Morphologically discreet artificial machinery are attracting increased interest, with attention being placed on their implementation in an ever increasing range of applications. Nanoengineering of complex nanoarchitectures derived from copolymer self-assembly has, in recent years, undergone a fundamental shift. Polymersomes are vesicular nanostructures that comprise amphiphilic block copolymer chains packed into and (often) bilayer membrane. Highly versatile structures, polymersomes have a range of applications as biomimetic nanosystems in fundamental and biomedical research. In order to enhance the functional capacity of polymersomal technologies, the ability to induce shape transformations is an exciting prospect whereby converting spherical structures into oblates (discs/stomatocytes) or prolates (tubes) can unlock new opportunities. The realization of shape transformations of spherical polymersomes is a, relatively, new concept in the nanoscience community. Until recently, shape control of poly(ethylene glycol)-<i>block</i>-poly(styrene) (PEG-PS) polymersomes has been the focus of this research, with their ability to undergo osmotically-induced structural re-arrangement into bowl-shaped stomatocytes unprecedented in the field of copolymers. More recently, we have worked to replace PEG-PS with a biodegradable copolymer, in order to (i) make the resulting constructs more suitable for biomedical research and (ii) expand our canon of knowledge into the shape transformation process. Using block copolymers comprising poly(ethylene glycol)-<i>block</i>-poly(D,L-lactide) (PEG-PDLLA) we have found that it is possible to tailor the formation of both nanotubes (prolate nanostructures) and stomatocytes (oblate nanostructures) through molecular engineering of the chain composition. Such nanoengineering fuelled the development of functional nanosystems. In this lecture, our advancement in the bottom-up design of well-defined self-assembled systems and their implementation in diverse applications will be highlighted.

Nanoengineering of complex polymeric nanoparticles towards diverse applications

2019 Spring National Meeting

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