Block copolymers can combine the advantageous properties of their respective homopolymer constituents to fabricate new and innovative materials for applications in regenerative medicine, such as scaffold-based tissue engineering.  The overarching design criteria for tissue-engineering scaffolds include high mechanical strength, adequate pore architecture (size and morphology), and surface properties which stimulate specific cell adhesion, growth and differentiation.Our group has previously reported a poly(norbornene)-block-poly(lactide) copolymer system which addresses the first two criteria:  Average pore sizes of 250 �m and an increased compressive modulus rendered the foams fabricated from these copolymers attractive for tissue engineering applications.[1]Herein, we seek to extend the research design to incorporate lactide monomers that contain a tri(ethylene glycol) chain[2] into the lactide block in order to increase the overall hydrophilicity of the system.  The addition of poly(ethylene glycol) to a solely lactide-based system lowered non-specific biomacromolecule adhesion,[3] which often hampers the applicability of polyesters in vivo. [1]Y. Wang, D.E. Noga, K. Yoon, A.M. Wojtowicz, A.S.P. Lin, A.J. Garc�a, D.M. Collard, M. Weck  Adv. Funct. Mater. 2008 , 18, 3638-3644[1]D.E. Borchmann, N. ten Brummelhuis, M. Weck Macromolecules 2013 , 46, 4426-4431[3]J.A. Castillo, D.E. Borchmann, A.Y. Cheng, Y. Wang, C. Hu, A.J. Garc�a, M. Weck, Macromolecules 2012 , 45, 62-69

Poly(norbornene)-<i>block</i>-[poly(lactide)-<i>graft</i>-poly(ethylene glycol)] copolymer scaffolds

248th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.

Poly(norbornene)-block-[poly(lactide)-graft-poly(ethylene glycol)] copolymer scaffolds