Nicola Judge

nicola.judge@duke.edu

Postdoctoral Associate (2023 - Present)

Nicola is working on the synthesis of novel nanofiber scaffolds for nerve regeneration. She has her MChem in Chemistry with a specialization in materials from The University of Edinburgh (2019). She completed her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Heise at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland with a thesis titled “Development of Ring Opening Miniemulsion Polymerisation of N-Carboxyanhyride Monomers for the Formation of Polypeptide Nanoparticles“. She enjoys hiking, baking and spending time with her dog Bojangles when she is not educating the lab on British slang.

Publications:

Dziewior, C.S; Li, Y.; Song, S.; Agarwal, A.; Coaker, K.; Judge, N.G.; Ji, R. R.; Becker, M. L. Additive Accelerated Meloxicam Release from Poly(Ester Urea) Fiber Implants for Acute Pain Management. Adv. Healthc. Mater. 2025. DOI: 10.1002/adhm.202503669

Judge, N.G., Segal, M.I., Silzer, R.O., Dziewior, C.S.. Chan, Y.M., Grovogel, S.J, Becker, M.L. Semiaromatic Polyester-Ethers with Tunable Degradation Profiles, ACS Macro Lett., 2024, DOI: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.4c00617
 
Chan, Y.M., Judge, N.G., Hu, Y., Willits, R.K., Li, N., Becker, M.L., Review of Gaps in the Clinical Indications and Use of Neural Conduits and Artificial Grafts for Nerve Repair and Reconstruction. Biomacromolecules. 2025. DOI: 10.1021/acs.biomac.5c00558
 
Judge, N.G, Heise, A., Investigation of the Effectiveness of Photo Deprotection of Polypeptides in Solution and within the Core of Miniemulsion-Derived Nanoparticles. Macromolecules 2024
 
Tinajero-Díaz, E., Judge, N.G, Li, B., Leigh, T. Murphy, R. D., Topham,  P. D., Derry, M. J., Heise, A. Poly(l-proline)-Stabilized Polypeptide Nanostructures via Ring-Opening Polymerization-Induced Self-Assembly (ROPISA) ACS Macro Letters 2024

Dziewior, C. S., Godwin, K. G., Judge, N. G., Dreger, N. Z., Becker, M. L. Poly(ester urea)s: Synthesis, Material Properties and Biomedical Applications. Progress in Polymer Science 2024.

Segal, M. I.; Bahnick, A. J.; Judge, N. G.; Becker, M. L. Synthesis and Solvent Free DLP 3D Printing of Degradable Poly(Allyl Glycidyl Ether Succinate). Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 2024, e202414016. DOI: 10.1002/anie.202414016

Judge, N., Georgiou, P. G., Bissoyi, A., Ahmad, A., Heise, A., Gibson M,I.; ‘High Molecular Weight Polyproline as a Potential Biosourced Ice Growth Inhibitor: Synthesis, Ice Recrystallization Inhibition, and Specific Ice Face Binding’, Biomacromolecules, 2023

Wang, L., Zhongmin, G., Ho, Y., Zhou, J., Judge, N., Li, Y., Wang, W., Jinyao, L., Wang, Y.; ‘ Block Co-PolyMOC Micelles and Structural Synergy as Composite Nanocarriers’, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2022, 14, 30546.

Judge, N., Pavlovic, D., Moldenhauer, E., Clarke, P., Brannigan, R., Heise, A.; ‘Influence of the block copolypeptide surfactant structure on the size of polypeptide nanoparticles obtained by mini emulsion polymerisation’, Polymer Chemistry, 2022, 13, 2822-2830.

Judge, N., Wang, L., Ho, Y., Wang, Y.; ‘Molecular Engineering of Metal-Organic Cycles/Cages for Drug Delivery’, Macromolecular Research, 2018, 26, 1074-1084.