Abstract
There continues to be considerable interest in stimuli-responsive and reactive polymers for drug delivery vehicles or gene therapy agents, as well as soft interfaces capable of being patterned or chemically modified to serve as a biomaterial coating. One class of materials with particularly interesting potential are polymers based on 2-vinyl-4,4-dimethylazlactone (VDMA), which react rapidly with various nucleophiles without producing a leaving group or requiring a catalyst. In this contribution we describe the synthesis and characterization of polymers and copolymers incorporating VDMA, and their conjugation with biomolecules. By using reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization we are able to produce well-defined VDMA-containing homopolymers and block copolymers having tailored molecular weights and narrow molecular weight distributions. The conversion of these materials into polyelectrolytes and bioconjugates can be monitored in real time using infrared spectroscopy. Poly(VDMA)-based brushes can be synthesized by RAFT polyermization using surface-tethered chain transfer agents, and these brushes can be modified in situ and structural changes monitored using neutron reflectometry.
