From Self‐Organization to Tumor‐Immune Therapy: How Things Started and How They Evolved

Abstract

BackgroundOn a sunny afternoon in summer 2021, Rudolf Zentel and Lutz Nuhn visited Helmut Ringsdorf in Mainz-Gonsenheim, Germany. It was the first time they were able to meet each other again in person after the long-lasting restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. While having a cup of coffee and a slice of cake on the garden terrace, Zentel and Ringsdorf looked back on the early days and "how things started and how they evolved". In a lively discussion the participants shared their thoughts on naïve ideas from the old days, how they continued, evolved and extended in the Zentel lab (Figure 1). These ideas were afterwards discussed and co-reflected by former students of the Ringsdorf lab (G. Hörpel, R. Zentel) and the Zentel lab (M. Barz, L.Nuhn). As a result, this perspective article was written, which brings together the individual opinions of the authors as -hopefully -a valuable contribution to Macromolecular Rapid Communication's special issue in honor of Rudolf Zentel upon his retirement. Starting PointThe starting point of the work in the Ringsdorf lab was polymer science in the 60s and 70s of the last century (or even better: "the last millennium", quotation by Ringsdorf). At that time, the beginning of the "plastic era" had just started a few decades previously, everything related to polymers was extremely modern, and research on this topic was well supported by chemical industries. Polymers and plastics entered everyday life as commodity