Alginate and dextran are naturally occurring polysaccharides and have been investigated for controlled drug delivery. The success of alginate in hydrogel form in controlled drug delivery is limited by high water solubility and premature drug release. Hydrophobically modified alginate hydrogels offer slightly better, yet still poor bioavailability. In our lab, we have taken on a different approach to the utilization of alginate by engineering novel amphiphilic material capable of self-assembly in aqueous solution. Synthetic route consisted of reduction in molecular weight, solubility modification and functionalization, and finally grafting synthetic polymers (pMA, pMMA, pMEGMEMA) from or onto alginate using living radical polymerization (LRP) in aqueous environment to produce amphiphilic structures. Low molecular weight dextran was also used in order to study the effect of alginate's carboxylic groups on the synthetic route and stability of final product. Chemical structure and molecular weight of the material was analysed by H-NMR and aqueous-gel permeation chromatography (aq-GPC), respectively. Micelle size and morphology were studied by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). We are currently working on better controlling the molecular size of a polymer graft, size distribution of micelles, reducing undesired side reactions such premature micelle formation. The longer term objective is to incorporate small molecule, and larger peptide based, pharmaceuticals into self-assembling nanoparticulate structures for in vitro and in vivodrug release studies. Figure 1. <img src='https://acs-archive-assets2.s3.amazonaws.com/239nm/uploads/9013_zeroox-tsest.jpg' alt='' />

Synthesis of alginate and dextran based amphiphilic graft-copolymers using living radical polymerization for controlled drug delivery from self-assembled micelles

246th National Meeting (2013)

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