In the warm humid air of Kuching, Sarawak, where scientists from sixty-four countries gathered for the 51st IUPAC World Polymer Congress, the field paused to honor two researchers whose work shows how the ordinary chemistry of long molecular chains might reshape medicine and the screens we look through. Yinyin Bao of the University of Helsinki and Jing Lyu of University College London were named joint recipients of the Hanwha-TotalEnergies Young Polymer Scientist Award, a prize that recognizes chemists early in their careers. Their recognition gathers two quiet pursuits: making living tissue a
IUPAC's 2026 Young Polymer Scientist Award Honors Printable Implants and Chip-Made OLED Pixels
Standard OLED emitters are destroyed by the chemicals photolithography requires
Mark
Two winners, three research threads. What ties them together?
Mimi
Control over molecular architecture. Bao puts the emitter inside the chain and the reactive groups outside. Lyu varies brush chemistry systematically. Both replace trial and error with design.
Mark
The OLED result sounds like a manufacturing story.
Mimi
It is. Evaporation wastes about 95 percent of the organic material, and standard emitters can't survive photolithography. Protecting the emitter inside the polymer gets around that.
Luke
But the demonstrations are a 300 by 430 micrometer macaw and a 1 by 2.4 millimeter logo. That's proof of principle, not a production line.
Mimi
Fair. The article doesn't claim commercial adoption, only that the pixel sizes reached 4 micrometers and 300 nanometers.
Mark
And the implants?
Mimi
Printed from a scan, biodegradable, mechanically comparable to Sylgard-184. Stents for airway stenosis were explored.
Luke
Explored is the key word. Nothing here says a patient has received one.
Mark
What about Lyu's work?
Mimi
Design rules for siRNA carriers, which matter because reproducibility is needed for regulatory approval.
Luke
Note that's the source's framing of the path to the clinic. No trial results are reported, and I'd keep that separate from the award itself.
The Pulse
- Biodegradable resins that are too thick to print well are being coaxed into airway stents and tissue scaffolds without the solvents that would harm the body.
- Traditional OLED manufacturing throws away roughly 95 percent of its costly organic material, and the team is trying to replace that waste with light-sensitive polymers.
- Pixels have been patterned down to 4 micrometers, and a glowing ETH Zürich logo has been built from electrically powered diodes, proving the approach works beyond theory.
- Gene-silencing therapies remain stalled by delivery, and Lyu's polycationic brush libraries are mapping design rules to replace guesswork with engineering.
- The honorees now face the test of whether printed implants and polymer-patterned displays can leave the laboratory for clinics and factory floors.
In the warm humid air of Kuching, Sarawak, where scientists from sixty-four countries gathered for the 51st IUPAC World Polymer Congress, the field paused to honor two researchers whose work shows how the ordinary chemistry of long molecular chains might reshape medicine and the screens we look through. Yinyin Bao of the University of Helsinki and Jing Lyu of University College London were named joint recipients of the Hanwha-TotalEnergies Young Polymer Scientist Award, a prize that recognizes chemists early in their careers. Their recognition gathers two quiet pursuits: making living tissue and light-emitting pixels from materials that can be shaped by a beam of light, and learning to carry fragile genetic messages safely into cells.
On July 28 to 31, scientists from 64 countries met at the Borneo Convention Centre in Kuching for MACRO 2026, the 51st IUPAC World Polymer Congress. There, the Hanwha-TotalEnergies Young Polymer Scientist Award went jointly to Associate Professor Yinyin Bao of the University of Helsinki and Dr. Jing Lyu of University College London. The prize, given every two years to researchers within fifteen years of their doctorate, was first awarded in Paris in 2004 and is funded by a joint venture owned equally by South Korea's Hanwha and France's TotalEnergies.
Bao's path ran from a doctorate at the University of Science and Technology of China through postdoctoral work at KU Leuven and a Marie Curie fellowship in Paris, then to ETH Zürich and, in January 2025, to Helsinki. His biomedical work begins with light turning liquid resin into solid form. Most high-molecular-weight biodegradable resins are too viscous to print, and the usual fixes compromise biocompatibility. With colleagues at ETH, his group designed a resin that yields elastomers rivaling a silicone benchmark, printed without solvents, aimed at drug-eluting stents for airway stenosis and custom scaffolds. In Helsinki the work has moved into 4D printing, where structures change after fabrication.
His second thread concerns displays. Conventional OLED manufacturing wastes most of its organic material and struggles to make sub-micrometer pixels. Working with ETH's Chih-Jen Shih, Bao built light-emitting polymers that also act as photoresists, protecting the emitter while the surrounding chemistry patterns the pixels. The team demonstrated a multicolor macaw image and a working glowing logo, and their findings appeared in Nature in 2026.
Lyu's work joins polymer synthesis with molecular biology, aiming at RNA interference therapy, whose main obstacle is delivery: fragile, negatively charged siRNA cannot cross cell membranes alone. Her group built libraries of polycationic brushes, varying their properties and mapping how each affects binding, uptake, and release, so that future carriers can be designed rather than discovered by trial and error.
