Our lab has designed a variety of diblock copolypeptides that spontaneously form hydrogels upon dissolution in aqueous media. Much of this work has utilized non-ionic chain segments that adopt either a-helical or b-sheet conformations, which associate via hydrophobic and/or H-bonding interactions. Recently, we developed diblock copolypeptide hydrogels that associate via polyion complex (PIC) formation between oppositely charged polypeptide segments. These hydrogels retain many of the attractive features of hydrophobically associated copolypeptide hydrogles (e.g. spontaneous assembly, self-healing), yet also show improved resistance to dissolution in excess media. This presentation will describe physical mixtures of PIC and hydrophobically assembled samples that lead to formation of self-sorted microscale compartmentalized hydrogels.

Multicompartment block copolypeptide hydrogels via spontaneous self-sorting

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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