Dear Colleagues,

Next year, 2021, will mark a novel milestone in molecular imprinting technology, celebrating its 90^th anniversary. It all began with the ground‐breaking work of M. V. Polyakov, who noticed the unusual adsorption properties of silica particles toward the same organic solvent as the one added in the synthesis procedure, as solvent additive. Since then, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have been successfully promoted mainly as highly selective synthetic adsorbents in various separation techniques. Nevertheless, in the last two decades novel exciting applications have sparked the imagination of researchers, with ramifications in different fields of science and technology, like sensing, catalysis, biomimetic affinity platforms and drug delivery, initiating the modern area of molecular imprinting. Despite the indisputable versatility and advantages of these functional polymers, such as tailored selectivity, ease of preparation and fine-tuning of their properties, chemical and physical stability and low cost, issues related to the optimization of numerous synthesis variables, unsatisfactory biocompatibility/biodegradability, under-achievements in imprinting biomacromolecules and limited commercial applications, still constitute challenges which should be addressed in the future by the evergrowing molecular imprinting community.

Thus, to honor the 90th anniversary of molecular imprinting, we are currently organizing a Special Issue aiming to showcase the current trends in MIP synthesis and the plethora of its applications, as well as, the faced challenges and future perspectives of molecular imprinting. This Special Issue invites original research papers concerning the design, synthesis, optimization and application of MIPs. Also, because anniversaries are good occasions to look back and count the achievements, review articles featuring the highlights of the past nine decades are also considered.

Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Molecularly imprinted polymers
• Molecular imprinting
• Biomimetic receptors
• Molecular recognition
• Drug delivery 
• Polymerization
• Functional polymers
• Sensing
• Separation techniques
• Solid phase extraction
• Ion imprinting
• Catalysis
• Bio-imaging