Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology

July 23rd, 2025

This July, the global statistical physics community gathered in Florence, Italy, for the 29th edition of the International Conference on Statistical Physics (StatPhys29) a flagship event of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), held every three years. The 2025 meeting brought together over 1,500 researchers from across disciplines to explore the fundamental principles shaping complex systems, from quantum fluids to biological networks.…

July 23rd, 2025

This summer, Heman Bekele, named TIME’s 2024 Kid of the Year for his development of a low-cost, cancer-fighting soap joined the Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology (ISMSM) at Georgetown University to expand his scientific knowledge and deepen his understanding of drug delivery mechanisms. …

June 24th, 2025

Meet the two fellowship recipients and their research.…

June 20th, 2025

On Friday, May 30, 2025, the 25th Mid-Atlantic Soft Matter Workshop (MASM) convened at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, bringing together scientists from across academia, industry, and national laboratories. …

May 29th, 2025

On May 3rd, 2025, Georgetown University hosted the 9th Chesapeake Bay Area Single Molecule Biology Meeting (CBASMB)—a dynamic day of science at the intersection of physics, chemistry, biology, and computation. Now in its ninth year, the CBASMB meeting continues to serve as a vital regional forum for researchers unraveling the complexities of life at the single-molecule level.…

May 15th, 2025

A new study led by Georgetown University’s Institute for Soft Matter Synthesis and Metrology (ISMSM) researchers, Prof. Emanuela Del Gado, Dr. Mauro L. Mugnai and Rose Tchuenkam Batoum, titled “Inter-Species Interactions in Dual, Fibrous Gel Enable Control of Gel Structure and Rheology,” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), reveals a powerful way to fine-tune the structure and stiffness of soft gels. These are materials found in everything from biomedical devices to synthetic tissues.…

May 7th, 2025

A new study led by Dr. Miklos Kertesz and his team at Georgetown University, “Quinonoid radial π-conjugation” published in Chemical Science, uncovers a remarkable electronic transformation in a novel class of molecular nanohoops—compact, ring-shaped systems composed of alternating aromatic and quinonoid units. The research investigates how changing the ratio of these two components affects the nanohoops’ electronic structure, leading to surprising and potentially useful behavior.…

April 3rd, 2025

A new study led by Dr. Jeffrey Toretsky and his team at Georgetown University investigates the role of the nuclear speckle protein SRRM2 in Ewing Sarcoma (ES), offering fresh insights into how oncogenic condensates influence gene regulation. The research, conducted in collaboration with Julie Forman-Kay’s lab at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, uses advanced imaging techniques to track SRRM2 dynamics in live and fixed ES cells.…