Natural compounds such as bile acids can be used in the preparation of a variety of new polymers for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. Bile acids are natural amphiphilic compounds that exist in the gastrointestinal tract. Polymeric biomaterials made of natural compounds are expected to exhibit better biocompatibility and bioacceptance. Medical devices such dental composites and stents can be made of such polymers. Dental monomers have been made from bile acids have shown lower cytotoxicity and lower polymerization shrinkage than the commonly used dental monomers. Homo- and copolymers based on bile acids were found to display tunable mechanical properties and heterogeneous degradation behavior. The main-chain bile acid-based polyesters obtained display typical rubber-like elasticity behaviors with elongation moduli closely matching those of soft tissues such as arteries and cartilage. Multi-shape memory copolymers were prepared through copolymerization. The polymer displayed good shape fixing and recovery in different thermal processing stages over the broad glass transition range, making them useful as functional biomaterials. Related Publications: K. Wang, Y.G. Jia, X. X. Zhu, ACS Biomater. Sci. Eng., 1, 855, 2015. Y.G. Jia, X.X. Zhu, Chem. Mater., 27, 387, 2015. Y.G. Jia, X.X. Zhu, Langmuir, 30, 11770, 2014. Y. Shao, Y. Jia, C. Shi, J. Luo, X.X. Zhu, Biomacromolecules, 15, 1837, 2014. S. Strandman, I-H. Tsai, R. Lortie, X.X. Zhu, Polym. Chem., 4, 4312, 2013. F. Le Dévédec, S. Strandman, W.E. Baille, X. X. Zhu, Polymer, 54, 3898, 2013. F. Le Dévédec, S. Strandman, P. Hildgen, G. Leclair, X. X. Zhu, Mol. Pharmaceutics, 10, 3057, 2013. S. Strandman, X. X. Zhu, “Biodegradable shape memory polymers for biomedical applications”, Chapter 11 in “Shape Memory Polymers for Biomedical Applications”, L. Yahia, Ed., Woodhead Publi, 2015.

Biomedical applications of polymers made from natural compounds

251st National Meeting (2016)

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