Dr Roman Staňo
Roman Staňo is a Postdoctoral Research Associate, working in the group of Rosana Collepardo-Guevara at the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry.
He uses computer modelling to investigate polymers, chromatin, droplets, gels and other soft materials. His research exists somewhere on the interface between physics and chemistry, trying to combine the two to address the questions of material science and biology. Currently, his scientific focus is on non-equilibrium processes in chromatin and DNA or protein condensates.
He completed his Doctoral studies (2025) in Physics at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Vienna, where he worked with Christos N. Likos. He was a Fellow of Doctoral College: Advanced Functional Materials a member of the Vienna Doctoral School in Physics. In his research, he investigated macromolecules with non-trivial topology, such as polymers with knots, ring-shaped polymers or mechanically interlocked macromolecules.
Prior to his Doctoral studies, he earned a Master’s degree in Physical Chemistry (2020) and Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry (2018), both at the Faculty of Science of the Charles University of Prague. There, he worked with Peter Košovan, studying pH-responsive polymers and hydrogels using molecular simulations.
Select publications
- Staňo et al. Cluster formation in solutions of polyelectrolyte rings. ACS Nano 17(21), 2023, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.3c06083
- Staňo et al. Sequestration of small ions, acids and bases by polyelectrolyte complex studied by simulation and experiment. Macromolecules 57(3), 2024, DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.3c01209
- Staňo et al. Mixing linear polymers with rings and catenanes: bulk and intefacial behavior. Macromolecules 56(20), 2023, DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.3c01267
- Staňo et al. To thread or not to thread? Effective interactions and threading effects between asymmetric ring polymers. Soft Matter 19(1), 2023, DOI: 10.1039/d2sm01177h
- Staňo et al. Electrostatically cross-linked reversible gels — Effects of pH and ionic strength. Macromolecules 54(10), 2021, DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.1c00470
- Staňo et al. Multivalent counterions accumulate in star-like polyelectrolytes and collapse the polymer in spite of increasing its ionization Soft Matter 16(10), 2020, DOI: 10.1039/C9SM02318F
- Staňo et al. Plasmids in solutions slow down under the effect of enzymatically induced supercoiling, 2025 [under review]
- Staňo et al. Converting twist to writhe in supercoiled polyelectrolytes, 2025, [under review]
Select awards
- Doctoral Fellowship of the Austrian Science Fund (2020)
- Contipro Award for the best Master’s thesis in the field of biomaterials in Czechia (2021)
- U.S. Steel Scholarship of Excellence (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018)
- International Chemistry Olympiad: silver medal (2015, Baku) and bronze medal (2014, Hanoi)
Further links
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=P5OUlscAAAAJ
- Personal Website: https://sites.google.com/view/romanstano/
- LinkedIn: https://at.linkedin.com/in/roman-sta%C5%88o-04373b198
