THE USE OF CONDUCTING POLYMERS IN BIOMEDICINE

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This proposal is directed at the basic research necessary to develop a simple in vivo glucose sensor. This will include a stepwise testing program going through saline, artificial sera, sera in whole blood. We have reported that our basic strategy is sound, as a borate functionalized polythiophene will react with glucose and cause a significant electrochemical change in the film. We have also shown that the simple alcohol methanol causes an electrochemically significant change in a borate substituted polyaniline. At this stage our work may be useful for simple, one shot detections of glucose and methanol. However, work needs to be done to try and optimize the system. We wish to go ahead with templating experiments for the detection of glucose. Our preliminary results indicate that the conducting polymers used as part of the detection system will have to be cross-linked. The first part of the study will be directed at cross-linking experiments and stability of the conducting films. We have now synthesized dithenyl ethane and characterized the molecule by NMR, G.C. mass spectrometry and cyclic voltammetry Currently the first of the cross-linking experiments are under way. We plan to study these effects using Scanning Electron Microscopy, Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, along side the usual FT-IR studies on surface effects. Once these studies are done, we will incorporate the template and determine specificity. Concurrently, we will be testing our present systems in isotonic saline solutions, sera, and blood plasma, to see if they can be used in biological systems. The initial studies of polythiophene in saline solution are now complete. The polythiophene films quickly become stable and will give reproducible A.C. impedance spectra. The simple alcohol detection will be used in gas phase detections of ethanol.