Soft porous crystals (SPCs), particularly soft metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), have emerged as a revolutionary class of materials distinguished by exceptional porosity, tunable structures, and most notably, structural adaptivity. These unique dynamic properties enable stimuli-responsive structural transitions—such as gate-opening or breathing effects—allowing them to selectively adsorb, sense, or separate molecules in ways that their rigid counterparts tend to lack. Despite growing interest, most current applications remain at the proof-of-concept stage, and certain application areas have yet to be extended to SPCs. This is primarily constrained by challenges such as long-term stability issues, inherent lack of conductivity, and difficulties in large-scale production. Rational design strategies—such as hybridization, doping, and functionalization—hold great promise for addressing these challenges. A team of scientists has recently summarized key progress in SPCs, shedding light on “dose-sensitive” applications and “scaling softness”. Their work is published in Industrial Chemistry & Materials on July 16, 2025.

Two outstanding researchers at Goethe University have each successfully secured a prestigious fellowship from the European Research Council (ERC) for their pioneering research projects: Geoscientist Dr. Jeremy McCormack, within the framework of his ERC Starting Grant, is investigating to what extent the ecology of prehistoric sharks increased their risk of extinction. Chemist Dr. Andrei Kuzhelev is advancing an ultra-high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study the dynamics of complex biomolecules in nanoliter-sized samples. The grant are each endowed with around 1.5 million euros.

Sweat-based enzyme sensors offer a convenient way to measure lactic acid levels in the body, but face challenges due to the loss of lactate oxidase (LOx) activity in sweat. Now, researchers from Japan have improved LOx stability by adding sucrose monolaurate, a sugar-based surfactant, that when added to the electrode forms protective nanostructures around the enzyme. Their approach could enable more durable and accurate sweat lactate sensors for sports training management and continuous health monitoring.

Dr. Vasily Sotnikov from the Physics Institute at the University of Zurich has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant, a highly endowed EU grant, which will enable him to strengthen his collaboration with research groups at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). With his research project "HiNPrecise", he plans to extend the existing theoretical framework to calculate previously unknown scattering amplitudes. These scattering amplitudes provide phenomenological predictions for particle scattering based on the complex formalism of Quantum Field Theory. Such predictions are needed for precision measurements at the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.