Phd student ien physical chemistry (M/F) - Formulation of porous polymer materials as models for...

The work will be carried out within the Paul Pascal Research Centre and in close collaboration with another laboratory on campus (the LOF, also located in Pessac). The CRPP is a joint CNRS-University of Bordeaux unit, one of whose main research areas is the physical chemistry of soft matter and the materials that can be produced in this area. The laboratory has a staff of about 150 (including permanent and non-permanent staff). The PhD student will be integrated into the Meta team.

-Currently, the removal of cancerous tumors from the kidney is performed mechanically using microsurgical robots operated by surgeons. These extremely difficult technical gestures are the result of a long and costly learning before personnel are capable of intervening in the operating room. This is the context of the RHU Urology 3D project, funded by the French National Research Agency and involving several partners, including two teams from university hospitals (Bordeaux and Grenoble), five companies, a techno-center (IUT Bordeaux) and two CNRS laboratories (the CRPP and the LOF). One of the objectives of the project is to produce kidney models, based on porous and irrigated polymers, whose mechanical properties (in terms of elasticity, resistance to rupture, etc.) must be as close as possible to those of real kidneys, including the properties of the healthy or diseased parts of the organs. Ultimately, these model organs will be used to train medical personnel in robotic-assisted surgery.
The objective of the thesis is therefore the design and characterization of soft materials mimicking biological materials for organ models. Based initially on silicones, these materials will include an adjustable density of liquid or gaseous inclusions, connected or not, in order to: i) modulate the effective mechanical properties of the materials; ii) allow vascularization by microfluidic techniques; iii) mimic the release (bleeding) in the case of liquid inclusions that are degraded during surgery.
This work will be based on the results obtained previously by the team in the fabrication of porous silicone polymer materials, which are obtained by molding and polymerization of emulsions. We have indeed shown [1, 2] that by playing on the formulation, it is possible to control the degree of connection of the porosity of the materials (figure below). Moreover, the overall mechanics of the system can also be controlled by varying the chemistry of the silicone polymers used. Finally, this formulation and characterization work will be carried out in collaboration with several postdoctoral fellows who will, among other things, have the role of characterizing the mechanical properties of real kidneys.
[1] A. Kovalenko, K. Zimny, B. Mascaro, T. Brunet, O. Mondain-Monval, Soft Matter 12, 5154 (2016)
[2] R. Kumar, Y. Jin, S. Marre, O. Poncelet, T. Brunet, J. Leng, O. Mondain-Monval, J. Porous Materials 28, 249–259 (2021)

Profile sought: Master in chemistry, materials chemistry or in physical chemistry. The student should have a strong taste for multidisciplinary subjects.