Sasha wins the Paper of the Year competition!

Congratulations to first-year graduate student, Sasha Stark, for winning the inaugural Alty Group Paper of the Year (POTY) competition! Each graduate student presented a paper published in 2025 that they thought was ground-breaking and impactful. The topics ranged from advancements in 3D printing to stereoconvergent reactions and brush copolymers.

Sasha chose "A skin-permeable polymer for non-invasive transdermal insulin delivery" published in Nature in 2025. The groups of Jiajia Xiang, Rongjun Chen, Ruhong Zhou, and Youqing Shen report on designing polymers that are able to travel through skin in a lotion-like format. The polymers were functionalized with insulin to understand if this was an effective drug delivery system. The animal studies were very compelling that, indeed, the treatment was successful.

Sasha's POTY was unanimously voted as winner because of the revolutionary concept of conjugating drugs to polymers for dermal uptake. To read more about the paper, please visit: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09729-x#Ack1.