About the Authors

Edoardo Scarpa

Contributed equally to this work with: Edoardo Scarpa, Cesare De Pace

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Cesare De Pace

Contributed equally to this work with: Edoardo Scarpa, Cesare De Pace

Roles Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Adrian Steve Joseph

Roles Software, Visualization

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Senio Campos de Souza

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Validation

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Alessandro Poma

Roles Investigation, Methodology

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Eva Liatsi-Douvitsa

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Validation

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Claudia Contini

Roles Investigation, Methodology

Affiliations Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, United Kingdom, Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, Molecular Sciences Research Hub, London, United Kingdom

Valeria De Matteis

Roles Methodology, Software

Affiliation Department of Mathematics and Physics, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy

Josep Samitier Martí

Roles Funding acquisition, Project administration, Supervision

Affiliations Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain, University of Barcelona (UB), Barcelona, Spain, Networking Biomedical Research Center for Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN), Madrid, Spain

Giuseppe Battaglia

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Visualization

g.battaglia@ucl.ac.uk (GB); loris.rizzello@unimi.it (LR)

Affiliations Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, United Kingdom, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain, University of Barcelona (UB), Barcelona, Spain, Institute for the Physics of Living Systems, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Loris Rizzello

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Project administration, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

g.battaglia@ucl.ac.uk (GB); loris.rizzello@unimi.it (LR)

Affiliations Department of Chemistry, University College London, London, United Kingdom, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Milan, Milano, Italy

Competing Interests

We acknowledge Astrazeneca for covering part of the S.C.D.S. salary. We also thank British Technology Group (BTG) for donating the MPC monomer. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.