controlled pathway. The nanostructures were further...
Gold (III) cyclometalated based amphiphiles in aqueous media have been revealed with excellent supramolecular transformations to external stimuli to open new pathways for soft functional material fabrications. Herein, we report a new chiral cyclometalated gold (III) amphiphile (GA) assembling into lamellar nanostructures in aqueous media confirmed...
Although tumor immunotherapy has emerged as a promising therapeutic method for oncology, it encounters several limitations, especially concerning low response rates and potential off-targets that elicit side effects. Furthermore, tumor immunogenicity is the critical factor that predicts the success rate of immunotherapy, which can be boosted by the...
Front Cover: Article 2200438 by Franco King‐Chi Leung and co‐workers highlights supramolecular co‐assembly of cationic and anionic stiff stilbene amphiphiles in aqueous media. The complementary charged stiff stilbene amphiphiles enable fabrication of macroscopic soft scaffold without help of inorganic salts, leading to a new strategy for generating...
Amphiphiles are of great interest in the search of biomimicking supramolecular assembly for their assembling into complex and hierarchical structures in aqueous media across multiple length-scale. Incorporations of photoswitching units into amphiphiles provide a mean to control the morphology of the resultant assembled structures by light irradiati...
Designing responsive, adaptive, and dynamic supramolecular systems in water, the incorporation of photoresponsive units in amphiphilic molecular structures enables functional responses in a non-invasive way by using light. However, in aqueous media, vast majority of reported synthetic photoresponsive molecular amphiphiles are commonly driven by hig...
Fabrication of macroscopic soft functional materials, such as macroscopic photoresponsive soft materials and artificial muscles, can be commonly prepared by charge screening of supramolecular assemblies with inorganic salt solutions using a shear‐flow method. However, some of the charged end‐groups of photoresponsive molecular amphiphiles cannot be...
Metals have been investigated as biomaterials for a wide range of medical applications. At nanoscale, some metals, such as gold nanoparticles, exhibit plasmonics, which have motivated researchers’ focus on biosensor development. At the device level, some metals, such as titanium, exhibit good physical properties, which could allow them to act as bi...
Metals have been investigated as biomaterials for a wide range of medical applications. At nanoscale, some metals, such as gold nanoparticles, exhibit plasmonics, which have motivated researchers’ focus on biosensor development. At the device level, some metals, such as titanium, exhibit good physical properties, which could allow them to act as bi...
Supramolecular assemblies of gold complex‐based amphiphiles in aqueous media are highly structural sensitive to external environments, providing an attractive prospect for its application in soft functional materials. Notably, the development of a supramolecular assembly transformation of gold (III) amphiphiles directly controlled by counterion exc...
Amphiphilic molecules, are composed of hydrophobic and hydrophilic parts and the intrinsic tendence to assemble in aqueous conditions, producing numerous supramolecular assembled structures and functional systems. Some of the recent challenges in the design of adaptive, responsive, far-from-equilibrium functional systems in aqueous environments, th...
Controlling supramolecular polymerization by external stimuli holds great potential toward the development of responsive soft materials and manipulating self-assembly at the nanoscale. Photochemical switching offers the prospect of regulating the structure and properties of systems in a noninvasive and reversible manner with spatial and temporal co...
Dynamic self‐assembly of photoresponsive molecular amphiphiles at Gibbs monolayers, i.e., air–water interfaces, and in solutions, ranging from isotropic assembly transformations to anisotropic three‐dimensional structures, provides the amplification of molecular motion to macroscopic functions.
Abstract
Amphiphilic molecules, comprising hydrophobi...
The incorporation of photoswitchable molecules into solid-state materials holds promise for the fabrication of responsive materials, the properties of which can be controlled on-demand. However, the possible applications of these materials are limited due to the restrictions imposed by the solid-state environment on the incorporated photoswitches,...
We report multi-modal-control over the assembly behaviour of a first-generation molecular motor bola-amphiphile in water by light, pH and the choice of counter-ions. These findings open up opportunities for the...
