Enabling aliphatic biodegradable photoluminescent polymeric biomaterials

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Biomaterials are critical components of the end biomedical devices or products. A novel biomaterial may create new fields of studies and opportunities to tackle unmet clinical problems. We have recently achieved preliminary exciting finding on developing biodegradable photoluminescent polymers (BPLPs). Unlike traditional non-degradable aromatic fluorescent polymers used in lighting industry, BPLPs are aliphatic degradable oligomers synthesized by some biocompatible monomers including citric acid, aliphatic diols, and different amino acids via a very simple and cost-effective polycondensation reaction. BPLPs can be further crosslinked into elastomeric crosslinked polymers, CBPLPs. These polymers offer advantages over the traditional fluorescent organic dye, inorganic quantum dots and non-degradable fluorescent polymers in terms of their excellent cytocompatibility, controlled degradability and mechanical properties, and stable but tunable photoluminescent properties with fluorescence emission up to 608 nm (peak wavelength) within the known BPLPs. These exciting findings motivate us to further develop and understand the unique BPLPs and explore their potential huge opportunities in biological labeling and imaging, tissue engineering and drug delivery. In the current application, we are proposing a highly exploratory study to develop and understand the unique biomaterials, aliphatic BPLPs. Our long-term goal is to explore and expand the applications of BPLPs in a broad spectrum of biomedical applications including biological labeling and imaging, tissue engineering and drug delivery. The research objectives of this proposal are to synthesize and characterize the enabling BPLP biomaterials, to study the biocompatibility and hemocompatibility of the polymers, to demonstrate their potential wide applications in cellular labeling/bioimaging and tissue engineering, and to establish a non-invasive fluorescence bioimaging method for tissue engineering. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Biomaterials are critical components of the end biomedical devices or products. A novel biomaterial may create new fields of studies and opportunities to tackle unmet clinical problems. In this proposal, we will develop enabling biodegradable fluorescent biomaterials for uses in a wide range of biomedical applications. We believe that the outcomes of this proposal will address some fundamental issues in tissue engineering, drug delivery and bioimaging. The discovery of the new biodegradable fluorescent biomaterials should open new fields of study and impact on many scientific areas and multi-billion-dollar industries built on fluorescence labeling and imaging.