At the opening, Sarawak's Deputy Premier urged that discoveries move beyond the lab. The question now is whether these printed implants and polymer-patterned displays make that crossing.
On July 28 to 31, scientists from 64 countries gathered at the Borneo Convention Centre in Kuching, Sarawak, for MACRO 2026, the 51st IUPAC World Polymer Congress. At that meeting, two chemists received the Hanwha-TotalEnergies IUPAC Young Polymer Scientist Award: Associate Professor Yinyin Bao of the University of Helsinki and Dr. Jing Lyu of University College London. IUPAC updated its official award record to name them joint 2026 recipients. The prize is the Polymer Division's top honor for researchers within fifteen years of their doctorate.
The award was first given at MACRO 2004 in Paris, under the name Samsung-Total Petrochemicals IUPAC Young Scientists Award, and is presented every two years. It is funded by Hanwha TotalEnergies, a joint venture owned equally by South Korea's Hanwha and France's TotalEnergies. Candidates are generally no older than 40, and a committee of the IUPAC Polymer Division selects the winners. Recent recipients include Lutz Nuhn and Rongrong Hu (2024), Qian Chen and Eric Appel (2022), and Athina Anastasaki and Changle Chen (2020). At Kuching, the award was presented by Polymer Division President Professor Igor Lacík and MACRO 2026 Organizing Chair Professor Rusli Daik.
Bao was honored for functional synthetic polymers used as 3D-printing biomaterials and as light-emitting materials. He earned his Ph.D. in 2012 at the University of Science and Technology of China, then did postdoctoral work at KU Leuven and held a Marie Curie fellowship at the University of Paris Sud. He joined ETH Zürich in 2016, became a Senior Scientist and group leader by the end of 2018, and moved to Helsinki in January 2025, keeping a senior guest position at ETH.
His biomedical work rests on photopolymerization, in which light turns liquid resin into a solid object. Printing methods such as stereolithography and digital light processing can build complex shapes with resolution in the tens of micrometers. The obstacle is that most high-molecular-weight biodegradable photopolymers are solid at room temperature and too viscous to print well, and the usual fixes, reactive diluents or organic solvents, compromise biocompatibility. With Nevena Paunović and Jean-Christophe Leroux at ETH, Bao's group reported a resin pairing two poly(D,L-lactide-co-caprolactone) macromolecules. Printed biodegradable elastomers made from it matched the mechanical properties of Sylgard-184, a benchmark silicone, and kept tunable degradability. The group also achieved solvent-free printing using liquid macrophotoinitiators. Applications explored include drug-eluting stents for airway stenosis and custom tissue scaffolds. In Helsinki the group has moved into 4D printing, where structures change shape or properties after fabrication.
The second strand of Bao's work concerns displays. Conventional small-molecule OLED manufacturing uses vacuum thermal evaporation, which wastes about 95 percent of the costly organic material on the chamber walls. It also cannot easily make sub-micrometer pixels by photolithography, because standard emitters are destroyed by the chemicals involved. Bao and ETH Professor Chih-Jen Shih designed light-emitting polymers that double as photoresists. A thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitter sits protected inside the molecule, with reactive cross-linking groups on the outside. The polymers were made by atom transfer radical polymerization.
As a demonstration, the team produced a multicolor macaw image of 250 by 350 pixels, measuring 300 by 430 micrometers. Photolithography reached pixels as small as 4 micrometers, and e-beam lithography reached 300 nanometers. They also built a working 1 mm by 2.4 mm glowing ETH Zürich logo from electrically powered diodes. The work appeared in Nature in 2026. Shih sees uses beyond small screens, including miniature light sources for medical technology and devices for biological and neuroscience research. Bao was also named a 2025 ACS Polymers Au Rising Star in Polymer Science.
Lyu was recognized for work joining polymer synthesis and molecular biology, specifically RNA interference, gene delivery, and biosensing. The difficulty with RNAi therapy is delivery: siRNA, about 21 nucleotides long, is fragile, negatively charged, and cannot cross cell membranes unaided. Viral vectors carry risks of immunogenicity and genomic integration, so synthetic cationic polymers have drawn research since the 2000s. Lyu's group used surface-initiated polymerization to build libraries of polycationic brushes, varying hydrophobicity, pKa, chain rigidity, and degree of quaternization. They mapped how each affects binding, cellular uptake, and intracellular release. The resulting design rules aim to replace trial and error with rational engineering. Lyu has 48 papers and more than 800 citations, with collaborators in China, Ireland, and the UK.
At the opening, Sarawak Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Professor Dr Sim Kui Hian said discoveries must translate beyond the laboratory. MACRO 2026 was organized by Institut Kimia Malaysia and was only the second World Polymer Congress held in Southeast Asia. What to watch now is whether printed implants and polymer-patterned OLEDs move from lab demonstrations toward clinical use and factory floors.
Notable Quotes
Scientific discoveries must translate beyond the laboratory to make a tangible difference in people's lives (paraphrased).— Datuk Amar Prof. Dr Sim Kui Hian, Sarawak Deputy Premier
The polymers could serve in small screens, miniature medical light sources, and biological and neuroscience devices (paraphrased).— Prof. Chih-Jen Shih, ETH Zürich
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