Stimuli-responsive supramolecular assemblies controlling macroscopic transformations with high structural fluidity, i.e., foam properties, have attractive prospects for applications in soft materials ranging from biomedical systems to industrial processes, e.g., textile coloring. However, to identify the key processes for the amplification of molec...
Three‐dimensional unidirectionally aligned and responsive supramolecular hierarchical assemblies have much potential in adaptive materials for biomedical and soft actuator applications. However, to achieve systematical control of the motion of stimuli‐responsive materials by orthogonal external stimuli and to complete a series of complicated tasks...
Three‐dimensional unidirectionally aligned and responsive supramolecular hierarchical assemblies have much potential in adaptive materials for biomedical and soft actuator applications. However, to achieve systematical control of the motion of stimuli‐responsive materials by orthogonal external stimuli and to complete a series of complicated tasks...
Three-dimensional organized unidirectionally aligned and responsive supramolecular structures have much potential in adaptive materials ranging from biomedical components to soft actuator systems. However, to control the supramolecular structure of these stimuli responsive, e.g., photoactive materials and control their actuation remains a major cha...
A striking feature of living systems is their ability to produce motility by amplification of collective molecular motion from the nanoscale up to macroscopic dimensions. Some of nature's protein motors, such as myosin in muscle tissue, consist of a hierarchical supramolecular assembly of very large proteins, in which mechanical stress induces a co...
1-Methoxy-8-(diphenylphosphino)triptycene (1), featuring high structural rigidity and steric bulkiness around the phosphine functionality, was synthesized as a new chiral monophosphine ligand for transition metal-catalyzed reactions. In the presence of 5–10 mol ppm (i.e., 0.0005–0.001 mol %) Pd(OAc)2 and 1 (2 equiv for Pd), Suzuki–Miyaura cross-cou...
Tailoring structurally anisotropic molecular assemblies while controlling their orientation on solid substrates is an important subject for advanced technologies that use organic thin films. Here we report a supramolecular scaffold based on tripodal triptycene assemblies, which enables functional molecular units to assemble into a highly oriented,...
An efficient method for photooxidative amidation of aldehydes with secondary amines has been developed. With the use of a readily available photocatalyst Rose Bengal, tertiary amides (with examples of oligosaccharides and endoperoxide artemisinin) were obtained in good yields with high chemoselectivity and functional group compatibility under mild...
A new class of hydrogen bond donor-acceptor-donor (HB-DAD) organocatalysts has been developed for conjugate addition of benzylidene barbiturates. HB-DAD organocatalyst 1a (featuring para-chloro-pyrimidine as the hydrogen bond acceptor (HBA), N-H as the hydrogen bond donor (HBD) and a trifluoroacetyl group as the electron withdrawing group (EWG)) is...
A series of cyclometallated gold(III) complexes [Au(equation image)Cl2] 1a–l (Hequation image=arylpyridines) and a PEG-linked complex 1m were synthesized. Complexes 1a–m are effective in catalyzing the synthesis of propargylic amines, chiral allenes and isoxazoles. Six-membered ring cyclometallated gold(III) complexes 1f–l exhibited higher catalyti...
A site-specific and efficient method for N-terminal modification of peptides using oxone for selective oxidation of N-terminal α-amino groups of peptides to oximes followed by transoximation with O-substituted hydroxylamines has been developed.
[184034-09-1] C25H14Cl2O5 (MW 465.28) InChI = 1S/C25H14Cl2O5/c26-18-9-13-5-1-3-7-16(13)20-21-17-8-4-2-6-14(17)10-19(27)23(21)25(30)32-12-15(28)11-31-24(29)22(18)20/h1-10H,11-12H2 InChIKey = FQVCXRGPRMNZCY-UHFFFAOYSA-N (a chiral ketone reagent used for enantioselective olefin epoxidations, kinetic resolution of acyclic secondary allylic silyl ethers...