Polyanhydrides have found a niche in the degradable polymer field, largely because they often undergo surface erosion, but demanding synthesis conditions have held them back from widespread use. To address this problem, we have developed novel polyanhydrides that are based on radical thiol-ene ‘click’ polymerization, an easy to conduct step-growth mechanism of polymerization that can be applied to make materials that have relatively uniform network structure. Further, thiol-ene ‘click’ polymerization is robust, can be photo-, redox- or thermally-initiated and may use a wide variety of monomers. Thus, these have real potential in a variety of applications, including orthopedics and drug delivery.<br/>Discussed in this presentation will the be the synthesis of elastomeric and semi-crystalline polyanhydrides that have controllable degradation rates, and how this approach to network polyanhydrides can provide significant flexibility in tailoring characteristics such as crosslink density, functionality and hydrophilicity. In particular, it will be shown that polyanhydrides can be used in applications such as drug delivery, can also behave as shape memory polymers, exhibit self-healing properties and can be produced as nanoparticles.

Surface-eroding polyanhydrides from thiol-ene polymerizations: A versatile synthetic material for bio-applications

255th National Meeting (2018)

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