With an increased interest in developing new medicines, there is also an interest in new drug-delivery vehicles.  Along this line, our research efforts have focused on the synthesis of resorcinarene-core polylactide (PLA)/polyethylene (PEG) glycol star block copolymers, which upon self-organization have the potential to serve as polymeric micelle drug carriers.  To prepare the polymers, an appropriate tetra-functional resorcinarene initiator was first synthesized.  Four-armed, resorcinarene-core star PLAs were then prepared by Sn(II)-catalyzed, ring-opening polymerization of lactide, as we have previously described.  Subsequently, the homopolymer end groups have been reacted with a suitable anhydride to provide PLA's with terminal alkyne end-groups.   Our efforts to prepare the aforementioned star block copolymers by coupling a suitable azido-functionalized PEG to the alkynyl-functionalized star PLAs via Huisgen dipolar cycloaddition�while minimizing PLA degradation�will be described.  These efforts will also be compared to alternative approaches that we are investigating for preparing the star block copolymers.

Progress towards the synthesis of resorcinarene-core polylactide/polyethylene glycol star block copolymers using click chemistry

245th National Meeting (2013)

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