Preview: Small 3/2008

The cover picture shows an amphiphilic polymer that can be used to coat hydrophobic nanoparticles in order to transfer them to aqueous solution.The amphiphilic polymer is based on a poly(maleic anhydride) backbone modified with hydrophobic side chains and functional organic molecules.The polymer successfully transfers inorganic colloidal nanoparticles of different materials (Au, CdSe/ZnS, Fe 3 O 4 ) to aqueous solution.The initial nanoparticles are capped with different hydrophobic surfactant molecules, demonstrating the universality of the approach, in which the attachment of the polymer to the inorganic nanoparticles is only mediated by the hydrophobic interaction and does not depend on the surface chemistry of the inorganic nanoparticles.For more information, please read the Communication, "Design of an Amphiphilic Polymer for Nanoparticle Coating and Functionalization" by W. J. Parak et al. in Issue 03 of Small.