Synthetic biomaterials are being designed for an increasing number of clinical applications. Common biomaterials such as poly(lactic acid) and polycaprolactone are useful because of their mechanical and biodegradable properties. These materials have been critical in advancing the field of tissue engineering and drug delivery. However, clinically used biomaterials are incapable of providing signaling cues that would enable their interaction and eventual integration with the cellular environment. On the other hand, natural materials such as proteins provide both structural and functional roles due to their multivalent and self-organizing nature. The current presentation will describe the work of the Joy Lab in bridging this gap between natural materials which are multifunctional but expensive and synthetic materials that can be made in large scales but have poor functionality. The Joy Lab has developed a modular biomaterial platform that has the potential to bridge this performance gap. Similar to a Lego building set, multifunctional polyesters or polyurethanes can be assembled to provide polymers with a wide diversity in polymer properties. During this presentation, we will demonstrate the characteristics of this polymer system including the modulation of physical and biological properties and the ability to tether multiple moieties to the polymer backbone. Such polymers have potential applications in several biomedical applications including wound healing, antimicrobials, multivalent inhibitors, drug/protein delivery and the talk will present work in some of these directions.

Modular ‘lego-like’ polyesters with ‘peptide-like’ pendant functional groups

251st National Meeting (2016)

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