The mechanisms that the body uses to stop bleeding after injury can have adverse effects when artificial surfaces come into contact with blood. Examples include platelet adhesion, aggregation, coagulation cascade reactions and the clotting response. Anticoagulants are used to reduce or eliminate the risk of blood clot. They are designed to interfere with coagulation processes, thereby lessening the likelihood of blood clotting. Example of anticoagulant is heparin. Heparin is a naturally-occurring polymer and is used clinically as a blood thinner to prevent and treat blood clotting. In Dr Ayres' lab we have prepared sulfated sugar polyureas using a step growth polymerization as heparin mimicking polymers tested using an activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) assay The advantage of using a step growth polymerization is the ability to examine the effect of monomer structure on blood compatibility. The aPTTs a clinical test to characterize blood coagulation and  measures the time it takes for blood to clot.Upon adding the polymer there is an increase in the aPTT times as the concentration of polymer increases. Mannose, lactose, and glucose sugars afforded longer clotting times in this assay. However, the assay was unable to reveal if molecular weight of the polymer or the polymer dispersity had any effect on the clotting times observed.<br/>The goal of this project is to determine whether the molecular weight or dispersity of the polymers plays any role in the blood compatibility assay, accomplished by synthesizing a well-defined, reactive, polymeric backbone and complementary reactive sugar pendants uisng activated ester-containing monomer, which can react with amino-functionalized sugars by a step of the synthetic route of the glucose.

Investigation of the effect of molecular weight on polymer blood compatibility

255th National Meeting (2018)

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