Polymeric materials for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications

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Our research program aims at the development of new polymeric materials with better biocompatibility and bioacceptance for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. Natural amphiphilic compounds such as bile acids, after proper chemical modification, are used in the preparation of new biomaterials for use in tissue engineering, drug delivery, bioseparation and biosensing. Macrocycles based on bile acids are synthesized to make new biodegradable polymers by the use of entropy-driven ring-opening metathesis polymerization techniques. Some of these materials can manifest interesting shape-memory properties and adaptable for biomedical uses. The degradation rate and mechanical properties will be tuned by copolymerization with comonomers containing different chemical bonds. Various oligomers of bile acids will be designed and prepared to make amphiphilic pockets that can solubilize either hydrophobic compounds in aqueous media or hydrophilic ones in organic media. They may act as special drug delivery vehicles and microreactors for catalysis. The materials will exhibit a balanced hydrophilicity/phobicity and undergo interesting and useful changes in physical properties upon variation of the external conditions. The amphiphilicity of such materials will also be tested for use in catalysis and biosensing. The physico-chemical study should provide an understanding of the properties of materials related to their chemical structures. Modern experimental techniques of spectroscopy and microscopy are used in the characterization of the biomaterials. The diffusion behavior and interaction of the molecules in polymer gels and solids will be studied by various solid state and solution NMR techniques. NMR imaging techniques will help to elucidate the diffusion process in different polymeric matrices. The materials will be tested and optimized for their intended applications. We expect that the results obtained are useful and important to both fundamental and practical aspects of polymer chemistry and materials science. As we have done in the past, the training of highly qualified researchers is an integral part of the research project.