Congratulations to Victor CHAMBON who won the Second Prize for Best Poster at the Annual European Rheology Conference AERC 2026 for his poster entitled "Aqueous silicate : Study of Very High Shear Modulus Viscoelastic Liquid" by V. Chambon, A. M. Jonas, E. van Ruymbeke

Diabetic wounds are a significant clinical challenge due to chronic inflammation, persistent oxidative stress, hyperglycaemic and hypoxic conditions, bacterial infections, and impaired tissue regeneration, all of which delay healing and increase complications. Addressing these multifaceted issues requires innovative therapeutic strategies capable of modulating the diabetic wound microenvironment. Herein, we developed a polyphenol-assisted gold‑platinum (AuPt) core-shell nanozyme with multi-enzyme mimetic activities, including glucose oxidase (GOD), catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and oxidase (OXD)-like functions. Computational insights based on density functional theory (DFT) further supported the Au–Pt synergistic design. By synergistically combining the catalytic properties of Au and Pt, the nanozyme modulate oxidative stress, and reduces inflammation while promoting fibroblast viability and context-dependent antibacterial activity under acidic, ROS-rich conditions relevant to inflamed wound sites. In vivo experiments using a diabetic mouse model revealed that the developed AuPt nanozymes promoted wound healing by improving epidermal regeneration and collagen synthesis while suppressing pro-inflammatory cytokines, including TNF-α and IL-1β. These results highlight the potential of polyphenol-assisted AuPt nanozymes as a robust and multifunctional therapy to address key pathological barriers in diabetic wound healing, providing a foundation for future clinical applications.

Glycals are unsaturated sugar derivatives constituting a large family of polyhydroxylated synthons which are widely exploited as synthetic intermediates in the synthesis of natural products and as final molecules for biochemical applications. We report the first investigation in the understudied area of structure–reactivity relationship and quantitative mapping of reactivity in endo- and exo-glycals compounds. For quantifying the nucleophilicity of the C═C double bond of a series of endo- and exo-glycals, we performed kinetic investigations of their C─C bond formation with reference electrophiles of known electrophilicity parameters. Fast spectroscopic techniques experiments (stopped-flow and laser-flash photolysis) enabled us to determine the rate constant of hundreds of reactions, which allows the first comprehensive mapping and structure–reactivity analysis of the nucleophilic reactivity of this wide family of cyclic enol ethers. Quantum–chemical calculations corroborate with kinetic investigations and highlight the crucial role of ring strain variations to explain the relative nucleophilicity of endo- and exo-glycals. We examined also the influence of substitution and showed that alkoxy substituents decrease nucleophilicity through inductive effects and hyperconjugation.

Understanding charge transport in networks of 2D crystals is essential for developing reliable applications such as chemiresistors or electromagnetic shields. For this purpose, intra- and inter-flake contributions to the network resistance must be disentangled. MXenes such as Ti3C2Tx, are prime examples of 2D crystals often employed as thin networks of interconnected flakes for functional devices. While a significant number of studies focused on transport in individual MXene flakes, inter-flake transport remains scarcely explored. Here, we demonstrate that charge transport in multi-flake conductive paths of Ti3C2Tx is dominated by interflake junctions and provide quantitative estimates of junction resistances. Scanning probe measurements reveal that in a MXene multi-flake conductive path, individual flakes behave as isopotential domains, since the voltage drop is localized precisely at inter-flake junctions. The chemiresistive response to humidity is further investigated at the single flake, multi-flake and flake network scale, evidencing the crucial impact of junctions on sensing kinetics. These findings underline the dominant role of inter-flake junctions in MXene charge transport and sensing capabilities.