DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS FOR SYNTHESIS OF POLYMERS--GENERATION OF BIOMATERIALS

长期目标仍然是合成/制备新一代生物材料，用于合成酶、不对称聚合物试剂、生物传感器、组织工程和“反应性”药物输送系统。随着科学家们努力为任何数量的医学/治疗仿生应用开发新一代生物材料，有必要合成具有更高结构顺序的大分子，这些大分子可能能够产生相关的生物学特性/功能/特异性。近年来，我们实验室发展了一种合成具有较高结构阶（即二级或螺旋）的大分子的方法。这种方法可以相对容易地合成生物大分子中具有较高结构顺序的大分子，例如蛋白质，例如在肌腱，皮肤，韧带等中发现的超螺旋（三个α螺旋缠绕形成左手螺旋）蛋白胶原蛋白。除了进一步发展和扩展合成螺旋大分子的新合成/制备方法外，还将进行研究，以了解这些具有较高结构阶的聚合物材料作为氨基酸绝对构型检测器的可能应用。此外，螺旋合成肽与电子（含生物相容性片段）聚合物的大分子配合物将作为新一代生物人工材料而制备。制备这种大分子复合物的总体目标是利用电活性聚合物在体内和体外人工材料/设备和生物系统之间的界面上的应用。因此，一些电子聚合物材料的生物相容性将被评估，为制造成生物人工材料（如合成皮肤和生物膜）奠定基础。

The long-range goal remains the synthesis/preparation of a new generation of biomaterials for application in synthetic enzymes, assymetric polymeric reagents, biosensor, tissue engineering and 'responsive' drug delivery systems. As scientists strive to develop a generation of biomaterials for any number of medical/therapeutic biomimetic applications, it is necessary to synthesize macromolecules possessing higher structural orders which may be capable of generating relevant biological properties/functions/specificity. Recently, a synthetic methodology for preparing macromolecules possessing higher structural orders (i.e. secondary or helical) has been developed in our laboratory. This method permits the relative easy synthesis of macromolecules possessing higher structural orders present in biological macromolecules such as proteins e.g. a super-helical (three alpha-helices entwined to form a left handed helical) protein collagen is found in tendons, skins, ligaments etc. In addition to further developing and extending the new synthetic/preparative method for preparing synthetic helical macromolecules, studies to understand the possible application of these polymeric materials with higher structural orders as detectors for the absolute configuration of amino acids will be undertaken. Additionally, macromolecular complexes of the helical synthetic peptides with electronic (containing biocompatible segment) polymers will be prepared as a novel generation of bioartificial materials. The overall goal for preparing such macromolecular complexes is to exploit the application of electroactive polymers at the interface between artificial materials/devices and biological system both in vivo and in vitro. Therefore, the biocompatibility of some of the electronic polymeric materials will be evaluated to set the stage for fabrication into bioartificial materials such as synthetic skins and biomembranes.